The following essays all appeared in Vouloir 119–121 (1996), the supplement to the revue Orientations, edited by Robert Steuckers. They centre on Julius
Evola’s relations with the two major figures of Italian philosophy in the
interwar period.
In “Evola, ultime tabou?” (pp. 1–3), Gianfranco de Turris
asks if the rehabilitation enjoyed by such philosophers as Giovanni Gentile,
previously denounced as Fascist, might be afforded to Evola. He briefly
sketches the case in his favour: unlike the marginal crank of post-War
imagination, Evola seems to have maintained relations with such figures of the
first rank as Gentile and Benedetto Croce. In “Gentile/Evola: une liaison ami/ennemi…”
(pp. 3–5) Stefano Arcella examines Evola’s fertile collaboration with Gentile
and Ugo Spirito on the Enciclopedia
Italiana. And in “Quand Benedetto Croce ‘sponsorisait’ Evola” (pp. 5–7) Alessandro
Barbera investigates the Croce connection, looking in some detail at the
correspondence between Evola, Croce, and the publisher Laterza.
French originals:
PDF of this translation:
1. Evola: the Last taboo?
We will surely remember 1994 better than 1984, which
Orwell immortalised by writing his celebrated apocalyptic book predicting an
ultra-totalitarian world in which we all would have been irredeemably crushed.
We will not remember it solely for the political event of 27 March in Italy,
but above all for the consequences that this “reversal” might (I insist on the conditional!)
have in the cultural sphere. Whatever one may thing of the victory of
Berlusconi and his allies, it has already had a first result: the organisation
of a colloquium dedicated to the personality of Giovanni Gentile; it was held
in Rome on 20 and 21 May 1994 on the initiative of the leftist municipal
council (which does honour to the Italian left, as does the other colloquium it
dedicated to Nietzsche). We remember he whom we always defined as the
“philosopher of Fascism,” fifty years after his death, when he was assassinated
by a commando of communist partisans in Florence on 15 April 1944. After having
beaten a long and sinuous intellectual course, many post-Marxist philosophers,
such as Colletti, Marramao and Cacciari, claimed him for an authentic figure of
the left, at least in a decent part of his work.
So Gentile recovers all his dignity for the “official”
culture in Italy: of course, this concerns first of all Gentile the philosopher,
and not the man and political militant. All the same, his rehabilitation as a
philosopher marks a step forward in the liberation of spirits. So the last
taboo for Italian intellectuals remains Julius Evola, as Pierluigi Battista
nicely put it in the columns of Tuttolibri.
Now, this year we also commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Evola’s death
(11 June 1974). For Gentile, Italian official culture has at last come to
accept, after a half-century and only some years before the year 2000, the
position and importance of the “actualist” and Fascist philosopher. For Evola,
on the contrary, a silence is always held, even is, imperceptibly, one feels
that something is in the process of changing.
Luciferian Dilettante
Evola, in official culture, is thrown from one extreme
to the other: on the one hand, he’s a demon, the Devil, an almost Luciferian
personage, an ultra-racist to whom salvation is never to be granted; on the
other, he’s culture’s sock-puppet, the inexact dilettante, unscientific and
superficial, a clown of esotericism, “il Divino Otelma.” In interesting
ourselves in him, we then risk toppling into the laughable, unless a more
authorised voice begins to speak of him.
So there is still much work to be done on Evola,
whether it be as a thinker of multiple interests, as an organiser of colloquia
and promoter of intellectual initiatives between the Wars, as a man of culture
and innumerable contacts, who received many suggestions from his contemporaries
and gave in his turn.
During the twenty years that have passed since his
death, few things have been done on his work and person in Italy; and these
were the work of a small number of those who had always referred to Evola.
We’ve found neither the time nor the manpower. It’s a bitter truth; but it’s
so. It suffices to consider archival research: to reconstitute the facts and
ideas, to fill in the “voids” in the life and in the evolution of Evolian
thought, we need the documents; and these are still not all archived. The
documents exist: it suffices to go and search where one thinks they might be
found…
For example, we don’t have access to the complete
documentation on the relations between Evola and the Italian philosophical
world of the ’20s and ’30s: Croce, Gentile, Spirito, Tilgher… We only finally
know what Evola recounts of himself in his “spiritual autobiography,” The Path of Cinnabar. Ultimately, we
know what we can deduce of his positions on diverse philosophical systems and
on what we surmise intuitively. In general, we only know the views and opinions
on Evola of the historians and academics who have especially studied that
period of Italian culture: and they say that Evola was an isolated, marginal
figure; that his ideas were not taken into consideration; that he was a
singular, if not folkloric, figure. But do these opinions really correspond to
reality?
We believe that we can today affirm that things were
not so simple: that Evola was more relevant in his epoch than we’ve believed
him to be. And we affirm this on the basis of a series of indications, hidden
until today. The Roman weekly L’Italia
settimanale is cataloguing these indications for the first time in a
special supplement, in the hope of provoking debate and research.
Sponsored by Croce?
Evola maintained far more complex relations with Croce
and Gentile that we’ve believed for many decades. Can we imagine an Evola
“sponsored” by Croce? An Evola, collaborator with the Enciclopedia Italiana, patronised by the Mussolinian regime and
directed by Gentile? An Evola close to Adriano Tilgher? An Evola in direct
contact with Ugo Spirito? We can now divine that these relations were pursued
more than we imagined them; but we have neither formal proofs nor the documents
that definitively attest to them. The “isolated figure” was not, ultimately,
isolated; the marginalised personage, as well, was not marginalised as we
wished to say; the intellectual who, under Fascism, had amounted to not much,
or missed out on everything, had been, ultimately, of more impact that we’d
thought him. I think that we must seek out and recognise our fault: that of not
having contemplated this sooner, and having given a truncated picture of Evola;
with a complete vision of Evolian words and deeds, we may be able to refute
many commonplaces. This won’t be possible unless the Croce Archives at Naples
and the Gentile Foundation at Rome agree to let us consult the documents they
hold and that concern the relations of Croce and Gentile with Evola.
Better late than never. The future will tell, after
our work is done, whether Evola will always be, for progressivist culture, a
taboo, will be the Devil, a clown…
2. Gentile and Evola: Friends and Enemies
The relations between Evola and Gentile have always
been seen from the perspective of conflict, from the perspective of profound
differences between the respective philosophical orientations of the two men.
Evola, in his speculative period (1923–7), elaborated a conception of the
absolute individual, representing a decisive overcoming of idealist philosophy
in all its multiple formulations—notably those of Croce’s idealism and
Gentile’s actualism. Evola, in reaching the end of his speculations, already
approached the threshold of tradition, understood and perceived as openness to
transcendence, and towards esotericism (as an experimental method for the
knowledge and realisation of the self). His speculative period had thus been a
necessary step on his path towards Tradition.
For all that, in the history of the relations between
these two thinkers, there is an element that has remained utterly unknown
before now: if we make ourselves aware of it, we acquire a clearer, more direct
and more complete vision of the bond that united these two men—enemies to all
appearances. This element is the correspondence between Evola and Gentile,
which we can now consule, thanks to the courtesy the Fondazione Gentile has
shown. This correspondence dates to the years 1927–9, to the time during which
Evola directed the revue Ur, a
publication aimed at working out a science of the Self, and which was
subsequently titled a “revue of esoteric science.”
It was at this time that Gentile, with his
collaborators, prepared a work of great scientific importance: the Enciclopedia Italiana, of which he was
the first director. The first volume of this gargantuan work, commissioned by
the Mussolinian regime, was produced in 1929. The following tomes appeared
quarterly.
The most significant letter, at least from an
historico-cultural perspective, is that sent by Evola to Gentile on 2 May 1928
(the year in which Imperialismo pagano
was published). This letter is on paper with the letterhead of the revue Ur; it thanks Gentile heartily for
having acted upon his wish to collaborate on the Enciclopedia Italiana; and Evola, in what follows, makes reference
to his friend Ugo Spirito regarding the areas that might fall within his
expertise.
This collaboration is confirmed in a letter of 17 May
1929, in which Evola reminds Gentile that the latter entrusted the writing of
certain entries to Ugo Spirito, who in turn entrusted them to him. In this letter,
Evola doesn’t specify precisely which entries are concerned, which makes our
researches more difficult. Currently, we have identified with only one entry
with certitude, relating to the term “Atanor,” signed with the initials “G.E.”
(Giulio Evola).
These points can be verified in the volume Enciclopedia Italiana: Come e da chi è stata
fatta, published under the auspices of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia
Italiana in Milan in 1947. Evola is mentioned in the list of collaborators
(Evola, Giulio, p. 182); and also mentioned are the initials which he used to
sign the entries of his expertise (G. Ev.), as well as the specialism in which
his expertise was incorporated: “occultism.” This term designates the
specialisation of the Traditionalist thinker, and not an entry in the
Encyclopaedia. Furthermore, the citations, which this little introductory
volume indicates beside the matter treated, suggest the volume on which Evola
collaborated especially: it was vol. V, published in 1930, whose first entry
was “Assi,” and last “Balso.”
Currently, we seek to identify precisely the notes
prepared by Evola himself for this volume. We account for the fact that a good
number of entries weren’t signed, and that the preparatory material for the
Encyclopaedia must constantly be recategorised and put in order under the
auspices of the Archivio Storico dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, because these
masses of documents were dispersed in the course of the Second World War.
Indeed, one part of the documentation had been transferred to Bergamo under the
Social Republic.
Another element lets us verify Evola’s participation
in this work of broad scope: Ugo Spirito mentions the name Evola in a text of
1947 among the writers of the Encyclopaedia in the domains of philosophy,
economy and law. Identical indications are found in vol. V of 1930.
On the basis of his data, further considerations are
in order. The fact that Evola wrote to Gentile on paper with the Ur letterhead, on 2 May 1928, is not
random.
Evola was not a man who acted at random, above all
when he might be put in contact with a philosopher of Gentile’s standing, a
figure of the first rank in the Italian cultural landscape of the era. Evola
then didn’t present himself to the theoretician of actualism in a personal
capacity, but as the representative of a cultural thread which found its
expression in Ur, the revue of which
he was the director. Evola hereby attempted to formalise esoteric studies and
sciences within the bounds of the dominant culture, at the historical moment at
which Mussolinian Fascism triumphed. This purpose is divined immediately when
one knows that the discipline attributed especially to Evola in the Encyclopaedia
was “occultism.”
Gentile then accepts Evola’s collaboration, which
represents, in fact, an avowed recognition of the qualifications of the
theoretician of the absolute individual, as well as an indication of the
attention given by Gentile to the themes treated in Ur, beyond the convictions that oppose one man to the other, and
the irreducible differences of a philosophical order that separate them.
Evola’s collaboration on the Encyclopaedia directed by Gentile proves that the
latter counted him among the first rank of scientific minds, the cultural
prestige of which was incontestable in the Italy of that epoch. From these
epistolary exchanges between Evola and Gentile, we can deduce, today, a lesson
which the two philosophers bequeath us in concert: they both show themselves
capable of harmoniously integrating coherences to which they are
strangers—coherences which contradict their own principles—which attests to an
openness of spirit and a propensity for dialogue; to fertile confrontation and
to collaboration, even and above all with those who express a marked otherness
in character and ideas. Coherence is a positive force: it is not the rigidity
of him who shuts himself up in sterile isolation. A fair play upon which it
suits to meditate at this moment, at which some shout their heads off for a new
inquisition.
For fifty years, we have witnessed an uncritical,
misguided and unfounded demonization of our two thinkers; we’ve observed a gulf
of incomprehension, of barriers which, happily, we might begin to break today,
in view of the processes of transformation at work in the world of culture. All
the same, the degradation of cultural debate in the aftermath of anti-fascism
or party spirit is an unhappy reality of our era. To reverse the trend, it
suits to return the spotlight on these bonds between Evola and Gentile—between
two philosophers belonging to entirely different and opposite schools—in order
to launch a debate at the Italian national level; to re-examine the roots of
our recent history; to recuperate what has been unjustly stifled since 1945 and
scrubbed from our consciousness in a burning fever of damnatio memoriae.
In conclusion, besides the path that the consultation
of the Laterza archives offers us to explore the relations between Croce and
Evola, we would also like to consult the letters of Croce; but alas, the Croce
Archives have told us in so many words that “those letters are not
consultable.” These are politics diametrically opposed to those practiced by
the Fondazione Gentile, which itself permits one to consult, without
difficulty, the letters of which I’ve informed you.
3. When Benedetto Croce “Sponsored” Evola
Julius Evola and Benedetto Croce. In appearance, these
two thinkers are very distant from one another. That said, for a certain period
of their coexistence, they were in contact. And it wasn’t an ephemeral episode,
but a link of long standing, lasting for almost a decade, from 1925 to 1933. To
be more precise, we should say that Croce, in this relation, played the part of
“protector,” and Evola the role of “protégé.” This relation began when Evola
entered the prestigious Areopagus of authors at the publisher Laterza of Bari.
In the ’30s, Evola published many works with Laterza,
which have been reissued post-War. Now, today, we still don’t know the details
of these links within the publisher. In fact, two researchers, Daniela Coli and
Marco Rossi, have already furnished us in the past with intelligence on the
triangular relation between Evola, Croce and the publisher Laterza. Daniela Coli
approached the question in a work published ten years ago with Il Mulino (Croce, Laterza e la cultura europea,
1983). Marco Rossi, for his part, raised the question in a series of articles
dedicated to the cultural itinerary of Julius Evola in the ’30s, and published
in Renzo de Felice’s review Storia
contemporanea (6, December 1991).
In his autobiography, The Cinnabar Path
(Scheiwiller, 1963), Evola evokes the relations he maintained with Croce, but
tells us very little, ultimately: far less, in any case, than we can divine
today. Evola wrote that Croce, in a letter, did him the honour of appraising
one of his books: “Well ordered, and underpinned by reasoning quite exact.” And
Evola adds that he knew Croce well, personally. The inquest leads us straight
to the archives of the publishers at Bari, currently deposited at the State
archives of that town, which might consent to furnish us with far more detailed
indications as to the relations having united these two men.
The first of Evola’s letters that we find in Laterza’s
house archives isn’t dated, but must trace to the end of June 1925. In this
missive, the Traditionalist thinker replies to a preceding negative response,
and pleads for the publication of his Teoria
dell’individuo assoluto. He writes:
It is assuredly not a happy situation in which I find myself, I, the author, obliged to insist and to struggle for your attention on the serious character and interest of this work: I believe that the recommendation of Mr. Croce is a sufficient guarantee to prove it.
Theory of the Absolute Individual
The liberal philosopher’s interest is also confirmed
in a letter addressed by Laterza to Giovanni Preziosi, send on 4 June of the
same year. The publisher writes: “I have had on my desk for more than twenty hours
the notes that Mr. Croce sent me concerning J. Evola’s book, Teoria dell’individuo assoluto; and he
recommends its publication.” In fact, Croce visited Bari around 15 May; and it
was on this occasion that he transmitted his notes to Giovanni Laterza. But the
book was published by Bocca in 1927. That was the first intervention, of a long
series, by the philosopher in Evola’s favour.
Some years later, Evola returned to knock at the door
of the Bari publisher, in order to promote another of his works. In a letter
sent on 23 July 1928, the Traditionalist proposed to Laterza the publication of
a work on alchemical Hermeticism. On this occasion, he reminded Laterza of the
Croce’s intercession on behalf of his work of a philosophical nature. This time
once more, Laterza responded in the negative. Two years passed before Evola
reoffered the book, having on this occasion obtained, for the second time,
Croce’s support. On 13 May 1930, Evola wrote: “Senator Benedetto Croce
communicated to me that you do not envisage, in principle, the possibility of
publishing one of my works on the Hermetic tradition in your collection of
esoteric works.” But this time, Laterza accepted Evola’s request without
opposition. In the correspondence of that era between Croce and Laterza that
one finds in the archives, there are no references to this book of Evola’s. This
is why we may suppose that they had spoken of it in person at Croce’s house in
Naples, where Giovanni Laterza has in fact stayed some days previous. In
conclusion, five years after his first intervention, Croce succeeded finally in
getting Evola into Laterza’s catalogue.
The third expression of interest on the part of Croce
probably originated in Naples, and concerns the reedition of Cesare della
Riviera’s book, Il mondo magico degli
Heroi. Of the dialogues relative to this reedition, we find a first letter
of 20 January 1932, in which Laterza complains to Evola of having failed to
find notes on this book. A day later, Evola responds and asks that he be
procured a copy of the original second edition, that he might cast an eye over
it. Meanwhile, on 23 January, Croce wrote to Laterza:
I have seen in the shelves of the Biblioteca Nazionale that book of Riviera’s on magic; it’s a lovely example of what I believe to be the first edition of Mantova, 1603. It must be reissued, with dedication and preface.
The book ended up being published with a preface by
Evola and his modernised transcription. A reading of the correspondence permits
us to admit the following hypothesis: Croce had suggested to Laterza to entrust
this work to Evola. The latter, in a letter to Laterza dated 11 February, gave
his view and judged that “the thing was more boring that I’d thought it would
be.”
The Anthology of Bachofen’s Writings
The fourth attempt, which was not welcomed, concerned
a translation of selected writings by Bachofen. In a letter of 7 April 1933, to
Laterza, Evola wrote:
With Senator Croce, we once mentioned the interest which might receive a translation of passages selected from Bachofen, a philosopher of myth much in vogue today in Germany. If this thing interests you (it might eventually join the “Modern Culture” series), I can tell you what it concerns, taking into account the opinion of Senator Croce.
In fact, Croce was preoccupied by Bachofen’s theses,
as a series of articles from 1923 demonstrates. On 12 April, Laterza consults
the philosopher: “Evola wrote me that you had spoken of a volume that would
compile passages selected from Bachofen. Is it a project that we ought to take
into consideration?” In Croce’s response, dated the following day, there is no
reference to this project; but we ought to account for one fact: the letter has
not been conserved in its original form.
Evola, in any case, had not rejected the idea of
producing this anthology of Bachofen’s writings. In a letter of 2 May, he
announces that he proposes “to write to Senator Croce, that he might remind him
of to what he had alluded” in a conversation between the two. In a second
letter, dated to 23, Evola asked of Laterza if he in turn had asked the opinion
of Croce, while confirming that he’d written to the philosopher. Two days
later, Laterza declares not “to have asked Croce for his opinion” regarding the
translation, because, he adds, “he fears lest he approve of it.” This is
clearly a deceit. In fact, Laterza had asked the opinion of Croce; but we still
don’t know what this opinion was, nor what had been decided. The anthology of
selected writings of Bachofen was finally produced, many years later, in 1949,
by Bocca. From 1933, the links between Evola and Croce seem to come to an end,
at least from what the Laterza house archives permit us to include.
To find the trace of a reconciliation, we must refer
ourselves to the post-War period, when Croce and Evola almost met once more in
the world of publishing, but without the Traditionalist thinker noticing. In
1948, on 10 December, Evola proposed to Franco Laterza, who had just succeeded
his father, to publish a translation of a book by Robert Reininger, Nietzsche e il senso de la vita. After
having received the text, on 17 February, Laterza wrote to Alda Croce, the
daughter of the philosopher: “I enclose to you a manuscript on Nietzsche,
translated by Evola. It seems to me a good work; might you see if we can
include it in the ‘Library of Modern Culture’?” On 27 of the same month, the
philosopher responds. Croce considers that the operation might be possible; but
he provides a few reservations all the same. He postpones his decision till
Alda’s return, who was a few days in Palermo. The final decision was taken in
Naples, around the 23 March 1949, in the presence of Franco Laterza. The
opinion of Croce is negative, seemingly under the influence of his daughter
Alda. On 1 April, Laterza confirms to Evola that “the book was much appreciated
[without specifying by whom] on account of its quality,” but that, for reasons
of “expediency,” it had been decided not to publish it. The translation
appeared much later, in 1971, with Volpe.
This refusal to publish puzzled Evola, who didn’t know
the real whys and wherefores. A year later, in some letters, returning the
issue to the table, Evola raised the hypothesis of a “purge.” This insinuation
irritated Laterza. Following this controversy, relations between the writer and
the publisher cooled. In the final analysis, we can conclude that Evola was
introduced to Laterza thanks to Croce’s interest in him. He left on account of
a negative opinion offered by Alda, Croce’s daughter, on one of his proposals.
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