Conference | Paper

In the general context of secularisation, titanism appears as a neo-pagan element of para- (or anti-)Christian mythology, interacting and competing with the Christian doctrine of Providence and, in an extended sense, with the established social and political order. Starting from Romantic titanism, I will trace at several points the revolutionary and then conservative-revolutionary lineage of Russian and Soviet titanism: Marx's Prometheism, the Russian reception of Nietzsche, Golosovker's vision of titans, Losev's rejection of Renaissance titanism, the Soviet transformation of the titan into a trickster, and, finally, Dmitri Bykov's reading of the current war through the figure of the titan as a post-Christian saviour.