The preface and introduction to the American edition of `Gli uomini e le rovine'
by H.T. Hansen (http://www.juliusevola.com/site/MenAmongtheRuins.pdf) has become
a universal reference in the field of Evolian studies in the United States, and,
beyond, in the Anglo-Saxon world. Leaving aside G. Stucco's `The Legacy of a
European Traditionalist'
(http://elkorg-projects.blogspot.com/2008/04/guido-stucco-legacy-of-european.htm\
l) and J. Reilly's less known introductory reviews
(http://www.johnreilly.info/mar1.htm), it stood, at the time of publication, and
still stands, almost ten years after, as the only comprehensive attempt
available in the English language at reviewing J. Evola's work as a whole, in
spite of it being called 'Julius Evola's Political Endeavors' (*). Admittedly,
it is, in some respects, an impressive work of scholarship, a work which cannot
but impress Anglo-Saxon students of J. Evola who, for whatever reasons, cannot
check and research into the primary sources.
Much of what is stated about the decisive influences on Evola's thought, his
artistic experiences, his philosophical period, his first steps towards
politics, is accurate, from a scholarly perspective, insofar as, from this
perspective, a man's worldview can only be shaped by his readings, by literary,
scholarly, influences, and in no way by his nature, his race of the spirit, his
race of the soul, and his experience ; by, say, `The Crowd', and not by the
observation, the study of a crowd - true, it is stressed that "Everything that
these people said might be apposite, but it amounts to nothing in an Evolian and
traditionalist worldview if it is not elevated by and grounded in transcendence.
These opinions become valid only when they are seen against the backdrop of a
higher, timeless realm", yet this transcendence is seen as being, so to speak,
of a bookish nature, since the assessment of the extent to which various
`profane' writers shaped J. Evola's "line of thought" is followed by the mere
need to "investigate the extent to which religious and mystical writings
complement the thinkers mentioned thus far, or better, place them in a timeless
framework so that many passages that smack of the "worldview" will be
spiritualized and given a different background as to their meaning", a need
which, while being perfectly legitimate from the perspective adopted by the
preface writer, should be complemented, first, by the expounding, in a much more
systematic and discriminatory manner, not only of the author's points of
agreement, but also of his points of disagreement with his influencers, and,
secondly, by an examination of the alchemy by which the complex interactions of
those varied well assimilated influences resulted in an organic, essentially
consistent and coherent, worldview ; of how, for example, what is valid in
Bachofen's typology of civilisation, in the substantive part of H.F.K Günther's
racial typology and of L.F. Clauss' Husserlian psychological racialism, in
relevant findings of historians of antiquity such as A. Piganiol and F. de
Coulanges, once defragmented and crowned with a sound knowledge of primary
sources, is synthetised and converted into the coherent account of the Roman
tradition which is given in the anthology `La tradizione di Roma'. Obiter
dictum, the somehow decisive influence of R. Guénon's traditionalism on the
Italian author's thought, as from the editing of `Revolt against the Modern
World', is, as is the case with most authors concerned with the investigation of
J. Evola's bookish influences, hardly touched upon, while the impact of `Sex and
Character' is exaggerated, insofar as most of the considerations of the
half-Jewish Austrian author's about female sexuality, female psychology, about
motherhood and prostitution, can already be found, not always only in nuce, in
the writings of various novelists and poets of the XIXth century, from C.
Baudelaire to J.K. Huysmans, from P. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam to P. Bourget, from
the Goncourt brothers to G. de Maupassant, whose works were well-known by J.
Evola, who, besides, also knew quite well, among other representatives of the
weaker sex, M. de Naglowska, and not just, it would seem, in the Biblical sense.
Much of what is revealed about his relations to Fascism and to Fascists in the
years 1935-1945 is substantiated, while hearsays and rumours, such as that
according to which "Mussolini was afraid of Evola's magical powers and formed
the well-known gesture against the Evil Eye whenever he was mentioned", are
offered as such ; the summary of J. Evola's final assessment of Fascism is also
correct, supported as it is by particularly well chosen quotes such as the
potent and all-encompassing following one : "We are not afraid to invert the
thesis of a certain antifascism, and assert that it was not Fascism that had
negative effects on the Italian people, but rather the other way round: it was
this people, this `race,' that negatively affected Fascism, i.e., the Fascist
experiment, because it showed that it did not have enough men on the necessary
plane of certain higher qualifications and symbols... capable of further
developing the positive possibilities that could have been contained in this
system." Where does maliciousness lie here ? In J. Evola's assessment, which,
from a Fascist standpoint, goes to the bottom of the matter in bringing into
light the fact that Fascism failed essentially because the Italian man was
simply not up to Fascism, or in the preface writer's related comment, who has a
hard time taking into account that J. Evolas's criticism of Fascism is made from
a rightist perspective, from a supra-Fascist standpoint, that "This is not
necessarily as malicious as it seems, even though it is of course provocative
(provocation being, after all, one of the special inclinations of our author)" ?
The account given of the Italian author's connection with National Socialism is
not inaccurate, both on the political-historical plane and on the intellectual
plane, except it is - dramatically – incomplete ; what a statement such as
"Evola tried to construct a racial theory that combines the history of the
spirit with racial history" may mean, we do not have a clue, yet it is the
explicit conclusion reached at the end of the chapter on "Evola and Racism", in
which one cannot but wonder how on earth it can be stated that J. Evola's
"forefathers were (among others) Montaigne, Herder and his Volkergeist (…),
Fichte", when strong reservations are expressed in the first chapter of `Il Mito
del sangue' against Fichte's and Herder's position and constructions on race ;
in actual facts, what J. Evola tried to do in this respect was, as noted by the
preface writer of `Sintesi di dottrina della razza' (1994, 2d ed.), "to give a
traditional content to a modern concept", or, more accurately, to re-actualise,
on the basis of a theoretical assumption of the three-dimensional Indo-European
view of man as body, `soul', and spirit, what was once actually experienced and
had become latent (see the introduction to `Il Mito del sangue').
"The final report on Evola's June 1938 lectures, kept in the handwritten files
of the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS (file AR/126)", is then extensively
quoted and its conclusion highlighted : "there exist no grounds for National
Socialism to place itself at the disposal of Baron Evola. His political plans
for a Romano-Germanic Imperium are of a utopian character and moreover very apt
to cause ideological confusions. Since Evola is also only tolerated and barely
supported by Fascism, it is tactically not necessary to accommodate his
tendencies from our side. It is therefore recommended to:
1. Not support Evola's current efforts for the establishment of a secret
supra-national order and the founding of a magazine directed toward this goal.
2. Curb his public activities in Germany after this lecture series, without
taking any special measures.
3. Prevent his further penetration into leading offices of the party and the
state.
4. Observe his propaganda activity in neighboring countries."
Additionally, a short letter, dated August 8, 1938, from the author of the
report to H. Himmler is quoted : "The Reichsfuhrer-SS has acknowledged the
report regarding the lectures of Baron Evola and is in full agreement (rather :
in agreement) with the thoughts and recommendations (rather : the terms) stated
in the last paragraph thereof."
As if that was it, the conclusion is reached that "According to this, the SS as
a whole was not favorably inclined toward him, even though he was apparently
unaware of it", following which thoughts are given on "some areas in which he
(J. Evola) thinks National Socialism (which he refers to as "the new views") has
made a positive development" and other areas he thinks there is room for
improvement, in the light of the highest Aryan tradition.
Let us go through the various other documents published in `Julius Evola nei
rapporti delle SS' (Quaderni di testi evoliani n°33, Fondazione Julius Evola,
2000) that are not taken into account by Dr Hansen in his judgment of the
relationship between the Italian author and the National-Socialist
plenipotentiaries. In a short letter, dated September 6, 1938, to the personal
staff of the Reichsfûhrer-SS, the `Società Italo-Tedesca' confirmed they had
received the day before a payment of "300 Reichsmark for the stay of J. Evola in
Germany" the previous June. In March 1939, G. Landra, who became later the first
director of the Office of Racial Studies and who, at that time, was a lecturer
in anthropology at the University of Rome, wrote to the Reichsführer-SS,
informing him that their attention had been drawn by J. Evola to the "biological
and racist basis of the SS led by you, as well as to the aspects that make it a
caste order". Six weeks later or so, the SS. Obersturmbannführer Grau, in a
letter to SS-Obersturmbannführer Dr. R. Brandt, Himmler's personal chief of
staff, reminded him that "The Baron Evola, who once published a brilliant
article on the SS in the Italian review `La Vita Italiana', (…) after he read
the speech delivered by the Reichsführer-SS (…) in Magdebourg, wrote another
article which is essentially based on this speech and which he would like to
publish, under the signature of the Reichsführer, in `La Vita Italiana' or in
the review `Regime Fascista'. The Baron is acting under the explicit orders of
Professor Landra, that is, of the Minister (of Popular Culture) Farinacci." Two
days later, Dr. Brandt informed Grau that J. Evola's request had been favourably
considered by the Reischsführer, who, however, did not wish the article to be
published with his signature, and asked that a few minor changes be made to some
passages of the article "that could hurt Italians". It was published on June 15
of that year, in `Regime Fascista', and sent to H. Himmler, who, on July 26, had
Standartenführer Ullmann, informed G. Landra of the following :
"The Reichsführer-SS is willing to keep supporting in the future the work of
writer of the baron J. Evola. The baron J. Evola is therefore asked to make
proposals on the topics he intends to tackle in the field of activities of the
SS."
There is further evidence in that part of the preface to the American edition of
`Gli Uomini e le rovine' to support the claim we once made that most National
Socialist officials do not seem to have had first hand information on J. Evola's
work, nor on his precise relations with the Fascist regime, in the light of the
fact that, in a review sent by Dr Huettig to the head of the NSDAP Racial Policy
Department Dr Gross on 'Sintesi di Dottrina della Razza' on September 9, 1942,
the former wrongly stated that J. Evola 'was not authorised' to call it
'Synthesis of Fascist Racial Doctrine', when B. Mussolini had already gone so
far as to explicitly authorise J. Evola to call the German edition of 'Sintesi
di Dottrina della Razza' - 'Synthesis of Fascist Racial Doctrine' - 'Grundrisse
der Faschistischen Rassenlehre'. This further piece of evidence is
unintentionally provided by Dr. Hansen, when he refers to "Another document from
Himmler's personal staff" which purportedly shows that "Himmler personally
received and collected information about Evola" and "reports that Himmler again
ordered a thorough examination of Evola's Heidnischer Imperialismus, in which
the German translation should even be compared to the original Italian text in
order to eliminate errors in translation (sic)." So H. Himmler or/and the chief
of the Sicherheitshauptamt (main security office) who was supposedly in charge
of collecting information about the Italian author was/were not aware of what
was known by any contemporary Italian-speaking German reader interested in J.
Evola's work, that is, that `Heidnischer Imperialismus' was not the German
translation of `Imperialismo pagano', and that it was even a completely
different book - the huge shortcomings of German intelligence agencies of that
time have been pointed out by various post-WW2 historians and experts, who also
noted how infiltrated they were by allied spies or, simply, by civil servants
nostalgic of Weimar.
It would be interesting to know exactly when that "document from Himmler's
personal staff", which is "archived in the aforementioned file under no. II
2113", which includes a most unfavourable opinion of the then chief of the
Sicherheitshauptamt on a not so unfavourable appreciation of the
National-Socialist world-outlook by J. Evola, and of which we have not been able
to get hold, was concocted.
Whoever this chief of the Sicherheitshauptamt may have been, let us wish he did
not meet the same fate as Wiligut/Weisthor, who, a few months after having urged
"Not (to) support Evola's current efforts for the establishment of a secret
supra-national order and the founding of a magazine directed toward this goal,
(and to) Curb his public activities in Germany after this lecture series,
without taking any special measures", was retired from the SS, and the return of
his Totenkopf ring, of his SS Dagger and his Honour Sword was requested by H.
Himmler.
In 1944, following the invasion of Italy by the Anglo-Saxon cannon fodder of the
anti-European forces, J. Evola moved or, perhaps, was moved to Austria, where,
in Vienna, he was commissioned by the SS to translate Freemasonic documents
seized by the Gestapo from various lodges which had just been raided by the SS.
The second part of our review of the preface to the American edition of `Gli
uomini e le rovine" (`Men and the Ruins') will deal with its antepenultimate
part, "Evola's Attitude Toward the Jews", about which there is quite a lot to
say.
* A 192-page book, due to be out in mid-May, by Paul Furlong, Professor of
European Studies and Head of School, School of European Studies, Cardiff
University, is, as suggested by its title, mainly concerned with the `Social and
Political Thought of Julius Evola (Extremism and Democracy)', as are a few more
or less anecdotic pages by T. Sheehan, M. Sedgwick and R. Drake.