Friedrich Nietzche on the Way of Recurrence to Oneself

Natalya Shelkovaia

1 Instead of a Preface1

In a very difficult period of my life, short thoughts and about the nature of a person and the world began to come to my mind. At first, I wrote them down on sheets of paper, then I got a big notebook, which eventually grew into a big book. While composing this “Diary of Thoughts” at some point the name “The Way of Recurrence to Oneself” occurred to me. Later, when I read works by the mystics, I noticed that “recurrence to oneself” was the goal of a mystical spiritual action. And more recently, carefully reading ’s works and working on them, I noticed again that for Nietzsche “re- currence to oneself” has been the aim of spiritual practice: “Lonely one, you go the way to yourself!”2 Only “recurring” to oneself can one be considered, accord- ing to Nietzsche, a super-human, a new person. Although, based on the idea of eternal recurrence, rooted in antiquity and reanimated by Nietzsche, the new person is only a regenerated, primordial one. And what is interesting: those works about Nietzsche, which seemed the most appealing and close to me in , were, rather, not studies of his work, not “works about Nietzsche,” but “co-thinking, co-feeling with Nietzsche.” This implies similarity between their authors’ “vital world” (Lebenswelt) and that of Nietzsche. I saw this in Lev Shestov’s article, “The Good in the Teaching of Count Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche,”3 in Andrei Bely’s article “Friedrich Nietzsche,”4 in the article by Vladimir N. Mironov “The of History

1 This article was published in an abridged form in the journal Philosophical sciences, no. 10 (2015). The full text is published here for the first time. Unless otherwise noted, all italicized words in quotations are mine. 2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. A Book for All and None (Cambridge up, 2006), 47. 3 Lev Shestov, The Good in the Teaching of Count Tolstoy and of F. Nietzsche in Questions of Philosophy (“Dobro v uchenii gr. Tolstogo i F. Nietzsche”), Voprosy filosofii, no. 7 (1990): 59–128. 4 Andrei Bely, “Friedrich Nietzsche,” in Friedrich Nietzsche and Russian : Translations, Research, Essay of the “Silver Age” Philosophers in 2 vols. (Friedrich Nietzsche i

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Friedrich Nietzche on the Way of Recurrence to Oneself 371 of Friedrich Nietzsche”5 and in the article by Igor I. Evlampiev “‘This Worldly’ Religiosity of F. Dostoyevsky and F. Nietzsche.”6 Moreover, some authors, for example, Karen Swassjan, are literally in love with the German immoralist.7 This is not surprising: the more you plunge into the “world of Nietzsche,” be- come saturated with the atmosphere of joy and love of life, the more you are filled with a special energy of Light and Good such that you want to dance and sing along with Zarathustra, to soar in the free flight of his eagle and to relate wisely to life, like his snake. One cannot help falling in love with the philoso- phy of Nietzsche, as one cannot help falling in love with the teaching of Christ. “Stop!”—you will say. Nietzsche and Christ? Immortalist Nietzsche—the sing- er of Light and Good? Yes…

2 Christ and Christianity, Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism

One of the most ancient problems which appeared, perhaps, with the emer- gence of language has been the interpretation of what was said, and later written. The age-old hermeneutic circle—understanding-interpretation- understanding—bit and bites itself, like a snake its tail, and is often very pain- ful. And the more extraordinary the speaking and writing personality is, the more complex the understanding and interpretation of what has been said and written. As for Christ and the Spiritual Teachers of humankind and Nietzsche and other geniuses, to understand and interpret what Christ said (He himself wrote nothing!) and what Nietzsche wrote can only be one who is “on the same vertical level” with them, at their “height”—one who is also a Spiritual Teacher or a genius himself. Those who are below their spiritual level inevitably distort their teachings. Sensing these distortions, Nietzsche, at the beginning of his work Beyond Good and Evil, draws the attention of readers to

russkaia religioznaia filosofiia: Perevody, issledovaniia, esse filosofov “Serebrianogo veka”), 1 (Al- kiona, 1996), 59–86. 5 Vladimir N. Mironov, The Philosophy of History of Friedrich Nietzsche in Questions of Phi- losophy (“Filosofiia istorii Friedricha Nietzsche,” Voprosy filosofii), no. 11 (2005): 163–75. 6 Igor I. Evlampiev, “This Worldly” Religiosity of F. Dostoyevsky and F. Nietzsche (On the Ques- tion of the Religious Content of Nonclassical Philosophy) in Questions of Philosophy (“‘Posiustoronniaia’ religioznost’ F. Dostoevskogo i F. Nietzsche” (K voprosu o religioznom soderzhanii neklassicheskoi filosofii,” Voprosy filosofii), no. 7 (2013): 121–32. 7 Karen A. Swassjan, “Friedrich Nietzsche: Martyr of the Knowledge” (“Friedrich Nietzsche: muchenik poznaniia”), F. Nietzsche Works: in 2 vols., 1 (Mysl, 1990), 5–46.