Brief biography of Nietzsche. Brief biography of Friedrich Nietzsche

Sources(books, films, pro-iz-ve-de-ni-ya, etc.) with quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche

About the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (German Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, IPA: [?f?i?d??? ?v?lh?lm ?ni?t??]; October 15, 1844 (18441015), Röcken , Prussia - August 25, 1900, Weimar, Germany) - German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, representative of irrationalism. He sharply criticized the religion, culture and morality of his time and developed his own ethical theory. Nietzsche was a literary rather than an academic philosopher, and his writings are aphoristic in nature. Nietzsche's philosophy had a great influence on the formation of existentialism and postmodernism, and also became very popular in literary and artistic circles. The interpretation of his works is quite difficult and still causes a lot of controversy.

Born in Röcken (near Leipzig, eastern Germany), the son of Lutheran pastor Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813-1849). While studying at the gymnasium, he showed significant abilities in philology and music. In 1864-69, Nietzsche studied theology and classical philology at the Universities of Bonn and Leipzig. During the same period, he became acquainted with the works of Schopenhauer and became a fan of his philosophy. Nietzsche's development was also favorably influenced by his friendship with Richard Wagner, which lasted for many years. At the age of 23, he was drafted into the Prussian army and enlisted in the horse artillery, but was demobilized after being injured. Three years later, he would enthusiastically accept the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) and volunteer to go to the front.

Nietzsche was a brilliant student and gained an excellent reputation in scientific circles. Thanks to this, he already received the position of professor of classical philology at the University of Basel in 1869 (at the age of only 25 years). He worked there for about 10 years, despite numerous illnesses. The question of Nietzsche's citizenship still causes sharp controversy. According to some sources, he remained stateless after renouncing his Prussian citizenship in 1869; however, other sources state that Nietzsche became a Swiss citizen.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher and poet. Born in the village of Röcken near Lützen (Saxony) on October 15, 1844. His father and both grandfathers were Lutheran ministers. The boy was named Friedrich Wilhelm in honor of the reigning king of Prussia. After the death of his father in 1849, he was brought up in Naumburg am Saale in a house where his younger sister, mother, grandmother and two unmarried aunts lived. Nietzsche later attended the famous old boarding school Pfort, and then studied at the universities of Bonn and Leipzig, where he delved into the Greek and Latin classics. In an old bookshop in Leipzig, he one day accidentally discovered the book “The World as Will and Idea” by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, which made a strong impression on him and influenced his further work.

In 1869, Nietzsche, who had already published several scientific articles but did not yet have a doctorate, was invited to take the chair of classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Having become a professor, Nietzsche also received Swiss citizenship; however, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, he enlisted in the Prussian army as a private orderly. Having seriously undermined his health, he soon returned to Basel, where he resumed teaching. He became a close friend of the composer Wagner, who then lived in Tribschen.

Books (28)

Complete set of works. In 13 volumes. Volume 1. Part 1

The birth of tragedy. From the heritage of 1869-1873.

The first half volume of the first volume of the complete works of F. Nietzsche includes the book “The Birth of Tragedy” (in a new edition of the translation by G. Rachinsky), as well as articles from the heritage of 1869-1873, thematically related mainly to antiquity, ancient Greek philosophy, mythology, music , literature and politics.

Complete set of works. In 13 volumes. Volume 1. Part 2

Untimely thoughts. From the heritage (works of 1872-1873).

The second volume of the first volume of the complete works of the German thinker F. Nietzsche included all four of his “Untimely Reflections,” as well as lectures “On the Future of Our Educational Institutions” and other works from the heritage of 1872-1873, devoted to problems of knowledge and culture.

For many readers of Nietzsche, it may be a discovery not only the range of ideas revealed in these texts, but also how relevant they, with all their polemical sharpness, are in today's world.

Three of the four “Untimely Reflections” are presented in new translations, some works are published in Russian for the first time, previously published translations have been verified with the original and significantly edited.

Complete set of works. In 13 volumes. Volume 3

The third volume of the complete works of the German thinker F. Nietzsche includes his key works “Morning Dawn” and “The Gay Science”, as well as poems from the cycle “Idylls of Messina”.

The previously published translations by V. Bakusev (“Morning Dawn”) and K. Svasyan (“The Gay Science”) are presented in a new edition.

Complete set of works. In 13 volumes. Volume 9

Drafts and sketches 1880-1882.

The ninth volume of the complete works of F. Nietzsche contains drafts and other notes relating to the period 1880-1882.

First of all, these are fragments related to the philosopher’s work on “Dawn” and “The Gay Science.” Among the drafts and notes of 1881 are passages that are extremely important for understanding Nietzsche’s philosophy, devoted to the eternal return and problems of knowledge.

Part of the volume consists of notes made by Nietzsche while reading the works of Descartes and Spinoza (as presented by K. Fisher), B. Pascal, St. Mill, G. Spencer, R. W. Emerson, as well as works of art by French authors (especially Stendhal and Countess de Remusat).

Complete set of works. In 13 volumes. Volume 11

Drafts and sketches 1884-1885.

The eleventh volume of the complete works of F. Nietzsche contains drafts and other notes relating to the period 1884-1885.

First of all, these are fragments related to Nietzsche’s work on the fourth (final) book of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and the new edition of Human, All Too Human, as well as on Beyond Good and Evil and a collection of poems, subsequently published not published.

Another group consists of notes made while reading works of art (A. de Custine, O. de Balzac, the Goncourt brothers, E. Renan, Stendhal, P. Merimee, Goethe and many others) and scientific works (G. Teichmüller, E. von Hartmann, P. Deyssen, G. Oldenberg).

The entries on Wagner, as well as Nietzsche's central themes of the will to power and the eternal return, deserve special mention.

Friedrich Nietzsche's work, Antichrist, was created in 1888, an extremely fruitful year for the German philosopher. In it, he addresses those who are capable of being “honest in intellectual matters to the point of cruelty,” for only such readers are able to bear the “seriousness and passion” with which Nietzsche smashes Christian values ​​and overthrows the very idea of ​​Christianity.

Genealogy of morality

The genealogy of morality was conceived by Friedrich Nietzsche as an appendix to his essay “Beyond Good and Evil,” published in 1886.

The external reason for writing “The Genealogy of Morals” was the wave of misunderstandings that befell the author in connection with his previous work, in which Nietzsche tried to formulate the principles of a new moral behavior that remained moral, even without being associated with the supernatural.

In “The Genealogy of Morals,” Nietzsche, with his characteristic paradoxical thought and depth of psychological analysis, examines the history of the origin of prejudices associated with the “God-given nature” of morality as such.

David Strauss, confessor and writer

This essay is the first in a series of cultural critical essays conceived by Nietzsche immediately after the publication of “The Birth of Tragedy,” united under the general title “Untimely Reflections.”

Nietzsche's original plan covers twenty themes or, more precisely, twenty variations on a single cultural critical theme. Over time, this plan was either reduced (to thirteen) or increased (to twenty-four). Of the planned series, only four essays were completed: “David Strauss, confessor and writer,” “On the benefits and harms of history for life,” “Schopenhauer as an educator,” “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.”

Evil Wisdom. Aphorisms and sayings

The book includes aphorisms and sayings of Friedrich Nietzsche.

“...A sublime person, seeing the sublime, becomes free, confident, broad, calm, joyful, but the absolutely beautiful shocks him with its appearance and knocks him off his feet: in front of it he denies himself...” (Nietzsche)

Untimely reflections

Friedrich Nietzsche's grandiose plan - a series of twenty culturally critical essays under the general title "Untimely Reflections" - was eventually realized by him in the form of four essays: "David Strauss, Confessor and Writer", "On the Benefits and Harms of History for Life", "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth", "Schopenhauer as an educator".

This is one of Nietzsche’s first works, which determined his further development in the spirit of irrationalism and reflected the philosopher’s two passionate intellectual passions: the image of Wagner and the philosophy of Schopenhauer.

The book became a bold statement by the young Nietzsche for his own, original - sometimes scandalous - and deepest understanding of various philosophical and aesthetic topics.

Nietzsche: Pro et contra

The purpose of the collection is to present the Russian image of Nietzsche as he was perceived and entered into the Russian cultural tradition at the dawn of the 20th century.

The book consists of essays by venerable Russian philosophers and writers at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, which have become classics of Russian Nietzsche studies. The anthology contains various, sometimes opposing, approaches, assessments and interpretations of the work of the German philosopher.

The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music

"... but those who would see in this coincidence the presence of a contradiction between patriotic excitement and aesthetic sybaritism, between manly seriousness and cheerful play would fall into error; on the contrary, upon actually reading this book it will become amazingly clear to them how strictly German The problem we are dealing with here is one that we have placed precisely at the center of German hopes, as the point of apogee and turning point..."

In this work, Nietzsche develops an impressive picture of the continuing influence on thinking, and on humanity in general, of the world of the Greek gods.

Two of them - Apollo and Dionysus, are for Nietzsche the personification of the irreconcilable opposition of two principles - Apollonian and Dionysian. The first of them is a world of dreams, beauty, perfection, but above all orderliness. The Dionysian is barbaric, returning back to nature, inherent in the individual who feels like a work of art, accordingly violating any measure.

Collection of books

Ecce Homo, how to become yourself
Antichrist. A curse on Christianity
Fun Science
The will to power. Experience of revaluation of all values
Evil wisdom (Aphorisms and sayings)
Selected Poems
Towards a genealogy of morality
Case Wagner
Untimely Reflections - "David Strauss, Confessor and Writer"
Untimely reflections - “On the benefits and harms of history for life”
Untimely Reflections - "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth"
Untimely Reflections - "Schopenhauer as Educator"
About the future of our educational institutions
Songs of Zarathustra
Beyond good and evil
The Birth of Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism
Mixed opinions and sayings
The Wanderer and his shadow
Twilight of idols, or how they philosophize with a hammer
Thus spoke Zarathustra
Morning dawn, or the thought of moral prejudices
Human, all too human

Mixed opinions and sayings

Every person striving to understand the world sooner or later turns to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche.

This book contains statements of the great German thinker. They force you to look in a new way at what has long seemed known and beyond doubt.

Works in 2 volumes. Volume 1

Works in 2 volumes. Volume 2

A book by one of the greatest representatives of German existentialism, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche's paradoxical logic and characteristic set of expressive means, requiring close study, lead the thoughtful reader to the borderline experience of human existence.

Friedrich Nietzsche's two-volume work was originally planned for the Philosophical Heritage Library, but "philosophical" discussions around the word "heritage" pushed Nietzsche out of the Library - he now finds his rightful place in it.

Read the biography of the philosopher thinker: facts of life, main ideas and teachings

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
(1844-1900)

German philosopher, representative of the philosophy of life. In “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music” (1872), he contrasted two principles of existence - “Dionysian” and “Apollo.” In his works written in the genre of philosophical and artistic prose, he criticized culture and preached immoralism (“Beyond Good and Evil”, 1886). In the myth of the “superman”, the cult of personality (“Thus Spake Zarathustra”, 1883-1884; “The Will to Power”, published in 1889-1901) was combined by Nietzsche with the romantic ideal of the “man of the future”.

The philosopher's father, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was born into the family of an Eulenburg superintendent. Having graduated from the theological faculty of one of the best German universities at that time in Halle, K. L. Nietzsche, after a short stay at the Altenburg ducal court as an educator of three princesses, received a church parish in the village of Reken near Lutzen.

As was customary, the young pastor paid visits to neighbors, including his colleague in the village of Pobles D. Yeler, the father of 11 children. Among them, the Rechen pastor immediately singled out 17-year-old Francisca. The romance developed rapidly: already on October 10, 1843, just on the groom’s birthday, the wedding took place.

A year later, on October 15, 1844, the first-born appeared in the family. The father named the boy Frederick William in honor of the king. In July 1846, a daughter, Elisabeth, was born, and two years later, a second son, Joseph.

But family happiness was short-lived. On July 30, 1849, Ludwig Nietzsche died, and six months later little Joseph died. Later, Friedrich, in his autobiographical notes, described a strange dream that turned out to be prophetic.

In the spring of 1850, Franziska Nietzsche and her children moved to ancient Naumburg. Friedrich, who was not yet six years old, went to study at a men's public school. A serious, somewhat reserved and taciturn boy, he felt uncomfortable and lonely at school. This alienation of Friedrich from the team remained forever.

Studying at school, and then at the Dom Gymnasium, was easy for Friedrich, although his amazing thoroughness and accuracy forced him to sit over notebooks and textbooks until midnight. And already at five o’clock in the morning he got up and hurried to the gymnasium.

But the boy was more interested in poetry and especially music. His idols were the classics - Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Bach. Nietzsche considered the same people who despised music to be “spiritless creatures, like animals.”

In the fall of 1858, Friedrich's mother received an invitation to continue her son's education at the Pforta boarding school, one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Germany.

Nietzsche's worldview, which was taking shape in those years, was reflected in the essay he wrote in October 1861 about the poet Hölderlin, then unrecognized and almost unknown. His work, which glorified the fusion of man and nature in the spirit of antiquity and clearly reflected the discord of society and personality, attracted the young man because Hölderlin was able to express the sentiments inherent in Nietzsche at that time.

In April 1862, Nietzsche wrote two philosophical and poetic essays: “Fate and History” and “Free Will and Fate,” which contain almost all the main ideas of his future works. There was an excellent library in Pfort. The young man enthusiastically read books by Shakespeare and Rousseau, Machiavelli and Emerson, Pushkin and Lermontov, Petofi and Chamisso, Geibel and Storm. Nietzsche's favorite poet was George Gordon Byron. In 1863, he wrote the work “On the Demonic in Music” and the sketch “On the Essence of Music.” Nietzsche studied literary history and aesthetics, biblical texts and ancient tragedies. The breadth of interests began to worry him, until he decided to turn to the study of philology, in which he hoped to find a science that could give scope not only to the intellect, but also to the feelings. Moreover, philology best suited his ardent love for antiquity, for the works of Heraclitus, Plato, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and for ancient Greek lyric poetry.

In September 1864, Nietzsche completed his studies in Pfort and, after passing his exams, returned to Naumburg. He made the decision to continue his studies at the University of Bonn even earlier. At the request of his mother, Friedrich promised to enroll in the theological department at the university. On October 16, after a short trip along the Rhine and the Palatinate, Nietzsche and Deissen arrived in Bonn.

After the almost barracks order of Pforta, they were completely captured by the free and disorderly student life, feasts and obligatory rapier fights. But very quickly Nietzsche cooled down to entertainment and increasingly began to think about moving to the department of philology, which he did in the fall of 1865. He studied in the seminar of one of the best German philologists, Friedrich Ritschl, and when his mentor transferred to the University of Leipzig in the fall, he followed him.

One day he accidentally bought Arthur Schopenhauer's book "The World as Will and Representation." She shocked Nietzsche so much that he suffered from insomnia for two weeks. Only the need to go to classes, Nietzsche recalled, helped him overcome a deep mental crisis, during which he, by his own admission, was close to insanity. Schopenhauer's ideas turned out to be extremely close to Nietzsche at that time. They led Nietzsche to think that devoting one’s life to fulfilling one’s duty is a waste of time and energy. A person fulfills his duty under the pressure of external conditions, and in this way he is no different from an animal, which also acts solely according to circumstances. In the summer of 1867, Nietzsche met a young student, Erwin Rohde, who became his close friend for life. He was a little younger than Nietzsche. They spent the summer holidays together, traveling on foot through the Bohemian Forest.

In the fall, Nietzsche was forced to temporarily interrupt his studies and undergo a year of military service. So he ended up in the second battery of a field artillery regiment stationed in his native Naumburg. Nietzsche, who had not yet forgotten the strict routines of Pforta, endured his military service quite easily. But one day during training, while mounting a horse, he hit his chest hard on the pommel of the saddle. Nietzsche underwent an extremely painful course of treatment in the clinic of the famous Gallic physician Volkmann and, after five months of suffering, finally returned to Naumburg in August. Declared unfit for military service, Nietzsche resumed his studies at the university. He firmly decided to enter the path of teaching.

It was at that time that one of the most significant and fateful events in his life took place - his acquaintance with the famous composer Richard Wagner. Nietzsche immersed himself in reading Wagner's aesthetic works "Art and Revolution" and "Opera and Drama".

In December 1868, the Department of Greek Language and Literature was vacated at the University of Basel. They invited Nietzsche, whose works on ancient literature were repeatedly published in magazines. The candidate himself was flattered by the honor of taking the post of extraordinary university professor without a dissertation or even completing a full course of study. There was one more thing that attracted him to the invitation - the opportunity to get closer to Wagner, who had lived since 1866 in Triebschen near Lucerne.

Before leaving, Nietzsche intended to defend a dissertation in Leipzig based on his research on Diogenes Laertius. However, the faculty council unanimously decided that Nietzsche's published articles fully replaced a dissertation, and on March 23 he was awarded a doctorate without the obligatory public defense, discussion or examination.

Teaching at the university and the Pedagogium gymnasium under him quite soon began to weigh heavily on Nietzsche, as did the cozy, bourgeois atmosphere of Basel. He was increasingly overcome by periods of melancholic depression, salvation from which he found in friendship with Wagner, to whose house Nietzsche strove at every opportunity, since it was only a two-hour drive from Basel to Lucerne. Immersion in the sublime world of art during frequent visits to Tribschen, Wagner's charming wife Cosima contrasted sharply with Nietzsche's measured and boring existence in Basel. This made Nietzsche disgusted with philology and science in general. In the sketches of that period, doubts about science are expressed quite clearly: “The goal of science is the destruction of the world... It has been proven that this process already took place in Greece, although Greek science itself means very little. The task of art is to destroy the state. And this also happened in Greece. After this, science destroyed art."

In such a situation, the Wagners’ message about their soon-to-be move to Bayreuth at the invitation of the Bavarian king struck Nietzsche like a thunderclap. His illusory Triebschen happiness was crumbling, and his work in Basel seemed to lose all meaning. But fate, as if in return for Wagner, gave him a new faithful friend. In April 1870, professor of theology Franz Overbeck came to Basel and settled in the same house on Schützengraben where Nietzsche lived. They were quickly brought together by a commonality of interests and, in particular, a critical attitude towards the Christian Church, as well as the same view of the outbreak of the Franco-German War.

After his illness and return to Basel, Nietzsche began attending lectures by the outstanding historian Jacob Burckhardt, full of skepticism and pessimism about the future. Nietzsche reconsidered his attitude towards the Franco-German war and freed himself from the frenzy of patriotism. Now he, too, began to view Prussia as a militaristic force extremely dangerous to culture.

Not without the influence of Burckhardt, Nietzsche began to develop the tragic content of history in sketches for the drama Empedocles, dedicated to the Sicilian philosopher, doctor and poet of the 5th century BC. e. Clear elements of the philosophy of the late Nietzsche are already visible in them. In Empedocles' doctrine of the transmigration of souls, he found one of the postulates of his own theory of eternal recurrence.

On January 2, 1872, Nietzsche’s book “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music” appeared in Leipzig bookstores. It was conceived even before the Franco-German War, and was outlined schematically in the report “Greek Musical Drama”, read at the university in January 1870.

Dedicated to Wagner, the work determined the foundations on which the birth of tragedy as a work of art rests. Ancient and modern lines are closely intertwined with each other in the constant juxtaposition of Dionysus, Apollo and Socrates with Wagner and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche attacked one of the main tenets of the Christian belief in eternal existence by the grace of God in the other world. It seemed absurd to him that death should be an atonement for the original sin of Adam and Eve. He expressed the idea that the stronger the will to live, the more terrible the fear of death. And how can you live without thinking about death, but knowing about its inexorability and inevitability, without being afraid of it? The ancient Greeks, in order to withstand such an understanding of reality, created their own tragedy, in which a person seemed to be completely immersed in death.

Nietzsche firmly believed that science has its limits. In the study of individual phenomena, in his opinion, in the end it certainly stumbles upon that first principle, which can no longer be cognized rationally. And then science turns into art, and its methods into the instincts of life. So art inevitably corrects and complements science. This position became the cornerstone of the foundations of Nietzsche’s “philosophy of life.”

In January - March 1872, Nietzsche made a series of public reports “On the Future of Our Educational Institutions,” referring not so much to Swiss as to Prussian gymnasiums and universities. There, one of Nietzsche’s main ideas was voiced for the first time - the need to educate a true aristocracy of the spirit, the elite of society. According to Nietzsche, pragmatism should be present not in classical gymnasiums, but in real schools that honestly promise to provide practically useful knowledge, and not some kind of “education” at all.

By the spring of 1873, there was still a barely noticeable cooling between Nietzsche and Wagner, who had moved to Bayreuth and was busy organizing future famous music festivals. The Wagner couple did not like Nietzsche's growing penchant for polemical revision of the moral principles of humanity and the “shocking harshness” of his judgments. Wagner preferred to see in the Basel professor a talented and bright propagandist of his own views. But Nietzsche could not agree to such a role. And he still did not lose hope that Bayreuth would become a source of revival of European culture. Nietzsche planned a series of pamphlets.

Of the approximately 20-24 planned, only four essays were written under the general title “Untimely Reflections.” "David Strauss, confessor and writer" (1873), "On the benefits and harms of history for life" (1874), "Schopenhauer as an educator" (1874) and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" (1875-1876).

In these reflections, Nietzsche emerged as a passionate defender of German culture, castigating philistinism and the victorious intoxication after the creation of the empire.

This period coincided with such a sharp deterioration in health that Nietzsche received a year's leave in October 1876 for treatment and rest. Spending this time in resorts in Switzerland and Italy, he worked in fits and starts on a new book, compiled in the form of aphorisms.

In May 1878, Nietzsche's book "Humanity, All Too Human" was published with the shocking subtitle "A Book for Free Minds." In it, the author publicly and without much ceremony broke with the past and its values: Hellenism, Christianity, Schopenhauer, Wagner.

Such an unexpected turn most often comes down to the two most common versions. The first explains it by the usual envy of a failed musician towards Wagner, who once spoke rather disparagingly about one of Nietzsche’s musical compositions. The second version sees the reason in the influence on Nietzsche of the philosopher and psychologist Paul Re, with whom Nietzsche became friends while living in Sorrento.

Wagner’s admirers, dumbfounded by Nietzsche’s betrayal, were speechless with rage, and in August 1878 the maestro himself burst out with an extremely aggressive and malicious article “The Public and Popularity.” Nietzsche's name was not mentioned in it, but it was clearly implied. His book was regarded as a consequence of illness, and his brilliant aphorisms were regarded as insignificant intellectually and deplorable morally. But Jacob Burckhardt spoke very highly of the book, saying that it “increased independence in the world.”

The new year of 1879 brought Nietzsche incredible physical suffering: almost daily attacks of illness, continuous vomiting, frequent fainting, and a sharp deterioration in vision. He was unable to continue teaching. In June, Nietzsche received his resignation at his request with an annual pension of 3 thousand francs. He left Basel for Sils Maria, in the Upper Engadine valley. A half-blind invalid, hunched over, broken and 10 years older, although he was not yet 35 years old.

Nietzsche's life began a period of endless wanderings, in Switzerland in the summer, in Northern Italy in the winter. Modest, cheap boarding houses in the Alps or on the Ligurian coast; shabbyly furnished cold rooms where he wrote for hours, almost pressing his double glasses to a sheet of paper until his inflamed eyes refused, rare solitary walks, terrible remedies for insomnia - chloral, veronal and, possibly, Indian hemp, constant headaches; frequent stomach cramps and vomiting spasms - this painful existence of one of the greatest minds of mankind lasted 10 years.

But even in that terrible year of 1879, he created new books, “Motley Thoughts and Sayings,” and “The Wanderer and His Shadow.” And the next year “Morning Dawn” appeared, where one of the cornerstone concepts of Nietzschean ethics was formulated - “morality of manners.”

First, Nietzsche analyzed the connection between the decline of morality and the growth of human freedom. He believed that a free person “wants to depend on himself in everything, and not on any tradition.” He considered the latter “the highest authority, which is obeyed not because he tells us what is useful, but because he generally commands.” And from here followed an as yet unexpressed, but already outlined attitude towards morality as something relative, since an act that violates an established tradition always looks immoral, even if it is based on motives that “themselves laid the foundation traditions."

"Morning Dawn" was almost not a success. The unusual structure of the book, more than half a thousand seemingly unrelated aphorisms could only cause bewilderment, and the German reading public, accustomed to the logical and pedantic sequence of philosophical treatises, was simply unable to overcome this strange work, much less understand it .

As a continuation of "Morning Dawn" in the winter of 1881-1882, Nietzsche wrote "The Gay Science" in Genoa, which was later published in several editions with additions.

This essay began a new dimension of Nietzsche’s thought, a never-before-seen attitude towards thousands of years of European history, culture and morality as a personal problem: “I have absorbed the Spirit of Europe - now I want to strike a counter-attack.”

The idea of ​​eternal recurrence so deeply captured Nietzsche that in just a few months he created the majestic poem “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” He wrote it in February and late June - early July 1883 in Rapallo and in February 1884 in Sils. A year later, Nietzsche created the fourth part of the poem, so intimate that it was published in only 40 copies at the author’s expense for close friends. Of this number, Nietzsche gave only seven, because there was no one else to give. Even the closest people - his sister, Overbeck, Rohde, Burckhardt - avoided any judgment in their response letters, as if it were a painful duty, so incomprehensible to them was the pain and suffering of his feverish mind.

The time he worked on Zarathustra was one of the most difficult periods in Nietzsche's life. In February 1883, Richard Wagner died in Venice. At the same time, Nietzsche experienced a serious disagreement with his mother and sister, who were outraged by his intention to marry a girl from Russia, Lou Andreas Salome, a future famous writer, author of biographies of R. M. Rilke and Z. Freud, whom they considered “a completely immoral and obscene person.” . Nietzsche also had a hard time with his sister’s engagement to the gymnasium teacher Bernhard Förster, a Wagnerian and anti-Semite. In April 1884, Nietzsche wrote to Overbeck, “The accursed anti-Semitism has caused a radical rift between me and my sister.”

"Zarathustra" occupies an exceptional place in Nietzsche's work. It was from this book that a sharp turn in his mentality took place towards the self-awareness of a man of rock.

The book contains an unusually large number of half-hidden poisonous parodies of the Bible, as well as sly attacks on Shakespeare, Luther, Homer, Goethe, Wagner, etc., etc. On many of the masterpieces of these authors. Nietzsche gives parodies with one single purpose: to show that man is still a formless mass, material that requires a talented sculptor for its ennoblement.

Only in this way will humanity surpass itself and move into a different, higher quality - a superman will appear. For Nietzsche, the superman appears as the highest biological type, which relates to man in the same way as a man relates to a monkey. Nietzsche, although he sees his ideal of man in individual outstanding personalities of the past, still views them as a prototype of the future superman who must appear, he must be raised. Nietzsche's superman turns into a cult of personality, a cult of "great men" and is the basis of a new mythology, presented with high artistic skill in the book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

Nietzsche ended the first part of Zarathustra with the words: “All the gods are dead, now we want the superman to live.”

After Zarathustra, everything created previously seemed so weak to Nietzsche that he had a chimerical plan to rewrite his previous works. But due to his physical weakness, he limited himself to only new magnificent prefaces to almost all of his published books. And instead of revising the past, the opposite happened: in the winter of 1885-1886, Nietzsche wrote a “prelude to the philosophy of the future,” the book “Beyond Good and Evil,” in his words, “a terrible book,” which this time came from my soul - very black." It was here that he, convinced that in man the creature and the creator have merged into one, destroys the creature in himself in order to save the creator. But this terrible experiment ended with the fact that not only the creature, but also the mind of the creator was destroyed.

"Beyond Good and Evil" was published at the expense of the author's modest means. By the following summer, only 114 copies had been sold. Friends - Rode and Overbeck - remained silent; Burckhardt responded with a polite letter of gratitude for the book and a purely formal compliment, clearly forced. A desperate Nietzsche in August 1886 sent the book to the Danish literary critic Georg Brandes and the famous French historian and literary critic Hippolyte Taine. The first did not answer anything, but Taine responded with unusual praise, shedding balm on Nietzsche’s soul. Meanwhile, it was in the book “Beyond Good and Evil”, like no other, that Nietzsche discovered amazing insight, predicting the catastrophic processes of the future.

He reflected on the collapse of European spirituality, the overthrow of past values ​​and norms, the uprising of the masses and the creation of a monstrous mass culture to dupe and serve them, the unification of people under the cover of their imaginary equality, the beginning of the struggle for dominance over the entire globe, attempts to cultivate a new race of masters, tyrannical regimes as a product of democratic systems. These themes will be picked up and developed by the greatest philosophical minds of the 20th century - Husserl, Scheler, Spengler, Ortega-Gassett, Heidegger, Jaspers, Camus.

Nietzsche also touched upon the problem of double morality - masters and slaves. He wrote about two types of the same morality, existing “even in the same person, in the same soul.” The differences between these types are determined by the difference in moral values. The morality of masters is characterized by a high degree of self-respect, an exalted, proud state of mind, for which one can sacrifice both wealth and life itself. Slave morality, on the contrary, is a morality of utility. A cowardly, petty, humiliating person, humbly enduring bad treatment for his own benefit - this is the representative of slave morality, no matter how high the social ladder he is at. Slave morality craves petty happiness and pleasure; severity and severity towards oneself is the basis of the morality of masters.

To avoid misunderstandings around the book, Nietzsche wrote in three weeks of July 1887, as a supplement to it, a polemical essay “On the Genealogy of Morals,” which, by the way, was also created at his expense.

In Nice in the fall of 1887, Nietzsche began the first drafts of the “major work” of his life that he had conceived. In total he wrote down 372 notes, divided into four sections: European nihilism, criticism of higher values, the principle of new evaluation, discipline and selection. These are indeed not polished and polished notes, and not the sparkling aphorisms that his readers are accustomed to. The notes then collected by the sister and her collaborators in the “Nietzsche Archive” from 5 thousand sheets of the philosopher’s handwritten heritage made up one of his most sensational books, “The Will to Power,” although Nietzsche himself, as it turned out, was not responsible for its content and meaning. The compilers arbitrarily placed there not only the mentioned notes, but also many others, so that their total number exceeded a thousand and significantly distorted the general modality of the intended composition.

In April 1888, it became too hot in Nice, and the bright spring sun began to have a painful effect on Nietzsche’s sore eyes. I had to change the place again, and he went to the more climatically suitable Turin. At this time, Brandeis's lectures on the work of Nietzsche were very popular at the University of Copenhagen and attracted more than 300 listeners. Nietzsche was extremely pleased with this, but mixed with the feeling of joy was a touch of annoyance at the fact that he was recognized in Denmark, while in Germany, his homeland, other idols were worshiped, especially Richard Wagner. Stung, Nietzsche decided to write a pamphlet, “The Wagner Incident.” It was a carefully thought out, brilliantly written work, imbued with poisonous and scathing sarcasm.

The pamphlet was published in mid-September 1888, while Nietzsche was still in Sils. At the end of the month, he again went to Turin, where his health suddenly improved dramatically: insomnia and headaches disappeared, the attacks of nausea that had tormented him for 15 years disappeared; Nietzsche threw himself passionately into his work, took daily walks along the banks of the Po, and read a lot. In the evenings he went to concerts or spent hours improvising on the piano in his room. He felt great, which he immediately reported to his mother and friends! But at the same time, he breaks off relations with Wagner’s entourage, with an old and good acquaintance, Hamburg accompanist Hans von Bülow, as well as with the writer and his faithful friend Malvida von Meysenbug.

At the end of 1888, Nietzsche was seized with painful anxiety. On the one hand, the features of megalomania began to emerge more and more clearly: he felt that his finest hour was approaching. In a letter to Strindberg in December 1888, Nietzsche wrote: “I am strong enough to split the history of mankind into two pieces.” On the other hand, his doubts and vague fears grew that the world would never recognize his brilliant prophecies and would not understand his thoughts, just as they did not understand his “Casus Wagner”.

In a feverish hurry, Nietzsche wrote two works simultaneously - “Twilight of the Idols” and “Antichrist”, the first part of “The Revaluation of All Values”. Nietzsche himself, however, did not want to publish his latest work yet, nurturing a utopian idea: to publish it simultaneously in seven European languages ​​with a circulation of 1 million in each. It was published only in 1895, and with numerous bills.

Nietzsche sharply criticized Christian churches and those people who called themselves Christians, but in fact were not them. He contrasted the life of Jesus with the three synoptic gospels, in which, according to him, the first attempts were made to create a system of Christian dogma on the issue of a negative attitude towards the world.

Having not yet completed work on Antichrist, Nietzsche decides to create a prelude to Revaluation in the form of a biography and annotations of his books, so that readers understand what he is. This is how the idea of ​​the work “Ecco homo” arose, in which Nietzsche tried to explain the reasons for his cooling towards Wagner and show how it matured in his books over many years. Just look at the titles of the chapters - “Why I am so wise”, “Why I write such good books”, “Why I am rock”!

Soon the first symptoms of Nietzsche's imbalance began to appear. He was in a hurry to publish his obviously unfinished works, although his already broken mind was imagining nightmares and dangers emanating from the military power of the German Empire. He was overcome by fear of the Hohenzollern dynasty, Bismarck, anti-Semitic circles, and the church. All of them were insulted in his last books, and Nietzsche expected severe persecution. As if warning them, he drafted a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm: “I hereby show the Kaiser of the Germans the greatest honor that can fall to his lot: I send him the first copy of the book in which the fate of mankind is decided.”

The beginning of a departure from understanding the real world led Nietzsche to a daring plan to unite all European countries into a single anti-German league in order to put a straitjacket on the Reich or provoke it into an obviously hopeless war against a united Europe.

The circumstances and reasons for Friedrich Nietzsche's mental breakdown have not been thoroughly clarified. Sister Elizabeth wrote that the apoplexy was the result of nervous exhaustion due to overly strenuous work and the harmful effects of sedatives.

“As for the medical diagnosis, it was: progressive paralysis. It usually represents a dysfunction of the brain caused by an external infection, often a consequence of syphilis.”

Information about Nietzsche's illness is extremely scarce and contradictory. According to some sources, he allegedly suffered from syphilis while a student at the University of Bonn in 1864-1865, after visiting a brothel in Cologne. Thomas Mann also adhered to this version in his article “Nietzsche’s Philosophy in the Light of Our Experience.” However, it is more likely that if Nietzsche suffered from syphilis, it was while studying in Leipzig. Although here, too, it is too confusing that the names of the doctors with whom Nietzsche was treated remained unknown, and the rumors about this treatment are rather silent. It is unlikely that the illness was hidden for 20 years; moreover, Nietzsche, after a mental breakdown, lived for another 11 years and died of pneumonia, which also does not fit into the framework of the diagnosis of progressive paralysis.

A tragic breakdown in Nietzsche’s psyche occurred between January 3 and 6, 1889. A rapid clouding of the mind led to a confusion of all concepts. He forgot that he lived in Turin; it seemed to him as if he were in Rome and was preparing to convene a congress of European powers to unite them against the hated Prusso-Germany. Nietzsche stigmatizes Italy's entry into an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882 and, in a letter to the Italian king, demands its immediate rupture.

Nietzsche's darkening of reason can be seen in his notes between January 3 and 5. So, on January 3, he wrote to his longtime acquaintance Meta von Salis: “The world has been transformed, God is again on Earth, Don’t you see how the heavens are rejoicing? I have taken possession of my empire, I will throw the Pope into prison and order the execution of Wilhelm, Bismarck and Stocker ".

"Wilhelm, Bismarck and all anti-Semites are finished. Antichrist Friedrich Nietzsche Fromentin."

Friedrich Nietzsche lost more than just his mind. The legacy of this mind was quickly and shamelessly taken into her hands by her sister, who returned from Paraguay after the suicide of her husband, who was entangled in financial fraud. She quickly removed Peter Gast from participation in the preparation of the collected works of Nietzsche, who, together with Overbeck, opposed all kinds of forgeries and arbitrary editing of manuscripts from the archive.

In August 1896, my sister, along with a huge archive, moved to Weimar and prepared a biography of Friedrich there, hoping that the spiritual life of Weimar, incomparable with the provincial provincial Naumburg, would make it easier for her to publish a book that became an example of an amazingly shameless re-drawing of something dear to her and spiritually infinitely distant to her. brother's life.

After purchasing a large house on Louisenstrasse to house the archive, Elisabeth moved the patient to Weimar. Immersed in the deepest apathy, Nietzsche seemed not to notice either the move to a new place or the death of his mother, who died in April 1897. Nietzsche's stay in Weimar was short-lived. At the end of August 1900, he caught a cold, contracted pneumonia and died quietly at noon. August 25, 1900. The prophetic line from Zarathustra came true: “Oh, midday abyss! when will you draw my soul back into yourself?”

Three days later, burial took place in the family plot of the cemetery in Roken, where his parents and brother were buried. Speaking at the funeral ceremony, the famous German historian and sociologist Kurt Breisig called Nietzsche “the man who showed the way to a new future for humanity,” a thinker who opposed the magic of Buddha, Zarathustra and Jesus.”

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... The 19th century is the century of revolutionary philosophers. In the same century, European irrationalists appeared - Arthur Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bergson... Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are representatives of nihilism (philosophy of negation)... In the 20th century, among the philosophical teachings one can single out existentialism - Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre. .. The starting point of existentialism is the philosophy of Kierkegaard...
Russian philosophy (according to Berdyaev) begins with the philosophical letters of Chaadaev. The first Russian philosopher known in the West is Vladimir Solovyov. Lev Shestov was close to existentialism. The most widely read Russian philosopher in the West is Nikolai Berdyaev.
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Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm (1844 – 1900)

German philosopher. Born into the family of a village pastor in the small village of Recken on the border of Prussia and Silesia. After graduating from high school, he entered a prestigious vocational school near Naumburg - a closed educational institution for children from aristocratic families. There he wrote his first essay, “On Music,” which immediately allowed him to become one of the best students.

He then continued his education at the Universities of Bonn and Leipzig. Already his student scientific works were so interesting in content and depth of analysis that they attracted the attention of professors.

After graduating from university, he was offered a position as professor of classical philosophy at the University of Basel. Soon the young scientist was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy without first defending a dissertation, based only on journal articles.

While still at the university, Nietzsche met the greatest German composer R. Wagner. Wagner's music made the same stunning impression on Nietzsche as Nietzsche's writings did on Wagner. Although Nietzsche entered the history of world culture primarily as a philosopher, he considered himself a musician. Even about his writings, Nietzsche once wrote that it is “music accidentally written down not in notes, but in words.” His passion for music arose in early childhood and continued throughout his life. But this was not just a desire to compose or listen - Nietzsche was a musician in another, broader sense of the word: music for him was synonymous with the highest principle in art.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Nietzsche ensured that he was sent to the front as an orderly, but almost immediately after his arrival he fell ill and ended up in the hospital. Nietzsche, who never recovered from his illness, had to leave his teaching career.

The more his mental illness progressed, the more fiercely Nietzsche resisted it and the more cheerful his writings and letters became. Suffering from an illness, he nevertheless writes a book with an amazing title - “The Gay Science”, and after it - the musical composition “Anthem of Life”. These works became a kind of prologue to one of his main works - “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

Nietzsche was no longer able to work and spent the last nine years in a stubborn struggle with the disease. Died in Weimar.

Friedrich Nietzsche is a German philosopher, thinker, poet and even composer. His non-academic teachings became widespread not only in the scientific and philosophical community, but also far beyond its borders. Nietzsche questioned the key principles of the norms of culture and morality, social and political relations generally accepted in the 19th-20th centuries. The philosopher’s concept still causes a lot of controversy and disagreement.

Childhood and youth

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in the village of Röcken, located near Leipzig. His father, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, as well as both of his grandfathers, were Lutheran ministers. A few years later, the boy had a sister, Elisabeth, and a couple of years later, a brother, Ludwig Joseph. Friedrich's younger brother died in 1849, and his sister lived a long life and passed away in 1935.

Soon after the birth of his youngest son, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche died. His mother took full responsibility for raising Friedrich. This continued until 1858, when the matured young man went to receive an education at the prestigious Pforta gymnasium. The time he studied at the gymnasium became fateful for Nietzsche: there he first began to write, became interested in reading ancient texts, and even experienced an irresistible desire to devote himself to music. There, Friedrich became acquainted with the works of Byron, Schiller, Hölderlin, and the works of Wagner.

In 1862, Nietzsche began his studies at the University of Bonn, choosing philology and theology. The young student soon became bored with student life; In addition to this, he did not have good relationships with his classmates, to whom he tried to instill a progressive worldview. Therefore, Friedrich soon transferred to the University of Leipzig. One day, while walking around the city, he accidentally wandered into an old bookshop and purchased the work “The World as Will and Representation.” The book greatly impressed Nietzsche and influenced his development as a philosopher.

Friedrich's studies at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Leipzig went brilliantly: already at the age of 24, the guy was invited to teach classical philology as a professor at the University of Basel. This was the first time in the European higher education system that such a young scientist was allowed to receive the status of professor. However, Nietzsche himself did not take much pleasure in his studies, although he did not refuse to build a professorial career.

However, the philosopher did not work long as a teacher. Upon taking up this post, he decided to renounce his Prussian citizenship (the University of Basel is located in Switzerland). Therefore, Nietzsche could not participate in the Franco-Prussian War, which took place in 1870. Switzerland took a neutral position in this confrontation and therefore allowed the professor only to work as an orderly.

Friedrich Nietzsche was not in good health since childhood. So, at the age of eighteen he suffered from insomnia and migraines, at the age of thirty, in addition to this, he became practically blind and began to experience stomach problems. He completed his work in Basel in 1879, after which he began to receive a pension and began to work closely on writing books, without ceasing to fight the disease.

Philosophy

Friedrich Nietzsche's first book was published in 1872 and was entitled The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. Before this, the philosopher had submitted a number of scientific articles for publication, but had not yet published full-fledged books. His first serious work consists of 25 chapters.

In the first 15, Nietzsche tries to establish what Greek tragedy is, and in the last 10, he talks and discusses Wagner, with whom he met and was friends for some time (until the composer converted to Christianity).

"Thus spoke Zarathustra"

No other work by a philosopher can claim the level of popularity of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Friedrich Nietzsche received the main ideas for his famous work thanks to a trip to Rome at the end of the 19th century. There he met the writer, therapist and philosopher Lou Salome. Nietzsche found her a pleasant listener and was fascinated by the flexibility of her mind. He even tried to propose to her, but Lou Salome chose friendship over marriage.

Soon Nietzsche and Salome quarreled and never communicated again. After this, Frederick wrote the first part of the work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” in which modern researchers unmistakably guess the influence of the philosopher’s soulmate and ideas about their “ideal friendship.” The second and third parts of the work were published in 1884, and the fourth appeared in print in 1885. Nietzsche published 40 of them at his own expense.

The style of this work changes as the narrative progresses: it turns out to be poetic, comic, and again close to poetry. In the book, Frederick first introduced the term superman, and also began to develop the theory of the will to power. At that time, these ideas were poorly developed, and he subsequently developed his concept in the works “Beyond Good and Evil” and “Towards the Genealogy of Morality.” The fourth book of the work is dedicated to the story of how Zarathustra ridiculed the hated admirers of his own teaching.

Will to power

Almost all of the philosopher’s works run through the morality of the will to power as the basic concept of his theory. According to Nietzsche, dominion represents the primary nature, the fundamental principle of existence, as well as a way of existence. In this regard, Frederick contrasted the will to power with goal setting. He said that choosing a goal and moving towards it can already be called a full-fledged act of power.

Death of God

Friedrich Nietzsche was actively interested in issues of religion and death. “God is dead” is one of his famous postulates. The philosopher explained this statement as an increase in nihilism, which was a consequence of the devaluation of the supersensible foundations of life directions.

The scientist also criticized Christianity for the fact that this religion prefers being in the afterlife to life in the real world. The author dedicated the book “Antichrist” to this topic. A curse on Christianity." Friedrich Nietzsche first expressed his nihilistic position in the book “Human is All Too Human,” which was published in 1876.

Personal life

Friedrich Nietzsche repeatedly changed his views on the female sex, so the popularity of his quote “Women are the source of all stupidity and unreason in the world” does not fully reflect his views. Thus, the philosopher managed to be a misogynist, a feminist, and an antifeminist. At the same time, his only love was probably Lou Salome. There is no information about the philosopher’s relationships with other women.

For many years, the biography of the philosopher was closely connected with the life path of his sister Elizabeth, who took care of her brother and helped him. However, gradually discord began in these relations. Elisabeth Nietzsche's husband was Bernard Foerster, one of the ideologists of the anti-Semitic movement. She even went with her husband to Paraguay, where supporters of this movement intended to create a German colony. Due to financial difficulties, Förster soon committed suicide, and the widow returned to her native country.

Nietzsche did not share his sister's anti-Semitic views and criticized her for such a position. Relations between brother and sister improved only towards the end of the latter’s life, when he, weakened by illness, needed help and care. As a result, Elizabeth gained the opportunity to dispose of her brother's literary works. She sent Nietzsche's works for publication only after making her own edits, as a result of which some provisions of the philosopher's teaching were distorted.

In 1930, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche supported the Nazi regime and invited her to become an honored guest of the Nietzsche Museum-Archive, which she created. The leader of the fascist movement was pleased with the visits and awarded the philosopher’s sister a lifelong pension. This was partly the reason that Nietzsche is often associated in the minds of ordinary people with fascist ideology.

Death

The philosopher often found himself misunderstood both by his close people and by the general public. His ideology began to gain popularity only in the late 1880s, and at the beginning of the 20th century his works were translated into many languages ​​of the world. In 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche's creative work ceased due to clouding of his mind.

There is an opinion that the philosopher was shocked by the scene of the horse being beaten. This seizure became the cause of a progressive mental illness. The writer spent the last months of his life in a Basel mental hospital. After some time, his elderly mother took him to his parents' house, but she soon died, which is why the philosopher received an apoplexy.

Bibliography

• "The Birth of Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism"
• "Untimely Thoughts"
• “Human, all too human. A book for free minds"
• "Morning dawn, or thoughts about moral prejudices"
• "Fun Science"
• “Thus spoke Zarathustra. A book for everyone and no one"
• “Beyond good and evil. Prelude to the philosophy of the future"
• “Toward the genealogy of morality. Polemical essay"
• "Case Wagner"
• "Twilight of the Idols, or how one philosophizes with a hammer"
• "Antichrist. A curse on Christianity"
• “Ecce Homo. How to become yourself"
• "The Will to Power"