I. Nietzsche in Ukraine — A rough overview

Paul Stephan: Dear Dr. Mudrakov, thank you very much for agreeing to this discussion about Nietzsche in Ukrainian culture. Perhaps it is best to start with a very general question: What role does Nietzsche play in your country? Is there and was there a strong interest in the German philosopher that had a significant effect on Ukrainian culture? Or is it more of an exotic fringe figure? At the last Nietzsche conference, you already spoke about the author Olha Kobylianska in this regard, We reported, which strongly receives Nietzsche in at least one text. Was it therefore more of an exception — or are there any other such examples?

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Vitalii Mudrakov: In fact, it is a great honor and joy for me to talk about such a connection as “Nietzsche and Ukraine,” because Ukraine is, so to speak, my ontological growth context, it is my home country, and Nietzsche is one of the most important intellectual 'fertilisers' for this growth. So since we're talking about such important things, I feel a huge responsibility. I therefore thank you for giving me the opportunity to have such a conversation. I also hope that this discussion will not only be insightful but also reflect my inner feelings in a certain way.

To answer your question in general, we can use the suggested wording to say that this is an “exotic fringe figure” — but this exoticism has left its mark. In this regard, I would like to deepen your question by explaining when exactly Nietzsche had significance in my country.

His role in Ukrainian intellectual life should therefore not be underestimated, but it was very different in different periods of time! I would therefore like to start our exchange with a periodization of Ukrainian receptions. And since parts of the Ukrainian regions belonged to different state structures in different periods (the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, the Soviet Union and independent Ukraine), it is also essential to talk about the geography of Ukrainian receptions. So that we can better orient ourselves, I suggest the following preliminary, perhaps somewhat political, periodization:

(1) I would describe the first period as “imperial”, spanning the end of the 19th century until the fall of the empires. At this point, Nietzsche entered the territory of the Ukrainian lands, which belonged to different empires and were granted very different cultural and political rights. And this is where the writer Olha Kobyljanska (1863-1942) comes to the fore. After all, she is, among other things, the one who very actively introduced Nietzsche's ideas into Ukrainian literature and thus established modernist tendencies in it. For this reason, she is actually considered one of the key authors of early modernism in Ukraine.

Numerous leading intellectuals of the time pointed out Nietzsche's excessive influence on the writer.¹ They referred in particular to the ideas of the “strong person” or “strong woman” introduced by the author, particularly in her early works. With these, she had a significant impact on the dominant feminist movement of the time in the region and therefore we can say that the — mediated — influence of Nietzsche was very significant here. Kobylianska can therefore be regarded as the first Ukrainian Nietzschean woman who lived in Austria-Hungary. And also the first Ukrainian Nietzschean woman ever, because her interest in Nietzsche preceded similar tendencies in the rest of Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire.

Overall, the Nietzschean influence in this part of Ukraine dominated by Russia is rather superficial; it can be seen, for example, in anti-Christian criticism and the experimentation with various mythologies, such as motifs from the pre-Christian Slavic tradition, in some works. In turn, he can be traced back to wife, the writer Lessya Ukrainka (1871-1913). She came from Volhynia, which was then part of the Russian Empire. Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880-1951), Vyacheslav Lypynsky (1882-1931) and Dmytro Dontsov (1883-1973) can also be included in the galaxy of the “Russian part” of Ukrainian authors, in which the influence of the German philosopher is obvious. These authors are united not only by their reception of Nietzsche, but also by their political work. Although their interpretations of Nietzsche were very different, in view of this synthesis of philosophy and politics, we can still speak of a divided ideological aggravation inspired by Nietzsche's philosophy. This aggravation was based on the desire to change the life and existence culture of the Ukrainian nation. The authors mentioned above spoke, for example, of the “need for a revolutionary transformation of a new person's life,” the “problems of popular will,” or the “ideal of a strong person.”

(2) I can't say much about the second Soviet period, as Nietzsche was banned during this period — the approximately 70 years of the existence of the Soviet Union — and there were hardly any opportunities to work with his texts. During this period, Nietzsche was only seen through the filter of the phrases of Soviet encyclopedias, as follows: “A reactionary idealistic philosopher, an outspoken apologist of bourgeois exploitation, aggression and fascist ideology.” Nietzsche was therefore unable to compete with the Bolshevik interpretations of Marx for the attention of the Soviet proletarians.² And the initial attempts of the 1920s and 30s to continue to receive Nietzsche, in particular through literary visions, ended in the tragedy of the “shot Renaissance”: the Ukrainian futurism of Mykhailo Semenko (1892-1937), who sought to embody a type of strong-willed “iron man” on an artistic nihilistic platform, or the echo of the “superhuman” images as Leader of the masses, who was responsible for his own homeland, by Mykola Khvylovyj (1893-1933), met with the effects and consequences of Stalinism.

It is important to emphasize that the authors of both periods lived in empires and suffered in different ways under the Soviet regime (some were forced to emigrate, others were imprisoned, and some immediately paid with their lives). They were therefore part of both periods, so that the peculiarity of this periodization consists primarily in pointing out the specific possibility of reappraising Nietzsche's philosophy or working with the principles of his worldview in general.

(3) The third period, which can obviously be described as “independent” — from the early 1990s to today — once again opened up the opportunity to get to know Nietzsche and to develop a number of research projects on his philosophy. However, I would not be talking about general cultural influence here, but rather of growing Nietzsche research and translation. In the 1990s, Anatoly Onyshkos published translations of So Zarathustra spoke and Petro Tarashchuks from The Antichrist; At the beginning of the 2000s, Onyschkos were translations of Beyond good and evil and On the genealogy of morality published. Another very important Nietzsche translation project was started in 2004 by Oleh Feschowetz and Kateryna Kotiuk in cooperation with the publisher Astrolabe. Its significance was that the translation was based on the critical edition by Colli and Montinari, which Nietzsche opened up to the Ukrainian public in a completely different way, a “de-Nazified” Nietzsche. The website of the publishing house Astrolabe states that seven volumes of the translation have currently been completed. Unfortunately, progress is a bit slow. There are also other contemporary translations, such as the one translated by Wakhtang Kebuladze Morgenröthe, which was published a few years ago, and some of the German philosopher's ideas are discussed in a philosophical translation laboratory led by the named author and translator.

It is interesting to note that the first studies dedicated to the Ukrainian reception of Nietzsche were written right around the philosopher's anniversary years. For example, the more programmatic articles by Ihor Bytschko (Nietzsche in Ukraine, on the 150th anniversary) and Volodymyr Zhmyr (In the footsteps of Nietzsche in Ukraine, on the 160th anniversary). The recently published article Ukrainian Nietzscheanism by Taras Ljutyj underlines the previous two.

This year's 180th anniversary of Nietzsche gives reason to hope that, despite all the burdens of Russian aggression and the war, this event will also be addressed to some extent in the Ukrainian region. At least I have a few ideas that will not only have a unique effect but will hopefully have a lasting effect. — That's why I would say that Nietzsche is just beginning his journey in Ukraine.

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II. Nietzsche and the development of Ukrainian national consciousness

PS: Thank you very much for your detailed and very detailed answer. Let me ask you a question about each period. Zur first period I would like to note that I see great parallels here with Nietzsche reception in general. There were numerous feminists and emancipated women who took from Nietzsche such a mission statement from a “strong woman,” sometimes even a “referee.” Nietzsche was read not least by women — and this in a completely different sense than can be inferred from some of his texts. Against his will, he became an important catalyst of feminism and general emancipation of women — I think it is here to distinguish between the political movement and the cultural movement — but also, as you also note, a catalyst for political and cultural radicalization processes in general. What I am interested in is whether the consciousness of a Ukrainian There was literature or whether the authors saw themselves more as subjects of the imperial or tsarist empire.

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VM: If we talk about the time frame of this period, namely the late 19th and early 20th century, then a full-fledged awareness of Ukrainian literature was definitely and unequivocally formed during this period. In addition, what can be conditionally described as “the next generation of this consciousness” is already taking place during this time, because the understanding of an independent Ukrainian national literature had already developed before that. I primarily mean the phenomenon of Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861). He lived and worked in the Russian Empire in the middle of the 19th century and is regarded as the founder and promoter of Ukrainian national consciousness in literature in a political sense. Even today, Shevchenko's work is regarded as the spiritual basis for the formation of the modern Ukrainian nation and as a source of national and political consciousness, and the writer himself is a symbol of Ukraine — similar perhaps to Shakespeare for England or Goethe for Germany. But of course we can also talk about writers who lived before him or at the same time and who have also made their contribution to this awareness. Ivan Kotlyarewskyj (1769-1838), for example, and then Petro Hulak-Artemovskyj (1790-1865). The former is regarded as a classic of new Ukrainian literature, but his contribution to the development of Ukrainian national culture is of a more aesthetic and linguistic nature; the latter, despite his literary, translation and educational merits, is accused by researchers of excessive loyalty to the tsarist office. For this reason, the turn of the century already marks a certain germination of this foundation for Ukrainian literature. However, these tender seedlings were always under the hot sun of political pressure from the tsarist empire: official non-recognition, opposition, or complete prohibition of the Ukrainian language and all literary production.

When it comes to figures of Taras Shevchenko's stature in Austria-Hungary, Ivan Franko (1856-1916) is the undisputed favorite. He drew his stories from the life and struggles of his home people, which he wanted to see united in an independent state. Although the general situation of the Ukrainians in the Empire was much better than in the Tsarist Empire and the Ukrainian language, for example, had the status of a “marginal language,” the topics of struggle and freedom for his people are at the center of Franko's work. They represent very well the national consciousness conceived and established by Shevchenko. It should be emphasized that awareness of Ukrainian literature in both parts of Ukraine is focused primarily on the eastern center of the country, i.e. Dnipro Ukraine (Naddnipryanska Ukrayina), which developed a somewhat deeper impetus for national unification. This is likely due to the harsher conditions of existence there.

This is how Nietzsche's seeds grow on the “soil” of these national impulses. In other words, the “radicalizations” mentioned, nourished by his philosophy, first appear in the aesthetic and cultural coding of the above-mentioned authors at the beginning of the 20th century (and in Kobyljanska even earlier, from 1890), and in political coding — but a little later, at the turn of the first decades of the 20th century.

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III. Between censorship and subversion — Nietzsche during the Soviet period

PS: To second period I would like to ask whether Nietzsche was not read in opposition circles after all and acted as a source of ideas there. In the GDR, it was certainly the case that Nietzsche was thoroughly read and discussed in such circles despite official censorship and was therefore able to have a subliminal effect that was also (semi) official in the 1980s. But it would also have been almost impossible to completely suppress Nietzsche there, if only because of its proximity to West Germany and Nietzsche's prominence before 1945.

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VM: Even the period of Soviet occupation was not too homogeneous and was always the same. A look back at the history of censorship in the Soviet Union would be proof of this. The most terrible thing, however, is that not only were Nietzsche or a number of other authors banned, but that the inevitable need to work exclusively with Leninist-Stalinist Marxism was enshrined. Philosophy became a “servant of ideology.” The challenge for intellectuals was therefore to keep philosophical discourse alive in a hidden way and in clandestine form. In addition to developing purely philosophical and theoretical questions, however, it seems important to me to talk about a factor in reading Nietzsche, namely the desire to further develop one's own national culture and identity. This factor had different dynamics in the various Soviet republics. He was always very important in Ukraine. Therefore, the search for sources of confirmation of one's own cultural identity and thus independence could by no means dispense with such fertile ground for rethinking as Nietzsche's philosophy. And it is obvious that it was an underground matter. Here I would like to make an interesting point from the above-mentioned article by Volodymyr Zhmyr, In the footsteps of Nietzsche in Ukraine, mention. In it, he tells how he visited his neighbor's apartment once, in 1964, and saw an open 1:32 book on the table. It was an edition of So Zarathustra spoke from 1903, translated by an author named A. V. Perelhina (unfortunately I couldn't find out her first name). He had traded this translation for another book, and only then could he become familiar with this text. I am telling this story to show how Nietzsche could have been available to read by pure chance. In other words, this work has been lying around on the shelves of private libraries since the days of the previous empire, the period we call “imperial,” without falling victim to the purges of the Bolshevik authorities. Only in this way could an “academic philosopher” read his work by chance. There was no such close “West Germany” from which some works could have come and finally the total number of publications and Nietzsche's actual influence in pre-war Germany was much higher, which was not so easy and quick to eliminate. In the USSR, it was the ideology that cleaned the shelves of many private libraries of such books, while in university or state libraries, special services did this.

The underground inspirations I spoke of would be a good topic for future research, but they are not very well developed at the moment. However, the example of a group of Ukrainian intellectuals who worked to protect the national language, culture and the freedom of artistic creation and were certainly looking for impulses for their own progress — the sixties (Schistdesyatnyky). To illustrate, let us take one of the dissidents and representatives of this movement who was tortured to death by the Soviet authorities, Vasyl Stus (1938-1985). One of his fellow students at the institute testified that he had always been very interested in philosophy and had read Nietzsche very intensively in addition to other thinkers. Since he spoke German very well, it is possible that he read Nietzsche's German-language works that could have been known to him from earlier times. We also know of his diary, in which he wrote down and commented on quotes from philosophers, particularly Nietzsche. The actual ideological influences remain to be investigated here, but the fact that the German philosopher was well known and intensively discussed in these circles cannot be denied.

In this context, I remember a story from my mentor, a well-known translator and specialist in Kantian philosophy, Vitalii Terletsky. He told us students how he studied at the Faculty of Philosophy in Kyiv at the turn of the 80s to the 90s. An extraordinary irony of fate was that back then, in order to read Nietzsche, you had to visit the most important religious and cultural site in Ukraine, the Lavra (the Kyyiv Cave Monastery or Holy Assumption Monastery). This question must also be addressed: How and when did these books get into the church library? But in any case, it is remarkable that it was precisely this ecclesiastical library that “protected” Nietzsche and made his works available for reading.

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IV. Nietzsche and the Ukrainian future and present

PS: What the third period As far as concerns, it may need to be emphasized for our German-speaking readers that these are translations into the Ukrainian language. Russian translations do exist, I suppose, but these translations are part of the effort to establish the Ukrainian language suppressed during the Soviet period, and probably even before, — which is by no means a dialect of Russian, but is perhaps more comparable with Dutch, which would hardly be regarded as a dialectic of German — as a language of education. In general, it is a problem that, for a long time, the West regarded Ukraine as a kind of “Little Russia,” just like Putin. Just recently, the German philosopher Christoph Menke spoke disparagingly of an independent Ukrainian nation as a propaganda “invention.”³ But it is clear that the struggle for an independent cultural identity as a condition for creating a democratic, self-determined community is always moments of reconstruction and Construction includes, especially in the case of nations that have been denied independent cultural development for centuries. Just think of Ireland's revival of the Celtic language or Israel's corresponding efforts — for which Nietzsche was also an important source of keywords, as the Zionists were concerned with the heroic project of constructing a “new Jew” who no longer endures anti-Semitism, but aggressively fights, and stops being as submissive as the “old Jews” or denying their own Judaism like the Millified. As far as I know, Nietzsche did not make a single comment about the Ukrainian countries, even though he was very interested in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia and Poland, with which he even identified himself (cf. my article on this topic on this blog). In this regard, we must finally give up our perhaps imperial, neo-imperial, arrogance and ignorance and accept the independence of Ukrainian culture.

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VM: Dear Paul Stephan, you have raised many topics with this question or comment. I will therefore only talk about each of them very briefly. First of all, to The subject of translations. Yes, of course we talked about Nietzsche's translations into Ukrainian, because why should I talk about other translations, for example into Russian? There were also translations into other languages, such as Polish. However, as you correctly remarked, many Russian translations of philosophical literature are the result of Soviet policy towards languages in general and their opportunities in science (philosophy, literature) in particular. But in the 1990s, more modern translations, particularly by Nietzsche, were also produced in Russia.

I would like to make it clear that all (especially German-speaking readers and researchers) who are accustomed to speaking about Ukrainian culture or language exclusively within the framework of Russian culture or language should reconsider their approaches, because they are outdated and have the aftertaste of imperialism for me personally. You said that very well. And Nietzsche's first translations, which were created in the pre-Soviet period, at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, also testify to an attempt to establish and develop his own culture, especially a linguistic one: Both Russian and Ukrainian translations appeared around the same time. But under very different conditions. It is obvious that only the Russian translations could be officially supported, while the Ukrainian ones were made unofficially in prisons in the form of notes on scraps of paper. I am referring here to the already mentioned Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Vynnychenko. He made one of the first Ukrainian translations of So Zarathustra spoke At some point in the early years of the 20th century, when he was in a tsarist prison, when Ukrainian was not even recognized as a language and was forbidden in every respect. This notebook is now in the Kyiv State Archives. As we see, the translation of Nietzsche for the Ukrainians was carried out by the official bodies of the various periods that were located in Moscow Barely greeted. And coming to terms with such moments of struggle and attempts at resistance should open the eyes of many Western intellectuals to the fact that Ukrainian culture and language are absolutely independent.

What does “Little Russia” actually mean? Serhiy Plokhiy showed in his popular study The Gates of Europethat the “Little Rus” referred to the original core of Rus. “Klein” only meant that there was a smaller number of dioceses there. The “Grosse Rus” was only created later. The Ukrainian countries were therefore never an “offshoot” of Russia, as the term suggests — it is the other way around. At least the term did not originally mean a minority and certainly inferiority, as Putin would like to understand it today. These intellectuals should address this story seriously before they speak of the Ukrainian nation as an “invention.” On the contrary, a propaganda “invention” is the narrative of Russia as a legitimate “original Russia” with Ukraine as an “inferior offshoot.” And it is those Invention that is used to deprive Ukrainians of any opportunity for democratic self-determination — as the Russians have been trying for centuries, although, as described, large parts of the Ukrainian countries were not even part of the Russian Empire for a long time and developed culturally independently of it.

And finally, I'm not sure whether we can use historical or cultural analogies as a template for an explanation. Every nation has its own story, which must first be written, and then parallels can be drawn with other stories of cultures and languages. For a European, although not for all intellectuals, Ukrainian history is still unknown, and unfortunately this often underpins its Russian interpretation. However, if this is a good tool for such and similar intellectuals to understand this issue, then thank you, dear Paul Stephan, for pointing out such parallels.

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PS: You yourself are not only an observer, but also a participant in this, if you will, “third wave” of Ukrainian Nietzsche reception and, as you told me in advance, want to use the mentioned anniversary to found a Ukrainian Nietzsche Society for the first time in the country's history. What I would be interested in in in this regard would be what you yourself, as a Ukrainian Nietzsche recipient, can deduce from his works and what do you think Nietzsche's significance for Ukraine in general could lie in your current situation?

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VM: Yes, there is such an idea and even a plan to found such a community named after Nietzsche. I am currently in the preparation phase. I am trying to understand the possible response of Ukraine's intellectual class to such an initiative and to understand the potential potential of this initiative. We'll see what happens because it's no easy task under the current conditions.

You know, at different times I liked different topics or concepts and Nietzsche's description of them. That has gradually changed. The only thing that remains unchanged is my interest in Nietzsche's methodology. At least that's what I call them. It is a way of analyzing various phenomena as a necessity in order to see something else there that can reveal processes of degeneration or some negations that are often forgotten or suppressed. It is therefore about a constantly incomplete thought project that is driven by dissatisfaction with the prevailing stubbornness. This approach is also known as Nietzsche's “perspectivism.” I have held this opinion for a long time, and we discussed it in our discussions during our joint stay in Weimar in 2017 and beyond, for which I am very grateful to you, and it is also discussed in our article on Nietzsche and the Ukrainian revolution of self-overcoming (link) Treated to some extent.

On this basis, it can be said that the first struggles to overcome one's own slavery (in a spiritual sense, which was almost always imposed by Moscow as an inferiority) took place in the form of revolutions, and now a decisive battle is under way, in which everything is at stake. But overcoming this stage will not be the last, because then we will have to overcome ourselves again, create a new perspective (in the Nietzschean sense). And that will be another major challenge, because now the Ukrainian mind is enveloped in “war mode,” a state in which you easily lose the objective parameters of thinking. They can be overridden by a strong sense of patriotism and a strong desire to establish justice. And that's not bad, it's normal. Because in the War with Evil, in the struggle for one's own identity, one must mobilize all necessary means to strengthen the sources of one's own identity. But as soon as this battle is won, it is important to switch back to another, more open mode so as not to fall into the clutches of “resentment” and the “spirit of revenge,” which Nietzsche so talks about. This is a very serious challenge in the post-war period! And this is where the Nietzsche perspective can be very useful.

For today's Ukraine, however, it is first important to set in motion a wave of Nietzsche studies in general, not only with popular theses aimed at making sharp statements about the reevaluation of the old, but also to understand this methodology of deep and extraordinary thinking. That means: Nietzsche as not a doctrinal philosopher, but as a methodologist. Very different versions of his philosophy are important than the ones we already know. With this in mind, I am currently working on a small project to discuss his philosophy in Ukraine, in particular for the philosophical community otherwise known to make. It will be a series of articles about Nietzsche published by European researchers to mark his 180th birthday. This perspective is very important because I am almost certain that only a few universities — perhaps none — have access to at least some Nietzsche studies of a different kind.

What I mean by that is that Nietzsche should encourage critical, in-depth analysis while promoting creativity. It seems to me that his philosophy has great potential even today to inspire very unusual combinations. I would even say: the potential for provocation, especially intellectually, of course. By the way, there is even artistic proof of this, the painting Nietzsche in ice, or the birth of music from the spirit of tragedy by Oleksandr Rojtburd, a Ukrainian artist, from 2017.⁴ This is an aesthetic vision of his philosophy, which is obviously not without a provocative element. However, this artistic puzzle has yet to be solved and interpreted.

PS: Dear Vitalii Mudrakov, thank you for this extremely enriching insight into the Ukrainian reception of Nietzsche and I sincerely wish your country and family all the best for the future!

VM: Thank you for your interesting question and your friendly attitude.

Vitalii Mudrakov is a philosopher who was born in Ukraine. He studied music, ethics and aesthetics at the Humanities University (Khmelnytzkyi, Ukraine) and then philosophy and religious studies at the Yuri Fedkovych University in Chernivtsi (Ukraine). He has lived permanently in Germany since 2022 and was a scholarship holder at the Friedrich Nietzsche College (Klassik Stiftung Weimar) and at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” (University of Münster). He has recently received a scholarship at the “Center for Religious Studies” (CERES) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. He is currently working on a concept of “identity security.” His current research also focuses on Nietzsche's metaphor as a methodological concept of epistemology and axiological transformation as well as the Ukrainian reception of Nietzsche.

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Source reference for the article image

Oleksandr Rojtburd: Nietzsche in Ice, or the Birth of Music From the Spirit of Tragedy (2017). Online: https://www.wikiart.org/en/alexander-roitburd/nietzsche-in-ice-or-the-birth-of-music-from-the-spirit-of-tragedy-2017

Footnotes

1: These include historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, literary critic Serhiy Yefremov, language and cultural critic Ahatanhel Krymsky and writer Lessya Ukrainka.

2: Although I know and will try to prove it in an upcoming essay that this ban was only official. Behind the scenes, Nietzschean ideas were certainly present among Bolshevik ideologues and inspirers.

3: “Another undemocratic entity in this war is the 'nation', whose deep and long history is discovered (until recently they would have said: invented) and sung about.” (Dear Etienne, dear Christoph... Online: https://www.philomag.de/artikel/lieber-etienne-austausch.)

4: Editor's note: This is the article image.

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