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Julius Evola

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Julius Evola, real name 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, but renounced art and delved deep into occult and Oriental studies. In 1927 he founded the Gruppo di Ur (the UR Group) for the study of esotericism, specifically of a Guénonian stripe.

Politics

It is hard to speak definitively about his politics. Some claim that his exaltation of a warrior caste may have influenced Fascism and/or National Socialism in a roundabout way. Others point out that he rejected nationalism philosophically and in general terms. Evola sought to influence Fascism in the direction of archaic ethnic Traditionalism; away from the Christian Church, the bourgeoisie, and the masses.

Hyperborians

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

Publishing

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

Influences

Evola was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Otto Weininger, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Ernst Jünger, Gottfried Benn, René Guénon, Oswald Spengler, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

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".

Neo-fascism

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.

Death

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 MSI, Gaston Armand Amaudruz's Nouvel Ordre Européen, Pino Rauti's Ordine Nuovo, and the ARN. Giorgio Almirante referred to him as "our Marcuse - only better"

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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