Friedrich Nietzsche - biography, information, personal life. Friedrich Nietzsche: biography and philosophy (briefly) The last years of his life

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche). Born 15 October 1844 in Röcken, German Confederation - died 25 August 1900 in Weimar, German Empire. German thinker, classical philologist, composer, poet, creator of an original philosophical doctrine, which is emphatically non-academic in nature and partly for this reason is widespread, going far beyond the scientific and philosophical community.

Nietzsche's fundamental concept includes special criteria for assessing reality, which called into question the basic principles of existing forms of morality, religion, culture and socio-political relations and, subsequently, were reflected in the philosophy of life. Being presented in an aphoristic manner, most of Nietzsche's works do not lend themselves to unambiguous interpretation and cause much controversy.

According to the US Library of Congress, Nietzsche is one of the ten most studied personalities in history.

Nietzsche is usually considered one of the philosophers of Germany. The modern unified national state called Germany did not yet exist at the time of his birth, but there was a union of German states, and Nietzsche was a citizen of one of them, at that time Prussia. When Nietzsche received a professorship at the University of Basel, he applied to have his Prussian citizenship revoked. The official response confirming the revocation of citizenship came in the form of a document dated April 17, 1869. Until the end of his life, Nietzsche remained officially stateless.

According to popular belief, Nietzsche's ancestors were Polish. Until the end of his life, Nietzsche himself confirmed this circumstance. In 1888 he wrote: “My ancestors were Polish nobles (Nitsky)”. In one of his statements, Nietzsche is even more affirmative in relation to his Polish origin: “I am a purebred Polish nobleman, without a single drop of dirty blood, of course, without German blood.” On another occasion, Nietzsche stated: “Germany is a great nation only because so much Polish blood flows in the veins of its people... I am proud of my Polish origins”. In one of his letters he testifies: “I was brought up to trace the origin of my blood and name to the Polish nobles, who were called Nietzky, and who abandoned their home and title about a hundred years ago, yielding as a result to the intolerable pressure - they were Protestants.”. Nietzsche believed that his surname could be Germanized.

Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's views on his family's origins. Hans von Müller refuted the pedigree put forward by Nietzsche's sister in favor of noble Polish origin. Max Oehler, curator of the Nietzsche archive in Weimar, claimed that all of Nietzsche's ancestors had German names, even the families of his wives. Oehler claims that Nietzsche came from a long line of German Lutheran clergy on both sides of his family, and modern scholars consider Nietzsche's claims about his Polish origins to be "pure fiction". Colley and Montinari, editors of a collection of Nietzsche's letters, characterize Nietzsche's claims as "baseless" and "erroneous opinion." The surname Nietzsche itself is not Polish, but is common throughout central Germany in this and related forms, such as Nitsche and Nitzke. The surname comes from the name Nikolai, abbreviated Nik, under the influence of the Slavic name Nits first acquired the form Nitsche, and then Nietzsche.

It's unknown why Nietzsche wanted to be considered a member of a noble Polish family. According to biographer R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche's claims about his Polish origins may have been part of his "campaign against Germany".

Nietzsche studied music from the age of 6, when his mother gave him a piano, and at the age of 10 he already tried to compose. He continued to play music throughout his school and college years. The main influences on Nietzsche's early musical development were Viennese classics and romanticism (Beethoven, Schumann, etc.).

Nietzsche composed a lot in 1862-1865 - piano pieces, vocal lyrics. At this time, he worked, in particular, on the symphonic poem “Ermanarich” (1862), which was only partially completed, in the form of a piano fantasy. Among the songs Nietzsche composed during these years: “Spell” to the words of the poem of the same name by A. S. Pushkin; four songs based on poems by S. Petyofi; “From the Time of Youth” to poems by F. Rückert and “A Stream Flows” to poems by K. Grot; “The Storm”, “Better and Better” and “Child before the Extinguished Candle”, poems by A. von Chamisso.

Among Nietzsche's later works are “Echoes of New Year's Eve” (originally written for violin and piano, revised for piano duet, 1871) and “Manfred. Meditation" (piano duet, 1872). The first of these works was criticized by R. Wagner, and the second by Hans von Bülow. Suppressed by the authority of von Bülow, after this Nietzsche practically stopped making music. His last composition was “Hymn to Friendship” (1874), which much later, in 1882, he reworked into a song for voice and piano, borrowing the poem “Hymn of Life” by his new friend Lou Andreas von Salome (and a few years later Peter Gast wrote arrangement for choir and orchestra).

In October 1862, Nietzsche went to the University of Bonn, where he began to study theology and philology. He quickly became disillusioned with student life and, having tried to influence his comrades, found himself misunderstood and rejected by them. This was one of the reasons for his quick move to the University of Leipzig, following his mentor Professor Friedrich Ritschl. However, studying philology in a new place did not bring Nietzsche satisfaction, even despite his brilliant success in this matter: already at the age of 24, while still a student, he was invited to the position of professor of classical philology at the University of Basel - an unprecedented case in the history of European universities .

Nietzsche was unable to take part in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870: at the beginning of his professorial career, he demonstratively renounced Prussian citizenship, and the authorities of neutral Switzerland prohibited him from direct participation in battles, allowing him only to serve as an orderly. While accompanying a carriage with wounded, he contracted dysentery and diphtheria.

On November 8, 1868, Nietzsche met Richard Wagner. It differed sharply from the philological environment that was familiar and already burdensome to Nietzsche and made an extremely strong impression on the philosopher. They were united by spiritual unity: from a mutual passion for the art of the ancient Greeks and love for the work of Schopenhauer to the aspirations of reorganizing the world and reviving the spirit of the nation.

In May 1869, he visited Wagner in Tribschen, becoming practically a member of the family. However, their friendship did not last long: only about three years until 1872, when Wagner moved to Bayreuth and their relationship began to cool. Nietzsche could not accept the changes that arose in him, which were expressed, in his opinion, in betrayal of their common ideals, pandering to the interests of the public, and, ultimately, in the adoption of Christianity. The final break was marked by Wagner’s public assessment of Nietzsche’s book “Human, All Too Human” as “sad evidence of the illness” of its author.

The change in Nietzsche’s attitude towards Wagner was marked by the book “The Case of Wagner” (Der Fall Wagner), 1888, where the author expresses his sympathy for the work of Bizet.

Nietzsche never enjoyed good health. Already at the age of 18, he began to experience severe headaches, and by the age of 30 he experienced a sharp deterioration in his health. He was almost blind, had unbearable headaches, which he treated with opiates, and stomach problems. On May 2, 1879, he left teaching at the university, receiving a pension with an annual salary of 3,000 francs. His subsequent life became a struggle against illness, despite which he wrote his works. “Morning Dawn” was published in July 1881, and with it began a new stage in Nietzsche’s work - the stage of the most fruitful work and significant ideas.

At the end of 1882, Nietzsche traveled to Rome, where he met Lou Salome, who left a significant mark on his life. From the first seconds, Nietzsche was captivated by her flexible mind and incredible charm. He found in her a sensitive listener, she, in turn, was shocked by the fervor of his thoughts. He proposed to her, but she refused, offering her friendship in return. After some time, together with their mutual friend Paul Ree, they organize a kind of union, living under the same roof and discussing the advanced ideas of philosophers. But after a few years it was destined to fall apart: Elisabeth, Nietzsche’s sister, was dissatisfied with Lou’s influence on her brother and resolved this problem in her own way by writing a rude letter to her. As a result of the ensuing quarrel, Nietzsche and Salomé separated forever.

Nietzsche will soon write the first part of his key work "Thus spoke Zarathustra", which reveals the influence of Lou and her “ideal friendship.” In April 1884, the second and third parts of the book were published simultaneously, and in 1885, Nietzsche published the fourth and last with his own money in the amount of only 40 copies and distributed some of them among close friends, including Helena von Druskowitz.

The final stage of Nietzsche's work is both a stage of writing works that draw a line under his philosophy, and of misunderstanding, both on the part of the general public and close friends. Popularity came to him only in the late 1880s.

Being a philologist by training, Nietzsche paid great attention to the style of conducting and presenting his philosophy, gaining fame as an outstanding stylist. Nietzsche's philosophy is not organized into a system, the will to which he considered a lack of honesty. The most significant form of his philosophy are aphorisms, expressing the imprinted movement of the author’s state and thoughts, which are in eternal formation. The reasons for this style are not clearly identified. On the one hand, such a presentation is associated with Nietzsche’s desire to spend a long part of his time walking, which deprived him of the opportunity to consistently take notes of his thoughts. On the other hand, the philosopher’s illness also imposed its limitations, which did not allow him to look at white sheets of paper for a long time without pain in his eyes. Nevertheless, the aphorism of the letter should also be attributed (in the spirit of Nietzsche’s own philosophy with its cherished amor fati, otherwise love for fate) to the conscious choice of the philosopher, considering it the result of the development of his beliefs.

An aphorism as its own commentary unfolds only when the reader is involved in a constant reconstruction of meaning that goes far beyond the context of a single aphorism. This movement of meaning can never end, more adequately reproducing the experience of life. Life, so open in thought, turns out to be proven by the very fact of reading an aphorism that is outwardly unproven.

In his philosophy, Nietzsche developed a new attitude to reality, built on the metaphysics of “being of becoming,” rather than givenness and immutability. Within the framework of such a view, truth as the correspondence of ideas to reality can no longer be considered the ontological basis of the world, but becomes only a private value. The values ​​that come to the forefront of consideration are generally assessed by their correspondence to the tasks of life: healthy ones glorify and strengthen life, while decadent ones represent disease and decay. Every sign is already a sign of powerlessness and impoverishment of life, which in its fullness is always an event. Uncovering the meaning behind a symptom reveals the source of the decline. From this position, Nietzsche makes an attempt to reassess values ​​that are still uncritically taken for granted.

Nietzsche saw the source of a healthy culture in the dichotomy of two principles: Dionysian and Apollonian. The first personifies the unbridled, fatal, intoxicating passion of life coming from the very depths of nature, returning a person to immediate world harmony and unity of everything with everything; the second, Apollonian, envelops life in the “beautiful appearance of dream worlds,” allowing one to put up with it. Mutually overcoming each other, the Dionysian and Apollonian develop in strict correlation. Within art, the collision of these principles leads to the birth of tragedy. Observing the development of the culture of Ancient Greece, Nietzsche focused on the figure. He asserted the possibility of comprehending and even correcting life through the dictatorship of reason. Thus, Dionysus found himself expelled from culture, and Apollo degenerated into logical schematism. This complete forced distortion is the source of the crisis of modern Nietzschean culture, which turned out to be bloodless and devoid, in particular, of myths.

One of the most striking symbols captured and considered by Nietzsche’s philosophy was the so-called death of God. It marks a loss of trust in the supersensible foundations of value orientations, i.e. nihilism manifested in Western European philosophy and culture. This process, according to Nietzsche, comes from the very spirit of Christian teaching, which gives preference to the other world, and is therefore unhealthy.

Symbol of Nietzsche's philosophy - superman. According to him, the superman is what needs to be achieved, while man is the bridge between the animal and the superman. The superman must look at man in the same way as a man looks at an animal, that is, with contempt.

Nietzsche's creative activity ended at the beginning of 1889 due to clouding of his mind. It occurred after a seizure, when the owner beat the horse in front of Nietzsche. There are several versions explaining the cause of the disease. Among them are bad heredity (Nietzsche’s father suffered from mental illness at the end of his life); possible disease with neurosyphilis, which provoked madness. Soon the philosopher was placed in a Basel psychiatric hospital by his friend, professor of theology, Frans Overbeck, where he remained until March 1890, when Nietzsche's mother took him to her home in Naumburg.

After the death of his mother, Friedrich can neither move nor speak: he is struck by apoplexy. Thus, the illness did not retreat from the philosopher one step until his death: until August 25, 1900. He was buried in the ancient Recken church, dating from the first half of the 12th century. His relatives are buried next to him.

Major works of Nietzsche:

"The Birth of Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism" (Die Geburt der Tragödie, 1872)
"Untimely Reflections" (Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, 1872-1876)
"David Strauss as Confessor and Writer" (David Strauss: der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller, 1873)
“On the benefits and harms of history for life” (Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben, 1874)
3. “Schopenhauer as an educator” (Schopenhauer als Erzieher, 1874)
4. “Richard Wagner in Bayreuth” (Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, 1876)
“Human, all too human. A Book for Free Minds" (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, 1878). With two additions: “Mixed Opinions and Sayings” (Vermischte Meinungen und Sprüche, 1879)
"The Wanderer and His Shadow" (Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, 1880)
"Morning Dawn, or Thoughts on Moral Prejudice" (Morgenröte, 1881)
"The Gay Science" (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882, 1887)
“Thus spoke Zarathustra. A book for everyone and no one" (Also sprach Zarathustra, 1883-1887)
“Beyond good and evil. Prelude to the Philosophy of the Future" (Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 1886)
“Toward the genealogy of morality. Polemical essay" (Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887)
"The Case of Wagner" (Der Fall Wagner, 1888)
“The Twilight of the Idols, or How One Philosophizes with a Hammer” (Götzen-Dämmerung, 1888), also known as “The Fall of the Idols, or How One Can Philosophize with a Hammer”
"Antichrist. A Damnation to Christianity" (Der Antichrist, 1888)
“Ecce Homo. How they become themselves" (Ecce Homo, 1888)
“The Will to Power” (Der Wille zur Macht, 1886-1888, 1st ed. 1901, 2nd ed. 1906), a book compiled from Nietzsche’s notes by the editors E. Förster-Nietzsche and P. Gast. As M. Montinari proved, although Nietzsche planned to write the book “The Will to Power. The experience of revaluing all values" (Der Wille zur Macht - Versuch einer Umwertung aller Werte), which is mentioned at the end of the work "On the Genealogy of Morals", but abandoned this idea, and the drafts served as material for the books "Twilight of the Idols" and "Antichrist" (both written in 1888).

The work of Friedrich Nietzsche, the world famous German philosopher, still causes a lot of controversy. Some consider him the “father” and theorist of racial theory, while others admire his outstanding research in the field of ethical philosophy. To form your own idea of ​​the achievements and conclusions of this extraordinary person, you should carefully study his biography and the formation of a worldview that allows you to draw your own conclusions.

Childhood

In 1844, in a small provincial town in East Prussia, the future scientist Friedrich Nietzsche was born. To this day, the philosopher’s ancestors are not exactly known: one point of view is that his ancestors had Polish roots and the surname Nitzke, another – German and Bavarian roots, names and origins. Some researchers believe that Nietzsche simply fantasized his Polish origin in order to cover his origin with a veil of mystery and arouse interest around his origin.

But it is very well known that both of his grandfathers (both on his mother’s and father’s sides) were Lutheran clergymen, just like his father. But already at the age of five, the boy remained in the care of his mother due to the premature death of his father. In addition, his sister, with whom Frederick was very close, had a huge influence on the child’s upbringing. Mutual understanding and ardent affection for each other reigned in the family, but already at that time the child showed an extraordinary mind and a desire to be different from everyone else and to be special in all respects. Perhaps it was precisely this dream that forced him to act differently from what others expected.

Classical education

At the age of 14, the young man went to study at the classical gymnasium of the city of Pforta, which was famous for teaching ancient languages ​​and history, and also classical literature.

Studying languages ​​and literature, the future philosopher achieved enormous success, but always had problems with mathematics. He read a lot, was interested in music and tried to write himself, while his works were still immature, but he, being carried away by German poets, tried to imitate them.

In 1862, a gymnasium graduate went to the central university of Bonn and entered the department of theology and philosophy. Since childhood, he felt a strong desire to study the history of religion and dreamed of following in the footsteps of his father and becoming a pastor-preacher.

It is unknown whether unfortunately or fortunately, but during his student days Nietzsche’s views changed dramatically, and he became a militant atheist. In addition, he did not develop trusting relationships with either his classmates or the teaching staff of the University of Bonn, and Friedrich transferred to study in Leipzig, where he was immediately appreciated and was invited to teach Greek. Under the influence of his teacher Richli, he agreed to this service while still a student. After a very short time, Friedrich passed the exam and received the title of professor of philology and a teaching position in Basel. But he was not satisfied with this work, since he never saw himself only as a teacher and professor.

Formation of Beliefs

It is in his youth that a person greedily absorbs everything that piques his interest and easily learns everything new. Thus, the future great philosopher in his youth experienced several serious shocks that influenced the formation of his beliefs and the development of philosophical views. In 1868, the young man met the famous German composer Wagner. Undoubtedly, even before meeting him, Nietzsche knew and loved, he was even simply fascinated by the music of Wagner, but the acquaintance shook him to the core. Over the course of three years, their acquaintance grew into a warm friendship, since there were a lot of interests connecting these extraordinary people. But gradually this friendship began to fade, and after Friedrich published the book “Human, All Too Human” it was severed. In this book, the composer saw signs of the philosopher’s mental illness.

Nietzsche experienced another strong shock after reading A. Schopenhaur’s book “The World as Will and Representation.” In general, a scrupulous study of Schopenhauer’s works can change still immature views on the world; it is not without reason that he is called the “father of universal pessimism.” This is exactly the impression this book made on Nietzsche.

The young man was amazed by Schopenhauer’s ability to tell people the truth to their faces, without looking back at social laws and conventions. Since childhood, Nietzsche dreamed of standing out from the crowd and destroying the foundations, so the philosopher’s book had the effect of a bomb exploding. It was this work that forced Nietzsche to become a philosopher and publish his views, boldly throwing in people’s faces the real truth from which they cowardly hide.

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), Nietzsche worked as an orderly and saw a lot of dirt and blood, but this, oddly enough, did not turn him away from violence, but on the contrary, made him think that any wars are necessary as processes that heal society, and since people are greedy and cruel by nature, during war they quench their thirst for blood and society itself becomes healthier and calmer.

Nietzsche's health

Since childhood, the future philosopher could not boast of good health (in addition, the inheritance of a mentally ill father had an impact); his poor eyesight and physical weakness often let the young man down and did not allow him to sit for a long time at work. Intensive study at the university led to the young man experiencing severe migraines, insomnia, dizziness and nausea. All this, in turn, led to a decrease in vitality and the appearance of a prolonged depressive state.

At a more mature age, he contracted neurosyphilis from a woman of easy virtue, which at that time could not yet be completely cured. At the age of thirty, my health deteriorated even more: my vision began to deteriorate sharply, debilitating headaches and chronic fatigue led to extreme mental exhaustion.

In 1879, due to health problems, Nietzsche had to resign from the university and seriously take up treatment. At the same time, his teaching took full shape, and his creative work became more productive.

Love on life's path

The personal and intimate life of the philosopher cannot be called happy. In his early youth, he had a sexual relationship with his sister, with whom he even wanted to start a family. Again, in his youth, he experienced violence from a woman much older than himself, which turned the young man away from sex and love for a long time.

He had quite a long relationship with women of easy virtue. But since the philosopher valued in a woman not sexuality, but intelligence and education, it was very difficult for him to establish long-term relationships that develop into strong bonds.

The philosopher himself admitted that only twice in his life did he propose to women, but in both cases he was refused. For quite a long time he was in love with Wagner’s wife, then he became very interested in the doctor and psychotherapist Lou Salome.

For some time they lived in a civil marriage, and it was under the influence of their relationship that Nietzsche wrote the first part of the sensational book “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.”

The apogee of creativity

After his early retirement, Nietzsche took up philosophy seriously. It was in the next ten years that he wrote 11 of his most significant books, which completely changed Western philosophy. Over the next four years, he created the most famous book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

This work cannot be called philosophical, in the usual and familiar sense of the word, the book contains sayings, poetry, abstract bright ideas, non-trivial thoughts about life in society. Within two years after its publication, Nietzsche became the most famous person not only in his country, but also abroad.

The philosopher’s last book, “The Will to Power,” which took more than five years to complete, was published after the philosopher’s death with the help of his sister Elizabeth.

Philosophical teachings of Nietzsche

The views of Friedrich Nietzsche can be called everything-denying and extremely radical. Having become a militant atheist, he criticized the Christian basis of society and Christian morality. He considered the culture of Ancient Greece, which he studied well, to be the ideal of human existence, and characterized the further development of society as regression.

His philosophical vision of the world, outlined in the book “Philosophy of Life,” explains that every human life is unique and inimitable. Moreover, any human individual is valuable precisely from the point of view of his own life experience, obtained empirically. He considered will to be the main human quality, since only will can force a person to carry out any orders of the brain (mind).

From the very beginning of human civilization, people have been fighting for survival and in this struggle only the most worthy survive, i.e. the strongest. This is how the idea of ​​a Superman arose, standing “Beyond good and evil,” above the law, above morality. This idea is fundamental in Nietzsche’s work, and it was from it that the fascists drew their racial theory.

The meaning of life according to Nietzsche

The main philosophical question is: what is the meaning of human life? Why did humanity come to this world? What is the purpose of the historical process?

In his writings, Nietzsche completely denies the existence of the meaning of life, he denies Christian morality and proves that the church deceives people by imposing on them false concepts of happiness and fictitious goals in life.

There is only one life and it is real on earth here and now; you cannot promise a reward for good behavior in a different measure, which does not exist. HE believed that the church forces people to do things that are not at all characteristic of them, and are even contrary to destructive human nature. If you understand that there is simply no God, then a person will have to bear responsibility for any of his actions, without shifting them to the notorious “God’s will.”

It is in this case that man will manifest himself: as the greatest creation of nature or man - an animal, aggressive and cruel. In addition, every man must strive for power and victory at any cost, only because of the desire to dominate given to him by nature.

Explanation of the concept of Superman

In his main book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche formulates the idea of ​​a Superman who should emerge as a result of the evolutionary process in the struggle for leadership. This man destroys all foundations and laws, he knows no illusions and mercy, his main goal is power over the whole world.

In contrast to the Superman, the last man appears. How can one not recall Rodion Raskolnikov and his: “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?” This last man does not fight and does not strive for leadership, he chose for himself a comfortable, animal existence: he eats, sleeps and reproduces, multiplying the last people like himself, capable only of obeying the orders of the superman.

Precisely because the world is filled with people so unnecessary to history and progress, war is a blessing, clearing space for new people, a new race.

Therefore, Nietzsche’s concept was positively accepted by Hitler and others like him and formed the basis of racial theory. For these reasons, the philosopher’s works were banned in the USSR.

The influence of Nietzsche's philosophy on world culture

Today, Nietzsche's works no longer evoke such fierce rejection as at the beginning of the twentieth century. Sometimes they discuss with him, sometimes they think about it, but it is simply impossible to be indifferent to his ideas. Under the influence of these philosophical views, Thomas Mann wrote the novel “Doctor Faustus”, and the philosophical thought of O. Spegler developed, and his work “The Decline of Civilization” was clearly dictated by the interpretation of Nietzsche’s ideological views.

last years of life

Hard mental work shook the philosopher’s already weak health. In addition, a hereditary tendency to mental illness could manifest itself at any time.

In 1898, the philosopher saw a public scene of cruel abuse of a horse, which provoked an unexpected attack of mental illness. Doctors could not offer any other way out and sent him to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. For several months the philosopher was in a room with soft walls so as not to damage his limbs due to outbursts of aggression.

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, culturologist, 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 was highly influential in the formation of existentialism and postmodernism, and also became quite popular in literary and artistic circles. The interpretation of his works is quite difficult and still causes a lot of controversy.

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Sayings and aphorisms of F. Nietzsche. Evil wisdom
Compiled by L.M. Martyanova

The path of the great is winding

The famous German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844 in the town of Recken near Lützen.

The philosopher's ancestors were the Polish nobles of Nitzky. The father, Karl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a parish priest; he received the church parish from the Prussian king Frederick William IV. The philosopher owes his name to his father’s deep reverence for the king.

Unfortunately, the family lost their breadwinner early - he died at the age of thirty-six - when Friedrich was not even five years old. Like his father, Frederick was in poor health, and his entire physical condition bore the mark of his passing life. The desire to overcome the illness resulted in spiritual activity, the desire to live a full, multifaceted life. He is seriously interested in music, even composing it. His poetic talent is revealed. At the age of ten, he seriously thinks about the compositions of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn. Music remained with him throughout his life. Music illuminated his philosophical thoughts and poetry.

Later, being interested in theology and philology, Nietzsche gave preference to philology; he studied at the University of Leipzig in the seminars of Professor F.V. Richlya.

At twenty-two, Nietzsche was an employee of the Central Literary Newspaper.

He later became professor of classical philology at the University of Basel.

From his pen come works written in the genre of philosophical and artistic prose and poetry.

The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music is Nietzsche's first published book. Then there will be “Twilight of Idols”, “Human, All Too Human”, “The Gay Science”, “Morning Dawn”, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, “Beyond Good and Evil”, “Genealogy of Morals” and others.

In Russia, we became acquainted with the work of Friedrich Nietzsche when his main works had already been published. Nietzsche's thoughts were ahead of the development of society. During his lifetime, he had difficulty finding publishers for his books. Only lonely voices supported him. But time passed, and many found spiritual intimacy with him.

European critics of those years often mentioned the closeness of Nietzsche’s work to Russian culture, in particular to the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy.

One way or another, truly Russian culture, like Nietzsche’s work, is characterized by a slight melancholy, artless melancholy, and dreaminess. The “philosophy of life” permeates all the work of this outstanding representative of German culture.

This book contains the most valuable seeds of Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts.

L.M. Martyanova

The heart here is a man, and the head is a woman

I want to teach people the meaning of their existence: this meaning is the superman, the lightning from the dark cloud called man.

Man is something that must be transcended.

Man is a rope stretched between an animal and a superman - a rope over an abyss.

Everything in a woman is a mystery, and everything in a woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy.

A real man wants two things: danger and games. That's why he wants a woman as the most dangerous toy.

A man should be raised for war, and a woman for the rest of a warrior; everything else is stupidity.

The warrior does not like fruits that are too sweet. That's why he loves a woman; The sweetest woman still has bitterness.

A woman understands children better than a man, but a man is more of a child than a woman.

May your love be your honor! In general, a woman understands little about honor. But let it be your honor to always love more than to be loved, and never be second.

Let a man fear a woman when she loves: for she makes any sacrifice and every other thing has no value for her.

Let a man fear a woman when she hates: for a man, deep down in his soul, is only evil, and a woman is still bad.

A man's happiness is called: I want. A woman's happiness is called: he wants it.

And a woman must obey, and find depth to her surface. The surface is the soul of a woman, a moving, seething film on shallow water.

But the soul of a man is deep, its stormy stream rustles in underground caves; the woman senses his power, but does not understand it.

You must not only grow in breadth, but also upward! May the garden of marriage help you with this!

People are not equal.

A woman learns to hate to the extent that she forgets how to charm.

The same affects in a man and a woman are still different in tempo - that is why a man and a woman never cease to misunderstand each other.

For women themselves, in the depths of their personal vanity there always lies impersonal contempt - contempt “for women.”

Becoming a mature husband means regaining the seriousness that you had in childhood, during games.

Huge expectations from sexual love and the shame of these expectations spoil all prospects for women in advance.

Where love or hate does not play along, the woman plays mediocrely.

Even the concubinage is corrupted - by marriage.

Science hurts the modesty of all real women. At the same time, they feel as if they were looking under their skin or, even worse, under their dress and attire.

Both sexes are deceived in each other - from this it happens that, in essence, they honor and love only themselves (or, if you like, their own ideal). Thus, a man wants a woman to be peaceful, and yet the woman essentially In her own way, she is just quarrelsome, like a cat, no matter how well she has learned to look peaceful.

In vengeance and love, a woman is more barbaric than a man.

If a woman displays scientific inclinations, then usually there is something wrong in her reproductive system. Already infertility predisposes one to a certain masculinity of taste; a man, if I may say so, is just a “sterile animal.”

Comparing a man and a woman in general, we can say the following: a woman would not be so brilliant in the art of dressing up if she did not instinctively feel that her lot was second roles.

Seduce your neighbor into a good opinion of her and then wholeheartedly believe this opinion of your neighbor - who can compare with women in this trick!

And truth demands, like all women, that her lover become a liar for her sake - but it is not her vanity that demands this, but her cruelty.

Something similar to the relationship of both sexes to each other exists in an individual person, namely, the relationship of will and intellect (or, as they say, heart and head) - this is the essence of man and woman; between them it is always about love, conception, pregnancy. And note carefully: heart here is a man, and the head is a woman!

“Man does not exist, because the first man did not exist!” - this is what the animals conclude.

That “a stupid woman with a kind heart stands high above a genius” sounds very polite - coming from a genius. This is his courtesy, but this is also his intelligence.

A woman and a genius do not work. Woman has been until now the greatest luxury of humanity. Every time we we do We do not work to the best of our ability. Labor is only a means leading to these moments.

Women are much more sensual than men, precisely because they are not nearly as aware of sensuality as such as is inherent in men.

For all women for whom custom and shame prohibit the satisfaction of sexual desire, religion, as a spiritual release of erotic need, turns out to be something irreplaceable.

Needs of the heart. Animals in heat do not confuse their hearts and their lusts as easily as people and especially women do.

If a woman attacks a man, it is only to protect herself from the woman. If a man enters into a friendship with a woman, it seems to her that he is doing this because he is unable to achieve more.

Our age is eager to attribute to the smartest men a taste for immature, feeble-minded and submissive simpletons, a Faustian taste for Gretchen; this testifies against the taste of the century itself and its smartest men.

In many women, as mediumistic natures, the intellect manifests itself only suddenly and in jerks, and with unexpected force: the spirit then blows “above them,” and not from them, as it seems. Hence their three-eyed intelligence in confused things, hence their faith in inspiration.

Women are deprived of their childhood by constantly fussing with children as their educators.

Bad enough! The time of marriage comes much earlier than the time of love: understanding the latter as evidence of maturity - in a man and a woman.

A sublime and honest form of sexual life, a form of passion, has today unclean conscience. And the most vulgar and dishonest - clean conscience.

Marriage is the most desecrated form of sexual life, and that is precisely why it has a clear conscience on its side.

Marriage may be suitable for people who are incapable of either love or friendship and who willingly try to mislead themselves and others about this deficiency - who, having no experience of either love or friendship, cannot be disappointed and the marriage itself.

Marriage is invented for mediocre people who are mediocre both in great love and in great friendship - therefore, for the majority: but also for those quite rare people who are capable of both love and friendship.

Those who are incapable of either love or friendship place their best bet on marriage.

Who strongly suffers that envies the devil and throws him out - to heaven.

Only in a mature husband does it become family characteristic quite obvious; least of all in easily excitable, impulsive young men. There must be silence first, and quantity influences coming from outside will be reduced; or, on the other hand, should weaken significantly impulsiveness.- So, aging peoples are characterized by volubility in part characteristic For their properties, and they reveal these properties more clearly than in their time youthful flowering.

This pair essentially has the same bad taste: but one of them is trying to convince himself and us that this taste is the height of sophistication. The other is ashamed of his taste and wants to convince himself and us that he has a different and more refined taste - ours. All philistines of education belong to one of these two types.

He calls it loyalty to his party, but this is just his comfort, which allows him not to get out of this bed anymore.

Happiness is following me. It's because I'm not a woman. And happiness is a woman.

Only he who is man enough will free in a woman - woman.

I have always found bad spouses to be the most vindictive: they take revenge on the whole world because they can no longer go on their own.

Darkness and pessimistic coloring are inevitable companions of enlightenment... Women believed, with the instinct characteristic of women, which always takes the side of virtue, that immorality was to blame.

Our higher education has become more natural society - a society of rich, idle people: people hunt each other, sexual love is a kind of sport in which marriage plays the role of an obstacle and a bait; have fun and live for pleasure; physical benefits are valued first; developed curiosity and courage.

Great luminary! What would your happiness be reduced to if you didn’t have those for whom you shine!

Only as a symbol of the highest virtue has gold achieved its highest value. The giver’s gaze shines like gold. The glitter of gold makes peace between the moon and the sun.

Power is this new virtue; the dominant thought is she and around her the wise soul: the golden sun and around him the serpent of knowledge.

Live at war with your peers

From time to time, a little poison: it causes pleasant dreams. And at the end, more poison, so that you can die pleasantly.

Knowing how to sleep is not a trivial matter: to sleep well, you need to stay awake throughout the day.

You must find ten truths during the day: otherwise you will search for truth at night and your soul will remain hungry.

Live in peace with God and your neighbor: good sleep requires this. And also live in peace with your neighbor’s devil! Otherwise he will visit you at night.

This world, eternally imperfect, a reflection of eternal contradiction and an imperfect image - an intoxicating joy for its imperfect Creator - this is how the world once seemed to me.

There is no salvation for one who suffers so much from himself - except for quick death.

The fool is the one who stays alive, and we are just as stupid. This is the stupidest thing in life!

If you had more faith in life, you would give yourself less to the moment.

Yes, death was invented for many, but it glorifies itself as life: truly, a heartfelt service to all preachers of death!

Where solitude ends, the market begins; and where the bazaar begins, the noise of the great comedians and the buzz of poisonous flies begins.

It is difficult to live in cities: there are too many lustful people there.

A little revenge is more humane than the absence of any revenge.

And everyone who wants fame must be able to say goodbye to honor on time and know the difficult art of leaving on time.

For some, the heart ages first, for others, the mind. Some are old in their youth; but he who is young late is young for a long time.

Some people fail in life: a poisonous worm gnaws at their heart. Let him try to make his death all the better.

Too many live, and they hang on their branches for too long. Let the storm come and shake off everything rotten and wormy from the tree!

But a mature husband is more a child than a youth, and there is less sorrow in him: he understands death and life better.

In your death, your spirit and your virtue must still burn, like the evening dawn burns on the earth, or death has not gone well for you.

Truly, the earth must yet become a place of recovery! And a new fragrance is already wafting around her, bringing healing - and new hope!

The Great Noon is when man stands in the middle of his path between animal and superman and celebrates his path to sunset as his highest hope: for this is the path to a new morning.

To create is a great deliverance from suffering and an easier life. But in order to be creative, one must undergo suffering and many transformations.

Great favors produce not the grateful, but the vindictive; and if a small good deed is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

But a small thought is like a fungus: it crawls and hides, and does not want to be anywhere until the whole body is sluggish and flabby from small fungi.

And when I spoke face to face with my wild wisdom, she told me with anger: “You desire, you crave, you love, that’s why only you praise life!"

He is commanded who cannot obey himself. This is the property of all living things.

And just as the lesser gives himself to the greater, so that he may rejoice and have power over the lesser, so the greater sacrifices himself and, because of power, puts his life on the board.

The attractiveness of knowledge would be insignificant if one did not have to overcome so much shame on the way to it.

We look at life poorly if we do not notice in it the hand that, while sparing, kills.

In a peaceful environment, a warlike person attacks himself.

Horrible experiences in life make it possible to figure out whether the person experiencing them is something terrible.

So cold, so icy that your fingers burn on it! Every hand trembles when it touches it! “That’s why it’s considered red-hot.”

There is not a trace of misanthropy in condescension, but that is precisely why there is too much contempt for people.

The danger of happiness: “Everything is for my good; Now every fate is dear to me - who wants to be my fate?

Moving among scientists and artists, it is very easy to make a mistake in the opposite direction: often in a wonderful scientist we find a mediocre person, and in a mediocre artist we often find an extremely remarkable person.

We act in reality the same way as in a dream: we first invent and create for ourselves the person with whom we enter into communication - and now we forget about it.

Our vanity wants what we do best to be considered the most difficult for us. On the origin of many types of morality.

The thought of suicide is a powerful comforting tool: it helps one get through other dark nights safely.

Look at science from the point of view of an artist, and at art from the point of view of life.

Man is also surprised at himself, at the fact that he cannot learn to forget and that he is forever chained to the past; no matter how far and no matter how fast he runs, the chain runs with him.

Isn’t it a miracle that a moment that appears as quickly as it disappears, that arises from nothing and turns into nothing, that this moment nevertheless returns again, like a ghost, and disturbs the peace of another.

If happiness, if the pursuit of new happiness in any sense is what binds the living person to life and encourages him to live further, then perhaps the cynic is closer to the truth than any other philosopher, for the happiness of the animal, as the most a complete cynic, serves as living proof of the truth of cynicism.

All activity needs oblivion, just as all organic life needs not only light, but also darkness.

In nature there is no exact straight line, no real circle, and no absolute measure of size.

The less people are bound by tradition, the stronger the internal movement of motives becomes, and the greater the corresponding external restlessness, the mutual collision of human currents, the polyphony of aspirations.

The delusion about life is necessary for life.

Every belief in the value and dignity of life is based on impure thinking; it is possible only because sympathy for the common life and suffering of humanity is very poorly developed in the individual. Even those rare people whose thought generally goes beyond the boundaries of their own personality do not perceive this universal life, but only limited parts of it.

If you are able to pay attention primarily to exceptions - I want to say, to high talents and rich souls - if you consider their emergence as the goal of world development and enjoy their activity, then you can believe in the value of life precisely because at the same time you're losing sight of other people, that is, you think uncleanly.

The vast majority of people just endure life without much grumbling and, therefore, believes into the value of life - and moreover, precisely because everyone seeks and affirms only himself and does not go beyond himself, like the mentioned exceptions: everything impersonal is completely invisible to them, or, in extreme cases, is noticeable only as a pale shadow.

All human life is deeply immersed in untruth; an individual cannot draw it from this well without at the same time hating his past from the depths of his soul, without recognizing his present motives, such as the motive of honor, as absurd, and without greeting with ridicule and contempt those passions that push him towards the future and happiness in the future.

There is a right by which we can take away a person's life, but there is no right by which we can take away his death.

The first sign that the beast has become a man is that his actions are no longer aimed at the well-being of a given moment, but at long-term well-being, i.e. the man becomes useful, expedient: here for the first time the free reign of reason breaks through.

I still live, I still think: I must still live, for I must still think.

I want to learn more and more to look at what is necessary in things as beautiful: so I will be one of those who makes things beautiful.

There is a certain highest point in life: having reached it and forcibly wresting from the beautiful chaos of existence all caring reason and kindness, we, with all our freedom, are again exposed to the greatest danger of spiritual lack of freedom and the most difficult test of our life.

Absolutely all things that concern us, every now and then are for our good. Every day and every hour, life seems to want nothing more than to prove this point anew every time: no matter what we are talking about - bad or good weather, the loss of a friend, illness, slander, a delay in writing, a sprained leg, a visit to a grocery store, a counterargument, an open book, a dream, a deception - all this turns out to be immediately or very soon something that “could not help but be” - all this is full of deep meaning and usefulness precisely for us.

Everyone wants to be the first in this future - and yet only death and deathly silence are common to everyone and the only certainty in it!

It gives me happiness to see that people don’t want to think about death at all! I would gladly add something to this to make them think about life a hundred times more more worthy of reflection.

One day - and perhaps soon - we will have to realize what our big cities are mainly lacking: quiet and remote, spacious places to think.

Live at war with your peers and with yourself.

Death is close enough that there is no need to fear life.

I must be an angel if I want to live: you live in different conditions.

What kept me going? It's always just pregnancy. And every time with the birth of creation, my life hung by a thread.

To shine in three hundred years is my thirst for glory.

Living for the sake of knowledge is, perhaps, something crazy; and yet it is a sign of a cheerful mood. A person possessed by this will looks as funny as an elephant struggling to stand on its head.

Whoever is able to strongly feel the gaze of a thinker cannot get rid of the terrible impression made by animals, whose eye slowly, as if on a rod, stares out of his head and looks around.

He is alone and deprived of everything except his thoughts; What’s surprising is that he often coddles and plays cunning with them and pulls their ears! -And you rude people say he skeptic.

In any morality, the point is that open or seek higher states of life, Where distraught hitherto abilities could be combined.

Another existence is meaningless unless it makes us forget the other existence. And there are also opiate acts.

Our suicides discredit suicide - not the other way around.

We must be as cruel as we are compassionate: let us beware of being poorer than nature itself!

To give each one his own would mean: wanting justice and achieving chaos.

First adaptation to the creation, then adaptation to its Creator, who spoke only in symbols.

By no means the most desirable thing is the ability to digest everything that the past has created: so, I would like Dante was fundamentally contrary to our taste and stomach.

The greatest tragic motives have remained hitherto unused: for what does any poet know about the hundred tragedies of conscience?

“The hero is joyful” - this has eluded the writers of tragedies until now.

Style must always be proportionate you regarding a very specific person whom you want to trust. (Law double ratio.)

The richness of life reveals itself through wealth of gestures. Need to study feel everything—sentence length and brevity, punctuation, word choice, pauses, argument sequence—as gestures.

Be careful with periods! The right to periods is given only to those people who are characterized by long breathing in their speech. For most, period is pretentious.

Feeling terrified at the thought of suddenly feeling terrified.

In addition to our ability to judge, we also have our opinion about our ability to judge.

Do you want to be judged by your intentions and not by your actions? But where did you get your plans? From your actions!

We begin as imitators and end up imitating ourselves - this is the last of childhood.

“I justify, because I would have done the same” - historical education. I'm scared! This means: “I tolerate myself - if that’s the case!”

If something doesn’t work out, you need to pay double for your assistant’s help.

Our sudden onset of self-loathing can be as much the result of refined taste as of corrupt taste.

Every strong expectation experiences its fulfillment if the latter comes earlier than expected.

For the very lonely, noise is a consolation.

Loneliness makes us more callous towards ourselves and more nostalgic for people: in both cases it improves character.

Some people find their heart no sooner than they lose their head.

There is a callousness that would like to be understood as strength.

Man never has, for man never is. A person always gains or loses.

To know for certain what exactly causes us pain and with what ease someone causes us pain, and, knowing this, as if to predict in advance to your thought a painless path for it - this is what it all comes down to for many kind people: they bring joy and force others to radiate joy - since there are so many of them scary pain; this is called "sensitivity." “Whoever, due to callous character, is accustomed to cutting from the shoulder, has no need to put himself in the place of another in this way, and it often causes him pain: he and has no idea about this slight talent for pain.

You can become so close to someone that you see him in a dream doing and undergoing everything that he does and endures in reality - so much so that you yourself could do and endure it.

"It's better to lie in bed and feel sick than to be forced to do something” - all self-torturers live by this unspoken rule.

A person gives value to an action, but how could an action be given value to a person!

I want to know if you are creative or remodeling a person, in any respect: as a creative person, you belong to the free, as a remodeler, you are their slave and tool.

We praise what suits our taste: this means that when we praise, we praise our own taste - doesn’t this sin against all good taste?

An extraordinary person learns in misfortune how insignificant all the dignity and decency of the people who condemn him are. They burst when their vanity is insulted—the intolerable, narrow-minded brute is revealed to the eye.

From your anger towards some person you concoct moral indignation for yourself - and admire yourself afterwards; and out of satiety with hatred - forgiveness - and again you admire yourself.

Dühring, superlative, looking for corruption everywhere, but I sense another danger of the era: great mediocrity - never before has there been so much honesty And good behavior.

“Punishment” is exactly what vengeance calls itself: with the help of a false word it pretends to be a clear conscience.

To make it pleasant to look at life, it is necessary that its game be well played - but for this you need good actors.

And whatever my fate, what I have to experience will always involve wandering and climbing mountains: in the end, we only experience ourselves.

To see much, you have to learn not to look at myself: this severity is necessary for everyone who climbs mountains.

What would I not give to have one thing: a living planting of my thoughts and the morning dawn of my highest hope!

Those who cannot bless must learn to curse!

Overcome yourself even in your neighbor: and the right that you can win for yourself, you must not allow to be given to you!

He who cannot command himself must obey. Others can command themselves, but they still lack a lot to be able to obey themselves!

This is how the character of noble souls wants it: they do not want to have anything for nothing, least of all life.

The conscience of my spirit requires me to know something one and I didn’t know the rest: I am disgusted by everyone who is half-hearted in spirit, everyone who is foggy, fluttering and dreamy.

Spirit is life, which itself crashes into life.

Even a king is not ashamed to be a cook.

There is nothing more precious and rarer for me today than truthfulness.

In solitude, what everyone brings into it grows, even the inner beast. Therefore, I dissuade many from loneliness.

Surround yourself with small, good, perfect things, O superior people! Their golden maturity heals the heart. Everything perfect teaches us to hope.

But it is better to be stupid with happiness than stupid with unhappiness, it is better to dance awkwardly than to walk with a limp.

Fear is a hereditary, basic human feeling; Fear explains everything, hereditary sin and hereditary virtue. My virtue also grew out of fear, it is called: science.

The desert is expanding

by itself: grief

To the one who is in himself

wears his desert.

Everything that suffers wants to live to become mature, joyful and full of desires.

Joy does not want either heirs or children - joy wants itself, wants eternity, wants a return, wants everything to be eternal.

With all the value that can be due to the true, the truthful, the unselfish, it is still possible that a higher and more undeniable value for all life should be assigned to illusion, the will to deception, self-interest and lust.

Behind all logic, which seems autocratic in its movement, there are values, or more precisely, physiological requirements aimed at maintaining a certain type of life.

The falsity of a judgment does not yet serve as an objection to the judgment for us; This is perhaps the strangest of our paradoxes.

The body dies when amazed any organ.

The assessment with which various forms of society are now approached is in all respects similar to that by which to the world is given greater value than war; but this judgment is anti-biological, it is itself a product of the decadence of life... Life is the result of war, society itself is a means for war...

If a suffering, oppressed person lost faith in your right to despise the will to power - he would enter a period of the most hopeless despair.

Life has no other values ​​than the degree of power - if we assume that life itself is the will to power.

The very overcoming of morality presupposes a fairly high level of spiritual culture; and this, in turn, presupposes relative well-being.

That science is possible, in the sense in which it flourishes today, is proof that all elementary instincts are instincts self-defense And self-fencing no longer work in life. We no longer collect, we squander what our ancestors accumulated - and this is true even in relation to the way in which we we will know.

What value do our evaluations and tables of moral goods themselves have? What are the consequences of their dominance? For whom? Regarding what? Answer: for life. But what is life? This means that a new, clearer definition of the concept “life” is needed here. My formula for this concept says: life is the will to power.

Who will create a goal that will stand unshakably before humanity, as well as before the individual? Once upon a time we wanted keep with the help of morality, but now no one wants more keep, there is nothing to save here. So, morality seeking: create a goal for yourself.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche(German) Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche[ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtsʃə] listen)) - German thinker, classical philologist, composer , creator of the original philosophical a teaching that is emphatically non-academic in nature and partly for this reason is widespread, going far beyond the scientific and philosophical community. Nietzsche's fundamental concept includes special criteria for assessing reality, calling into question the basic principles of existing forms morality, religion, culture and socio-political relations and subsequently reflected in philosophy of life . Being set out in aphoristic manner, most of Nietzsche's writings do not lend themselves to unambiguous interpretation and cause a lot of controversy.

Years of childhood.

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Röcken (near Leipzig, eastern Germany), the son of a Lutheran pastor, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813 -1849). In 1846 he had a sister Elisabeth, then a brother Ludwig Joseph, who died in 1849 six months after the death of their father. He was raised by his mother until in 1858 he left to study at the famous Pforta gymnasium. There he became interested in studying ancient texts, made his first attempts at writing, experienced a strong desire to become a musician, was keenly interested in philosophical and ethical problems, read with pleasure Schiller, Byron and especially Hölderlin, and also became acquainted with the music of Wagner for the first time.

Years of youth.

In October 1862 he went to University of Bonn, where he began to study theology and philology. He quickly became disillusioned with student life and, having tried to influence his comrades, found himself misunderstood and rejected by them. This was one of the reasons for his imminent move to Leipzig University following his mentor professor Friedrich Ritschl. However, studying philology in a new place did not bring Nietzsche satisfaction, even despite his brilliant success in this matter: already at the age of 24, while still a student, he was invited to the position of professor classical philology V University of Basel- an unprecedented case in the history of European universities.

Nietzsche was unable to take part in Franco-Prussian War of 1870: at the beginning of his professorial career, he demonstratively renounced Prussian citizenship, and the authorities of neutral Switzerland prohibited him from direct participation in battles, allowing him only to serve as a nurse. While accompanying a trainload of wounded, he contracted dysentery and diphtheria.

Friendship with Wagner.

On November 8, 1868, Nietzsche met Richard Wagner. It differed sharply from the philological environment that was familiar and already burdensome to Nietzsche and made an extremely strong impression on the philosopher. They were united by spiritual unity: from a mutual passion for the art of the ancient Greeks and love for the work of Schopenhauer to the aspirations of reorganizing the world and reviving the spirit of the nation. In May 1869, he visited Wagner in Tribschen, becoming practically a member of the family. However, their friendship did not last long: only about three years until 1872, when Wagner moved to Bayreuth and their relationship began to cool. Nietzsche could not accept the changes that arose in him, which were expressed, in his opinion, in betrayal of their common ideals, pandering to the interests of the public, and, ultimately, in the adoption of Christianity. The final break was marked by Wagner’s public assessment of Nietzsche’s book "Human, all too human" as “sad evidence of the illness” of its author.

Crisis and recovery.

Nietzsche never enjoyed good health. Already at the age of 18, he began to experience severe headaches, and by the age of 30 he experienced a sharp deterioration in his health. He was almost blind, had unbearable headaches, which he treated with opiates, and stomach problems. On May 2, 1879, he left teaching at the university, receiving a pension with an annual salary of 3,000 francs. His subsequent life became a struggle against illness, despite which he wrote his works. He himself described this time as follows:

...at thirty-six years old I had sunk to the lowest limit of my vitality - I was still living, but I could not see three steps ahead of me. At that time - it was in 1879 - I left the professorship in Basel, lived the summer like a shadow in St. Moritz, and spent the next winter, the sun-poor winter of my life, like a shadow in Naumburg. This was my minimum: The Wanderer and His Shadow arose in the meantime. Without a doubt, I knew a lot about shadows then... The next winter, my first winter in Genoa, that softening and spiritualization, which was almost due to the extreme depletion of blood and muscles, created the “Dawn.” The perfect clarity, transparency, even excess of spirit, reflected in the said work, coexisted in me not only with the deepest physiological weakness, but also with the excess of the feeling of pain. In the midst of the torture of three days of continuous headaches, accompanied by painful vomiting of mucus, I had the clarity of a dialectician par excellence, I thought very calmly about things for which, in healthier conditions, I would not have found in myself enough refinement and calmness, I would not have found the audacity of a rock climber.

“Morning Dawn” was published in July 1881, and with it began a new stage in Nietzsche’s work - the stage of the most fruitful work and significant ideas.

Zarathustra.

Lou Salome in a carriage drawn by Paul Reu and Friedrich Nietzsche (1882)

At the end of 1882, Nietzsche traveled to Rome, where he met Lou Salome, who left a significant mark on his life. From the first seconds, Nietzsche was captivated by her flexible mind and incredible charm. He found in her a sensitive listener, she, in turn, was shocked by the fervor of his thoughts. He proposed to her, but she refused, offering her friendship in return. After some time, together with their mutual friend Paul Ree, they organize a kind of union, living under the same roof and discussing the advanced ideas of philosophers. But after a few years it was destined to fall apart: Elisabeth, Nietzsche’s sister, was dissatisfied with Lou’s influence on her brother and resolved this problem in her own way by writing a rude letter to her. As a result of the ensuing quarrel, Nietzsche and Salomé separated forever. Soon Nietzsche will write the first part of his key work " Thus spoke Zarathustra”, which reveals the influence of Lou and her “ideal friendship”. In April 1884, the second and third parts of the book were published simultaneously, and in 1885, Nietzsche published the fourth and last with his own money in the amount of only 40 copies and distributed some of them among close friends, among whom Helene von Druskowitz.

Last years.

The final stage of Nietzsche's work is both a stage of writing works that draw a line under his philosophy, and of misunderstanding, both on the part of the general public and close friends. Popularity came to him only in the late 1880s.

Nietzsche's creative activity ended at the beginning of 1889 due to clouding of his mind. It occurred after a seizure, when the owner beat the horse in front of Nietzsche. There are several versions explaining the cause of the disease. Among them are bad heredity (Nietzsche’s father suffered from mental illness at the end of his life); possible disease with neurosyphilis, which provoked madness. Soon the philosopher was placed in a Basel psychiatric hospital and died on August 25, 1900. He was buried in the ancient Recken church, dating from the first half of the 12th century. His relatives are buried next to him.

Citizenship, nationality, ethnicity.

Nietzsche is usually considered one of the philosophers of Germany. The modern unified national state called Germany did not yet exist at the time of its birth, but was union of German states, and Nietzsche was a citizen of one of them, at that time Prussia. When Nietzsche received a professorship at the University of Basel, he applied to have his Prussian citizenship revoked. The official response confirming the revocation of citizenship came in the form of a document dated April 17, 1869. Until the end of his life, Nietzsche remained officially stateless.

According to popular belief, Nietzsche's ancestors were Polish. Until the end of his life, Nietzsche himself confirmed this circumstance. In 1888 he wrote: “My ancestors were Polish nobles (Nitskys)» . In one of his statements, Nietzsche is even more affirmative of his Polish origin: “I am a purebred Polish nobleman, without a single drop of dirty blood, of course, without German blood.”. On another occasion, Nietzsche stated: “Germany is a great nation only because so much Polish blood flows in the veins of its people... I am proud of my Polish origins”. In one of his letters he testifies: “I was brought up to trace the origin of my blood and name to the Polish nobles, who were called Nietzky, and who abandoned their home and title about a hundred years ago, yielding as a result to the intolerable pressure - they were Protestants.”. Nietzsche believed that his surname could be Germanized.

Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's views on his family's origins. Hans von Müller refuted the pedigree put forward by Nietzsche's sister in favor of noble Polish origin. Max Oehler, curator of the Nietzsche archive in Weimar, claimed that all of Nietzsche's ancestors had German names, even the families of his wives. Oehler claims that Nietzsche came from a long line of German Lutheran clergy on both sides of his family, and modern scholars consider Nietzsche's claims about his Polish origins to be "pure fiction". Colley and Montinari, editors of a collection of Nietzsche's letters, characterize Nietzsche's claims as "baseless" and "erroneous opinion." The surname itself Nietzsche is not Polish, but is distributed throughout central Germany in this and related forms, e.g. Nitsche And Nitzke. The surname comes from the name Nikolai, abbreviated Nik, under the influence of the Slavic name Nits first took the form Nitsche, and then Nietzsche.

It is unknown why Nietzsche wanted to be classified as a noble Polish family. According to biographer R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche's claims about his Polish origins may have been part of his "campaign against Germany".

Relationship with sister.

Friedrich Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Nietzsche married an anti-Semitic ideologue Bernard Foerster (German), who decided to leave for Paraguay so that there, with his like-minded people, he could organize the German colony Nueva Germania ( German). Elisabeth went with him to Paraguay in 1886, but soon due to financial problems Bernard committed suicide and Elisabeth returned to Germany.

For some time, Friedrich Nietzsche had a tense relationship with his sister, but towards the end of his life the need to take care of himself forced Nietzsche to restore his relationship with her. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche was the steward of Friedrich Nietzsche's literary legacy. She published her brother’s books in her own edition, and for many materials she did not give permission for publication. So, “The Will to Power” was in the plan of Nietzsche’s works, but he never wrote this work. Elizabeth published this book based on her brother's drafts that she edited. She also removed all of her brother's remarks regarding his disgust with his sister. The twenty-volume collected works of Nietzsche prepared by Elisabeth set the standard for reprinting until the mid-20th century. Only in 1967 did Italian scientists publish previously inaccessible works without distortion.

In 1930, Elisabeth became a Nazi supporter. By 1934, she ensured that Hitler visited the Nietzsche Museum-Archive, which she had created, three times, was photographed respectfully looking at a bust of Nietzsche, and declared the Museum-Archive the center of National Socialist ideology. A copy of the book " Thus spoke Zarathustra" together with " Mein Kampf " and " A myth of the twentieth century" Rosenberg were ceremonially laid together in the Hindenburg crypt. Hitler awarded Elisabeth a lifelong pension for services to the fatherland.

Philosophizing style.

Being a philologist by training, Nietzsche paid great attention to the style of conducting and presenting his philosophy, gaining fame as an outstanding stylist. Nietzsche's philosophy is not organized into system, the will to which he considered a lack of honesty. The most significant form of his philosophy is aphorisms, expressing the captured movement of the state and thoughts of the author, who are in eternal becoming. The reasons for this style are not clearly identified. On the one hand, such a presentation is associated with Nietzsche’s desire to spend a long part of his time walking, which deprived him of the opportunity to consistently take notes of his thoughts. On the other hand, the philosopher’s illness also imposed its limitations, which did not allow him to look at white sheets of paper for a long time without pain in his eyes. Nevertheless, the aphorism of the letter can be called a consequence of the conscious choice of the philosopher, the result of the consistent development of his beliefs. An aphorism as its own commentary unfolds only when the reader is involved in the constant reconstruction of the meaning, going far beyond the context of an individual aphorism. This movement of meaning can never end, more adequately conveying experience life.

Healthy and decadent.

In his philosophy, Nietzsche developed a new attitude towards reality, built on metaphysics "being of becoming", and not given and unchangeable. Within such a view true how the correspondence of an idea with reality can no longer be considered the ontological basis of the world, but becomes only a private value. Coming to the forefront of consideration values are generally assessed according to their correspondence to the tasks of life: healthy glorify and strengthen life, while decadent represent disease and decay. Any sign is already a sign of powerlessness and impoverishment of life, which in its fullness is always event. Uncovering the meaning behind a symptom reveals the source of the decline. From this position Nietzsche attempts revaluation of values, still not critically taken for granted.

Dionysus and Apollo. Socrates' problem.

Nietzsche saw the source of a healthy culture in the dichotomy of two principles: Dionysian and Apollonian. The first personifies the unbridled, fatal, intoxicating, coming from the very depths of nature passion life, returning a person to immediate world harmony and unity of everything with everything; the second, Apollonian, envelops life “beautiful appearance of dream worlds”, allowing you to put up with her. Mutually overcoming each other, the Dionysian and Apollonian develop in strict correlation. Within the framework of art, the collision of these principles leads to the birth tragedy. Watching the development culture of ancient Greece, Nietzsche focused on the figure Socrates. He asserted the possibility of comprehending and even correcting life through dictatorship reason. Thus, Dionysus found himself expelled from culture, and Apollo degenerated into logical schematism. This complete forced distortion is the source of the crisis of modern Nietzschean culture, which has found itself bloodless and deprived of myths.