War and War. Apocalyptic Modernity from Thomas Münzer to Leo Tolstoy

Abstract

This article discusses the philosophical significance of Leo Tolstoy for european modernity, in dialogue with a number of writers and authors that provide an alternative way of thinking confronted to the hegemonic ideas on how the modern conscioussnes was born. The authors addressed here cover a large time span, ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth century: Thomas Müntzer, Jean-Paul and Carlo Michelstaedter. The hypothesis of this essay argues that european Modernity was strongly influenced by new forms of religious experience that helped to extend across the continent a rupturistic sense of consummation of historical time. The primary aim of this paper is to show the role that certain apocalyptic tone played in Tolstoi’s late work, a tone highly syntomatic of the deep crisis experienced in the religious-political sphere at the beginnig of the twentieth century.