<p><strong>Friedrich Nietzche on the Way of Recurrence to Oneself </strong></p><p><em>Natalya Shelkovaia </em></p><p></p><ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1"><strong>1</strong></li><li style="flex:1"><strong>Instead of a Preface</strong>1 </li></ul><p></p><p>In a very difficult period of my life, short thoughts and aphorisms about the </p><p>nature of a person and the world began to come to my mind. At first, I wrote </p><p>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 </p><p>of a mystical spiritual action. And more recently, carefully reading Friedrich </p><p>Nietzsche’s works and working on them, I noticed again that for Nietzsche “re- </p><p>currence to oneself” has been the aim of <em>spiritual practice: </em>“Lonely one, <em>you go </em></p><p><em>the way to yourself</em>!”2 Only “recurring” to oneself can one be considered, accord- </p><p>ing to Nietzsche, a super-human, a new person. Although, based on the idea of </p><p>eternal recurrence, rooted in antiquity and reanimated by Nietzsche, the new person is only a regenerated, primordial one. </p><p>And what is interesting: those works about Nietzsche, which seemed the most appealing and close to me in spirit, were, rather, not studies of his work, not “works <em>about </em>Nietzsche,” but “co-thinking, co-feeling <em>with </em>Nietzsche.” This implies similarity between their authors’ “vital world” (<em>Lebenswelt</em>) and that of Nietzsche. I saw this in Lev Shestov’s article, “The Good in the Teaching of </p><p>Count Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche,”3 in Andrei Bely’s article “Friedrich Nietzsche,”4 in the article by Vladimir N. Mironov “The Philosophy of History </p><p>1</p><p>This article was published in an abridged form in the journal <em>Philosophical sciences, </em>no<em>. </em>10 </p><p>(2015). The full text is published here for the first time. Unless otherwise noted, all italicized words in quotations are mine. </p><p>2</p><p>Friedrich Nietzsche, <em>Thus Spoke Zarathustra. A Book for All and None </em>(Cambridge up, 2006), </p><p>47. </p><p>3</p><p>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”), <em>Voprosy fi loso fi i</em>, no. 7 (1990): </p><p>59–128. </p><p>Andrei Bely, “Friedrich Nietzsche,” in Friedrich Nietzsche and Russian Religious Philosophy: Translations, Research, Essay of the “Silver Age” Philosophers in 2 vols. (<em>Friedrich Nietzsche i </em></p><p>4</p><p></p><ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">©</li><li style="flex:1">koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021ꢀ|ꢀdoi:10.1163/9789004432543_041 </li></ul><p></p><p>Friedrich Nietzche on the Way of Recurrence to Oneself </p><p>371 </p><p>of Friedrich Nietzsche”5 and in the article by Igor I. Evlampiev “‘This Worldly’ </p><p>Religiosity of F. Dostoyevsky and F. Nietzsche.”6 Moreover, some authors, for </p><p>example, Karen Swassjan, are literally in love with the German immoralist.7 </p><p>This is not surprising: the more you plunge into the “world of Nietzsche,” be- </p><p>come saturated with the atmosphere of joy and love of life, the more you are </p><p>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 </p><p>wisely to life, like his snake. One cannot help falling in love with the philoso- </p><p>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 singer of Light and Good? Yes… </p><p></p><ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1"><strong>2</strong></li><li style="flex:1"><strong>Christ and Christianity, Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism </strong></li></ul><p></p><p>One of the most ancient problems which appeared, perhaps, with the emer- </p><p>gence of language has been the interpretation of what was said, and later written. The age-old hermeneutic circle—understanding-interpretationunderstanding—bit and bites itself, like a snake its tail, and is often very painful. And the more extraordinary the speaking and writing personality is, the more complex the understanding and interpretation of what has been said </p><p>and written. As for Jesus Christ and the Spiritual Teachers of humankind and </p><p>Nietzsche and other geniuses, to understand and interpret what Christ said </p><p>(<em>He himself wrote nothing!</em>) and what Nietzsche wrote can only be one who </p><p>is “on the same vertical level” with them, at their “height”—one who is also a </p><p>Spiritual Teacher or a genius himself. Those who are below their spiritual level </p><p><em>inevitably </em>distort their teachings. Sensing these distortions, Nietzsche, at the </p><p>beginning of his work <em>Beyond Good and Evil</em>, draws the attention of readers to </p><p><em>russkaia religioznaia fi loso fi ia: Perevody, issledovaniia, esse fi losofov “Serebrianogo veka”</em>), 1 (Al- </p><p>kiona, 1996), 59–86. </p><p>56</p><p>Vladimir N. Mironov, The Philosophy of History of Friedrich Nietzsche in Questions of Phi- </p><p>losophy (“Filosofiia istorii Friedricha Nietzsche,” <em>Voprosy fi loso fi i)</em>, no. 11 (2005): 163–75. </p><p>Igor I. Evlampiev, “This Worldly” Religiosity of F. Dostoyevsky and F. Nietzsche (On the Question of the Religious Content of Nonclassical Philosophy) in Questions of Philosophy (“‘Posiustoronniaia’ religioznost’ F. Dostoevskogo i F. Nietzsche” (K voprosu o religioznom </p><p>soderzhanii neklassicheskoi filosofii,” <em>Voprosy fi loso fi i)</em>, no. 7 (2013): 121–32. </p><p>7</p><p>Karen A. Swassjan, “Friedrich Nietzsche: Martyr of the Knowledge” (“Friedrich Nietzsche: </p><p>muchenik poznaniia”), <em>F. NietzscheꢀWorks: in 2 vols., </em>1 (Mysl, 1990), 5–46. </p>