The yearbook Nietzscheforschung is published on behalf of the Nietzsche-Gesellschaft and contains contributions of their Nietzsche workshop and the annual conference in Naumburg. This source leads to a wide range of treated topics as well as to some stylistic and qualitative variations between the single texts. Although the title of the volume suggests a kind of main issue, it presents five quite different sections: I. Laudation and acceptance speech of the Nietzsche Award; II. Nietzsche and Europe—Nietzsche in Europe; III. Nietzsche and the religions; IV. Articles; V. Reviews.

I. The Nietzsche Award

Rüdiger Görner's laudation for Silvio Vietta, who was awarded the Nietzsche prize in 2006, is entitled "The day after tomorrow in the once upon a time or how modern is Modernity?" The modern spirit consists of many aspects and nuances that could be compared to short novels. Görner characterizes Vietta as the animating learned narrator of these novels: an intellectual aware of his own cultural traditional backgrounds and an exponent of European cultural poetics. Within the framework of his occupation with modern literature, its experimental aesthetics and its contribution to the generation of the European consciousness, Vietta delivered a fundamental treatise on Nietzsche's critique of culture.

In his acceptance speech, published here in German, Silvio Vietta proposes a "European thinking with Nietzsche" on the basis of a critical and open-minded reading of his works. He calls Nietzsche symptomatic insofar as he had "experienced the pain of modernity, its loss of meaning, the 'death of god,' the appearance and propagation of idolized substitutes, modernity in general as completion and fulfilment of the history of Western metaphysics" (23). What we can learn from this "man of pain," a representative of modernism with his "eloquent misapprehensions," writes Vietta, is a concept that dismisses racism and hegemonic nationalism. The self-styled "good European" is a modern thinker in the tradition of the enlightenment, but with the symptoms of decadence and disease that he himself associates with Romanticism. He analyzes and embodies the whole transitoriness of humankind in modern times. The reception of his ideas in the 20th century, often subject to misreading and misuse, shows nevertheless how clearly Nietzsche's challenge remains the same: as Vietta says, to open up "the possibility of self-formation and transformation" (28) by means of human rationality.

II. Nietzsche and Europe-Nietzsche in Europe

Hans-Martin Gerlach's article (in German) has as its main title the quote: "We must now continue this enlightenment …" (D 197), but the subtitle points to a bigger issue: "Friedrich Nietzsche and the European Enlightenment." It is accepted today that Nietzsche is at least as much an heir to German Romanticism as he is to the European Enlightenment. And it is clear that he saw modern human beings in a cultural situation and state of mind that is much too complex and complicated for him to be able to emancipate himself from the strictly rational concepts of the Enlightenment. Gerlach seems to be aware of these problems but nevertheless intends to show how Nietzsche pursues the ideas of the Enlightenment in a framework of a "self-criticism of the Enlightenment" and "a permanent open project," taking Enlightenment as an endless process. Gerlach rehearses the contradictions in Nietzsche's attitude (traditional morality, religious dogmatism, political chauvinism etc.) and suggests comparing them to Kant's sapere aude!— "Habe den Mut, dich deines eigenenVerstandes zu verdienen" ("Have the courage to reason for yourself") [1]. But that must remain an unsatisfying characterization for a Nietzschean enlightenment program unless we recall that Nietzsche's understanding of the concepts "courage" and "reason" differ in crucial ways from Kant's. Gerlach therefore cannot explain why Nietzsche, unlike the classical exemplars of the European Enlightenment, is very critical of general progress, addressing only a small group instead of the whole of humankind with his ideas for a revaluation of values and the conditions for it to emerge.

Enno Rudolph in "Nietzsche's Europe" argues that Judaism, Christianity, and traditional philosophy since Plato are the roots of "herd-morality." Rudolph defines these main lines of Nietzsche's thinking concisely and presents a thesis worthy of consideration. For Nietzsche, the Jews are the most potent nation, not only for Europe's past but also in its future. However, his evaluations vary from enthusiastic commendation of Judaism to its virulent repudiation. Rudolph ascribes it to Nietzsche's reconstruction of a disruption in the history of Judaism that distinguishes two types of Judaism: an original aristocratic Jewish vitalism on the one hand and a dishonest invention of the other world on the other. The latter emerged under the influence of the Jewish priests from the forced conversion of the political god Yahweh into an almighty, life-negating moral autocrat.

"We homeless ones" (BGE 377) is the heading of Damir Barbarić's text, subtitled "Nietzsche's thoughts on Europeanism." In that aphorism, Nietzsche describes the problems of the "European of the future" in the "Europe of today" and his own vision of a "good European." But Barbarić wants to do more than a detailed analysis of the aphorism and an explanation of the concept of the homeless one. On the basis of his reading of the HL, he tries to interpret a couple of central passages on Europe from the middle and late works as well as from the Nachlaß. The results are dubious, both methodologically and regarding the content.

Andreas Urs Sommer's "Sceptical Europe?" is subtitled: "Some remarks on the sixth chapter of Beyond Good and Evil: We Scholars." Sommer shows how Nietzsche's discussion of "the scholars" clearly distinguishes between the mediocre scholar of the lethargic present and real philosophers as figures of the future. The key issue is a tension in the constitution of the European intellectual that is due to his or her struggle with the religious and moral dogmatism of the last 2,500 years. Nietzsche does not try to abolish this tension but, on the contrary, declares it to be the precondition of reaching higher goals and dealing with the great personal and cultural threats the contemporary philosopher has to face. Science is becoming predominant, but it is incapable of creating new values and is therefore just a symptom of the "European disease" that Nietzsche describes as "scepticism and paralysis of the will." Sommer hesitates over Nietzsche's critique of weak scepticism and his plea for strong scepticism, remaining sceptical in a more classical sense, especially with regard to Nietzsche's political ambitions and the legislative pretensions of the new philosopher, which are not so very new and in fact well known at least since Plato. Sommer can demonstrate that Nietzsche juggles the motifs and concepts of scepticism depending on the strategic direction of his text. But more problematic than the reliability of any single text is Nietzsche's undermining of his own account of a productive tension produced by the propagation of one strong will, to the neglect of the more open concepts of plurality and competition. Sommer cites a number of references to interpreters who do not find this antinomy problematic, which serves to make his position even more convincing.

"An oh-so-good European: Thomas Common and his Nietzsche-journal Notes for Good Europeans" by Leila Kais portrays the activities of an early British Nietzsche interpreter, translator, and editor. Her study exemplifies some of the difficulties the foreign Nietzsche-reception has had to face to the present day. The enthusiasm of editors is not always coupled with the required philosophical, philological, and cultural-historical expertise. Both a great interpretative ability and abstinence are essential. Thomas Common's intention of establishing, through his journal, a socio-political realization of Nietzsche's thoughts on a new "rank order," "higher man," and ruling class of philosophers, and Ms Kais' account of his character, give an indication why most of his projects were unsuccessful.

Martine Prange in "Nietzsche's Artistic Ideal of Europe: The Birth of Tragedy in the Spirit of Richard Wagner's Centenary Beethoven-essay" (written in English) convincingly highlights not only the great influence of Wagner's music on Nietzsche but also the intimate connection between Wagner's writings and Nietzsche's early works. Her text documents examples of the many parallels between the Beethoven essay and BT, both in the details and in the general aesthetic viewpoint. Prange's thesis that nevertheless—or maybe exactly because—of his high expectations of Wagner, the young Nietzsche was much more critical about him than his pronouncements at that time allow us to recognize, is surely fruitful and could also be elaborated along the lines of personal rivalry and Nietzsche's understanding of "agon" and "good Eris." An explanation is missing of some of the key concepts used ("decadence," "paradise," and "Kulturkampf"), and the same is true for "Europe"; the early Nietzsche did not use the word very often and one has to show to what extant he already held a European perspective and what goals he thought it should have.

The contribution of András Czeglédi entitled "He corrupted me" consists almost completely of citations, citations of citations, and some unsystematic comments on these citations. The subtitle announces thoughts "On Friedrich Nietzsche's Interpretation of Nihilism," but what it provides is not much more than a compilation of excerpts from more or less famous interpretations by Heidegger, Deleuze, Colli, Löwith, Fink, and others about Nietzsche's concept of "(European) nihilism," though these make for good reading in their own way.

Robert B. Pippin deals with major questions of Nietzsche-interpretation in "How to Overcome Oneself: Nietzsche on Freedom" (written in English). Referring to Nietzsche's approach to "the problem of freedom" as a "psychological problem" (143), Pippin provides an exegesis on Nietzsche's thorough engagement with the French moralists. According to Pippin, Nietzsche "seems primarily interested in freedom as a value or aspiration, has his own views about the nature of genuine freedom, and he is especially interested in the psychology and psychological typology that would help explain genuine freedom […]; he is "most interested in a sort of psychological self-relation as constitutive of freedom" (135). For Nietzsche, a measure of freedom is the resistance that must be constantly overcome. Pippin's suggestion of taking the concept of self-overcoming (and self-sublation) as the basis for Nietzsche's "attitudinal and dispositional" account of freedom is plausible, less so his rejection of interpretations that see Nietzschean "self-mastery" mostly in terms of self-creation. Both seem to be important aspects of Nietzsche's (re)construction of the "free spirit."

III. Nietzsche and Religions. Philosophical, Religious and Theological Aspects; a Historical and Systematic Account and Chronicle of Reception. 14th Nietzsche-Werkstatt, Schulpforta (13-16 September 2006)

Hans Gerald Hödl's article "Towards the Function of Religion. Remarks on Nietzsche's Influence on Max Weber and the Anticipation of Socio-religious Questions in Human, All Too Human" presents Nietzsche as one of the ancestors of 20th-century sociology of religion. Hödl exemplifies this by analyzing some of Nietzsche's concepts, typologies, genealogies, and critical strategies concerning religious perceptions, their social origin and role—basically taken from chapter 3 of HH—and showing their influence on Max Weber as one of the founders of a functional view on the development of religion.

Marco Brusotti's title is: "The Cult is, Like a Fixed Word-text, Always Being Subjected to New Interpretations (HH II, 77): Nietzsche's Consideration of Syncretism in Greek Worship and On the Genealogy of Morality." Brusotti points out how Nietzsche in his lectures on the Greek Worship achieves new insights about the roots and the character of Greek culture. In doing so, Nietzsche gained the groundwork for a new methodology that had an enormous influence on the cultural theories of the 20th century under the name of "genealogy." Quoting from the works of Andrea Orsucci, Brusotti refers especially to Nietzsche's reading of Edward Burnett Tylor. He demonstrates convincingly how Tylor's theories are affiliated and enhanced in Nietzsche's philological work and how the lecture could have provided material for later research on the provenance of moral values up to the polemic of GM.

In "'Stout-hearted Fatalism': The (Anti-) Christian in the Perspective of Russian Thinking," Ekaterina Poljakova indicates the unique impulses Nietzsche was able to gain from the Russian literature. Based on the known, though up to now not sufficiently examined, influence of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky on Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity and his analysis of European nihilism, she concentrates, above all, on an interpretation of the concept of fate that Nietzsche expressly associated with Russian culture. Even if the "stout-hearted fatalism" concerns only one of many possible aspects in Nietzsche's relation to Russian thinking, the perceived connection between the central motives fatalism, amor fati, and a new concept of life-affirming courage already shows the possible range and fertility of such comparative considerations.

In "Nietzsche and Antique Greek Religion," Herbert Frey presents some aspects of the Nietzschean antithesis between Christianity and the mythology of ancient Greece. Frey recalls Camus's thesis that the beginning of nihilism lies in the dissociation of world and god in monotheism. Frey emphasizes the hostile attitude of Christianity towards human sexuality as a main strand of Nietzsche's critique of monotheism. An elaboration of the figure of Dionysus, whose importance for Nietzsche is just briefly noted by Frey, would have been more promising than the turgid citation from Walter F. Otto.

Niklas Corall's paper in German (the dense title reads in English as: "Nietzsche's Interpretation of Monotheism as Revenge upon Life: 'The stone "it was" is Immovable: all Punishment Must Be Eternal, Too!' (Z 2, "On Redemption")," recalls the main lines of Nietzsche's late critique of religion and morality, proceeding from an absolute priority of the concept of the will to power that Corall thinks should be viewed as the basis of Nietzsche's whole philosophy. He formulates some interesting theses about "plastic vigor" as a strategy to deal with the transience (Vergänglichkeit) of life or the relation between polytheism and individuality, but his premises and conclusions are highly questionable. Corall does not differentiate between the several phases in Nietzsche's oeuvre. To Corall, the "will to power" is already central to the early works and remains the basis for all thoughts uttered thereafter, and he recognizes no development in concepts such as "conscience" (Gewissen), "penalty," or "plastic vigor."

Ekaterina Poljakova in her contribution (see above) had already pointed to the extremely interesting relation between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Paolo Stellino, whose article is in German, tries to illuminate a special aspect of this relation in his text "Jesus As 'Idiot': A Comparison Between Nietzsche's Antichrist and Dostojewski's The Idiot." He is concerned with the remarkable similarity between Dostoevsky's idiot, Prince Myschkin, and the figure of Jesus as described in A, and wonders if the result is the affinity of the two authors or whether Nietzsche was directly influenced by the novel The Idiot. The positions of the secondary literature show quite different opinions towards this question: from certitude (e.g. Ch. Andler, H. de Lubac, A.U. Sommer) to caution and scepticism (e.g. C.A. Miller, W. Gesemann). Stellino decides that neither figure is called an idiot because of a psycho-physiological condition but because of their childish naivety, their belief in redemption and their "being too good for this world."[2] Nevertheless, one can hardly imagine Nietzsche not at least playing with the association of a psycho-physiologically afflicted originator of Christianity. That the word "idiot" is also used by Nietzsche in connection with Socrates, Kant, and Wagner is not mentioned, nor does Stellino mention the original Greek meaning and other compounds with "idio-," which could provide further material for the interpretation.

IV. Articles

Klaus Goch's "Revivalist Philology. Martin Pernet's Strange Documentation of the Nietzsche Family" is already, by its title, marked out as the continuation of a longer polemic. Goch and Pernet are both interested in Nietzsche's childhood, but they follow quite different lines of interpretation. Goch accuses the theologian Pernet of embellishing the family background to a "vicarage-idyll." He bitterly criticizes the picture of Nietzsche's father as "noble and good" and Nietzsche's education as "benign and gentle," developed by Pernet in an earlier volume of Nietzscheforschung (Vol. 11) on the basis of the correspondence between Carl Ludwig Nietzsche and his friend and colleague Emil Julius Schenk, the parish priest of Zeitz. Goch sees Nietzsche's father aggrieved by his own scepticism and psychosomatically diseased, he describes him (and the interpreters that take him to be a strong personality) as having "intellectual deficits." The pedagogue of Nietzsche' family was, according to Goch, affected by a "pessimistic-negative anthropology": bad children were to be severely castigated and the family itself was not peaceful and happy but disrupted by many conflicts.

In "Nietzsche and Flaubert," Jacques Le Rider comments on the literary Nachlaß and letters where Nietzsche explicitly refers to Gustave Flaubert. He shows how Nietzsche discovered Flaubert in 1883, becoming, for Nietzsche, an important representative of contemporary decadence. Le Rider points out the originality of Nietzsche's reception and estimation of French authors such as Flaubert and Stendhal. The work of Le Rider attests to the fruitfulness of a hyper-German perspective that is based on original texts and familiar with German research.