The will to power in ethnogenesis: Nietzschean motives of Eurasian anthropology

Abstract

Introduction.The article carries out a philosophical reconstruction of Eurasian anthropology based on the analysis of the theory of ethnogenesis by L. N. Gumilyov. In the conceptual developments of the classicist of Eurasianism, the motives of Nietzschean anthropology are explicated, which makes it possible to fit the Eurasian concept of man into the context of post-metaphysical philosophy. Theoretical analysis. The application of methodological principles and guidelines of philosophical comparative analysis allows us to reveal parallels between the basic concepts of the theory of ethnogenesis and the basic concepts of Nietzschean anthropology (the will to power, overman, eternal return). Conclusion. A comparative analysis allows us to conclude that the key point of both Nietzschean anthropology and the anthropological teachings of L. N. Gumilev advocates transgression, understood by the author as an ontological horizon opposite to transcendence. The article substantiates the thesis that the constitutive moment of understanding a person in the teachings of F. Nietzsche and the theory of L. N. Gumilev is the rejection of transcendence and the affirmation of the purely transgressive nature of human existence. The rethinking of the nature of the connection between Nietzschean anthropology and the heritage of antiquity is also carried out. It is concluded that Nietzsche’s appeal to antiquity was provoked by the situation of crisis in European metaphysics and Western Christianity. The thesis is substantiated that the crisis of metaphysical philosophy is at the same time the main motive for the Eurasians to turn to the East as a fundamentally non-European horizon of philosophical thought.

Keywords

• transgression
• eurasianism
• passionarity
• will to power
• man