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Julius Evola

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Julius Evola, born Giulio Cesare Evola, aka Baron Giulio (May 19, 1898-June 11, 1974), was a controversial Italian esotericist, who wrote prolifically on matters political, philosophical, historical, and religious from a Traditionalist point of view.

Early years

Born Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola in Rome to a noble Sicilian family. He fought in World War I as an artillery officer on the Asiago plateau. Attracted to the avant-garde, Evola became a Dadaist painter and poet & was briefly a member of Filippo Marinetti's Futurist movement. Around 1920, his interests led him away from the production of art. He had began reading various esoteric texts and gradually delved deeper into occult and Oriental studies. He also became acquainted with Mussolini's Fascist program at this time. In 1927, along with other Italian intellectuals, he founded the Gruppo di Ur (the UR Group) for the study of esotericism, specifically of a Guénonian stripe.

Politics

Evola's politics remain ambiguous. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Herman Wirth, Otto Weininger, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Ernst Jünger, Gottfried Benn, René Guénon, Oswald Spengler, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Some claim that his exaltation of a warrior caste may have influenced Fascism and/or Nazism in a roundabout way. Others point out that he rejected nationalism philosophically and in general terms. It has also been suggested that Evola took a position that was "against all politics". He never participated in the voting process and did not join any political party in his lifetime. Evola sought to influence Fascism in the direction of archaic ethnic Traditionalism; away from the Christian Church, the bourgeoisie, and the masses. From 1934 to 1943, he edited the cultural page of Roberto Farinacci's journal Regime Fascista. After the Italian surrender of September 8, 1943, Evola moved to Rastenburg, Germany. He was one of the first people to greet Mussolini after his rescue from prison.

Evola believed in a race of Hyperborean "nordic" people from the North Pole who had a crucial hand in the founding of Atlantis.

He published an Italian language version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1937, and wrote the introduction.

Paralysis

Toward the end of the war, Evola was working for the SS researching the Freemason's archive in Vienna. He became paralyzed from the waist down (and remained so throughout his life) after trying to defend Vienna at the barricades from the encroaching Soviet Army in 1945 (March/April). According to Mircea Eliade he was shot in the "third Chakra".

In 1951 Evola was arrested briefly, but aquitted, on charges of attempting to resurrect fascism. His political views, after the war took on a Sorelian flavor. Evola died on June 11, 1974 in Rome; his ashes were deposited in hole cut in a glacier on Mt. Rosa.

Influence

Evola has come to have a growing influence in both the occult and political realms. In the later, he has specifically influenced GRECE, The Scorpion, the Movimento sociale italiano (MSI), Gaston Armand Amaudruz's Nouvel Ordre Européen, Pino Rauti's Ordine Nuovo, Alain de Benoist, Michael Moynihan, Giorgio Freda, and the ARN. Giorgio Almirante referred to him as "our Marcuse - only better". In 1998, a Goth/Darkwave compilation CD entitled Cavalcare la Tigre was released to commemorate the 100th anniverary of Evola's birth.

Books

Early

  • Arte Astratta (an work on abstract art)
  • Teoria Dell'Individuo Assoluto (a Nietzschean work borne out of a mental and spiritual breakdown)
  • Imperialismo pagano (a polemical work urging the Fascist regime to conduct an anti-Christian, pagan revolution, 1928)

Significant

References

Other revolutionary minded Italians of the inter-war period

External links

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