Nietzsche and Soviet Culture

This pioneering 1994 study documents the extent and diversity of the impact of Nietzschean ideas on Soviet literature and culture. It shows how these ideas, unacknowledged and reworked, entered and shaped that culture and stimulated the imagination of both supporters and detractors of the regime addresses key peculiarities of the Soviet reception of Nietzsche - the role of the prerevolutionary interest in the occult, the way revolution figured as an allegorical subject, the intertwining of art and ideology in the obsession with creating a new culture, the continuing Russian interest in Nietzsche as a religious thinker, and the manner in which censorship affected the dynamic of reception and influence. The book looks at the origins, formative years, and subsequent development of Soviet literature and culture, and raises issues for research and discussion.

"...the essays succeed in unearthing 'the hitherto buried Nietzschean elements of Soviet culture,' demonstrating the profound influence--direct and indirect--Nietzsche exerted on the birth and evolution of the 20th-century colossus." H.I. Einsohn, Choice, "Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal has, with this volume...established a sumptuous site for excavation." Lesley Chamberlain, TLS, "Cambridge University Press's series on Russian literature includes a number of admirable volumes....this collection of essays on the impact of Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas on Soviet culture adds tho the distinction of the Cambridge list....Readers will be drawn to individual essays by their own particular interests, but the entire volume is characterized by meticulous research and a uniformly high standard of scholarship. The book is a significant addition to Soviet cultural studies and to modern intellectual history." American Historical Review, "The collection of essays edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal carries forward the impressive work inaugurated in her earlier collection, Nietzsche in Russia, by tracing Nietzsche's influence forward into the obscurity of the Soviet era, when official censorship forced all Nietzschean streams underground." Journal of Modern History, "Many of the essays collected here are excellent and present findings that, as Rosenthal expects, will probably surprise many observers of Soviet culture....any scholar of Soviet culture, and even those who have investigated the role of Nietzsche in Russian culture, will find that Rosenthal's book is well worth reading..." Slavic Review