“Russian Nietzsche” and “Russian Wagner”

Abstract

The controversy “Zarathustra against Parsifal” is unique in the story of the Nietzsche and Wagner relationship. Here, the battle of ideas ascends to its peak and bursts out on the plane of art and fiction. Genre structures of both works, corresponding to a Christian mystery drama and a Christian myth, give us the key to revealing the artistic and ideological intentions of the authors. Russian reception of Wagner and Nietzsche during the Silver Age cleared the problem up, as V. Solovyov formulated, and Ellis, infl uenced by R. Steiner, elaborated the concept of the two contradictory genres, the two models of culture, the two ways of modern art.