Olena Semenyaka
Transformation of Ernst Jünger’s Alternative to the Bourgeois Individual
| Introduction
Ernst Jünger’s personality and writings have always been surrounded by heated debates between his admirers and haters. Quite expectedly, the main source of this passionate attitude lays in Ernst Jünger’s biography, namely his undeniable ideological commitment in the development of National Socialism. Although in philosophical-political relation he is a foremost member of the Conservative Revolution, the later is equally arguable phenomenon because of its historical connectedness with the totalitarian regimes. |
| However, the reason why the Conservative Revolution is also called “The Third Position” or “The Third Way” is the impossibility to refer it to some kind of a right or left ideology. The same is sound in Jünger’s case for his political beliefs have never walked hand in hand with those of National Socialism. This difference became the most explicit in the post-war writings of Jünger. Our research will focus on the transformation of Jüngerian alternative to the bourgeois individual as the gradual crystallization of the genuine conservative-revolutionary ideal of a human. Moreover, we will argue that namely postideological “end of the history” warrants the possibility to testify unchangeable since the Weimar Republic or whatsoever else essential core of the phenomenon. Therefore, starting with Jünger’s journalism during the Weimar years resulted in the Conservative Revolution manifesto “The Worker: Domination and Gestalt” (1932), we will proceed to his far later work, that is the futuristic novel “Eumeswil” (1977). |
