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Max Weber, Leo Tolstoy and the Mountain of Truth

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Max Weber and the Culture of Anarchy

Abstract

Early in 1913, and again in 1914, Max Weber travelled to Ascona, in fulfilment of a promise of legal assistance previously given to Frieda Schloffer-Gross, wife of Otto Gross. As can be seen in Sam Whimster’s essay and Max Weber’s letters from Ascona (see above), this friend of both Max and Marianne sorely needed some support in her struggle for the custody of her son Peter. And so it might seem purely coincidental that Max Weber found himself stranded for several weeks in these ‘realms of the fabulous’.1 This German scholar found himself among dropouts, philosophers of life, and existential reformers; among people who had, either deliberately or out of necessity, placed themselves in opposition to the bourgeois order and had broken with it.

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Notes

  1. See Edith Hanke, Prophet des Unmodernen. Leo N. Tolstoi als Kulturkritiker in der deutschen Diskussion der Jahrhundertwende (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993).

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  2. See Robert Landmann (i.e. Werner Ackermann), Ascona. Monte Veritä. Auf der Suche nach dem Paradies (Zürich: Benziger, 1973), pp. 21ff.

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  3. See H. Szeemann (ed.) Monte Verita. Berg der Wahrheit. Lokale Anthropologie als Beitrag zur Wiederentdeckung einer neuzeitlichen sakralen Topographie, (Milan: Electa Editrice, 1980), p. 62.

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  4. Observations respectively from L. Frank, Das Ochsenfurter Männerquartett. Roman, (Munich: Kindler, 1965), p. 40

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  5. R. Seewald, Der Mann von Gegenüber. Spiegelbild eines Lebens (Munich: List, 1963), p. 173.

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  6. This was the first impression that Frick made on Hans Gross when visiting Graz in 1909; recorded in E. Hurwitz, Otto Gross. Paradies-Sucher zwischen Freud und Jung (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1988), p. 233.

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  7. For a history of Der Weckruf see M. Nettlau, Geschichte der Anarchie Bd. 5.1, (Vaduz: Topos, 1984), pp. 305–6.

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  8. The decision was made at the meeting of the Congress during Easter 1906; see F. Thies, ‘Streiks und Lohnbewegungen’, Handwörterbuch der Schweizerischen Volkswirtschaft, Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung vol. 3.1 (Bern: Verlag Encyklopädie, 1911), p. 813.

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  9. M. Green, The Mountain of Truth. The Counterculture Begins. Ascona 1900–1920 (London and Hanover: University Press of New England, 1986), p. 131.

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  10. L. Frank, Links wo das Herz ist (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1952), p. 40.

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  11. See ‘Aus der Zeit’, Der Sozialist 4 Jg. No. 7 (1 April 1912), p. 56; for Scheidegger’s betrayal see in particular E. Szittya, Das Kuriositäten-Kabinett, (Konstanz: See Verlag, 1923), pp. 101–3.

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  12. See J. N. Davidov, ‘Max Weber and Leon Tolstoy: Verantwortungs-und Gesinnungsethik’, in J. N. Davidov, P. P. Gaidenko, Russland und der Westen. Heidelberger Max Weber-Vorlesungen 1992, (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1995), p. 69.

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  14. See Mark Harda (pseud. M. Faas-Hardegger), ‘Liebe ist aller Wurzel Lust’, Der Sozialist 1 Jg. No. 1 (15 January 1909), p. 4.

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  16. See also my essay ‘Das “spezifisch intellektualistische Erlösungsbedürfnis”. Oder: warum Intellektuelle Tolstoi lasen’, in G. Hübinger, W. J. Mommsen (eds) Intellektuelle im deutschen Kaiserreich (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1993), pp. 158–71.

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  17. Anon., ‘Wir denunzieren’, Der Weckruf 4 Jg. No. 3 (February 1906), p. 4.

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  18. O. Buek, Der Weckruf 4 Jg. No. 4 (March 1906), p. 4.

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  19. K. Diehl, ‘Anarchismus’, in L. Elster, A. Weber, F. Wieser (eds) Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften vol. 1 (Jena: Gustav Fischer: 1923), p. 282.

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  20. Cited in R. Kauffeldt, ‘Die Idee eines ‘Neuen Bundes’ (Gustav Landauer)’, in M. Frank, Gott im Exil Vorlesungen über die Neue Mythologie, 2. Teil (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988), p. 149.

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  21. G. Landauer, Aufruf zum Sozialismus. Revolutionsausgabe (Berlin: Paul Cassirer, 1919), p. VIII.

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  22. Landauer in a comment on the article by Ludwig Berndl, ‘Einige Bemerkungen über die Psycho-Analyse’, Der Sozialist 3 Jg. No. 13 (1 July 1911), p. 104.

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  23. G. Landauer, ‘Tarnowska’, Der Sozialist 2 Jg. No. 7 (1 April 1910), p. 50.

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  24. Letter of Max Weber to Else Jaffeé, 13 September 1907, in M. R. Lepsius, W. J. Mommsen (eds) Briefe 1906–1908, MWG II/5, (Tübingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1990), p. 402.

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  25. Contribution to discussion of Ernst Troeltsch’s paper ‘Das stoischchristliche Naturrecht und das moderne profane Naturrecht’, Verhandlungen des Ersten Deutschen Soziologentages vom 19–22 Oktober 1910 in Frankfurt a.M. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1911), p. 200.

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  26. P. Honigsheim, ‘Max Weber in Heidelberg’, in R. König, J. Winckelmann (eds) Max Weber zum Gedächtnis (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1963), pp. 240ff.

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  27. For the essay see the introduction to W. J. Mommsen (ed.) Max Weber: Zur Russischen Revolution 1905. Schriften und Reden 1905–1912, MWGI/10, (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1989), p. 24

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  28. Marianne Weber, Max Weber. A Biography (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transactions, 1988), p. 104.

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  29. Max Weber, ‘Bourgeois Democracy in Russia’, The Russian Revolutions, translated and edited by G. C. Wells and P. Baehr (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995) p. 141, n. 194.

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  30. Ibid., p. 52; see in this connection ‘Politics as a Vocation’, in W. G. Runciman (ed.) Max Weber. Selections in Translation (London: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 216–7.

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Authors
  1. Edith Hanke
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. London Guildhall University, London, UK

    Sam Whimster (Reader in Sociology) (Reader in Sociology)

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© 1999 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Hanke, E. (1999). Max Weber, Leo Tolstoy and the Mountain of Truth. In: Whimster, S. (eds) Max Weber and the Culture of Anarchy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27030-9_7

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