Russian text archive

A new Russian website with some useful text archives (if you want to read in Russian), which also reminds us that there are Russian Traditionalists other than those who follow Dugin. The owner of this site, Maxim Trefan, follows Haydar Jamal (see photo), and so the selection of texts is especially interesting.

Pride of place goes to тексты Юлиуса Эволы (that is, texts of Evola). Then there's a large Eliade section. Less usual Traditionalist authors include Haydar Jamal (of course), Eliade, and Nukhaev (one text only). Savitri Devi also features.

The collection of texts on Islam includes Schuon and Nasr, of course, but also some non-Traditionalists, including Henri Corbin and (in English) two academic colleagues of mine, Bernd Radtke and Knut Vikor. However, there is no Guénon (!).

Oddities include David Irving and Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd (1895), a book that was extremely influential in its time and is still quite readable, but which I have never before seen in a Traditionalist context.

There's also a music section, available in English, which gives some of Trefan's own music--which is not metal.

Note: You may have to remind your browser that you want to view text encoded in KOI8-R.

Upcoming conference in Tübingen

A conference to be held in Tübingen, Germany, July 19-22, may be of interest.

The title of the conference is "Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in Western Esotericism." "Tradition" as used here has a rather broader meaning than it does for Traditionalists, but even so provides one context in which Traditionalism may be situated.

There will also be some papers that deal explicitly with Traditionalism. Eduard ten Houten will give a paper on "Hanific Traditionalism and the Chechen Exceptionalist Discourse."

Two established authorities on Traditionalism feature on the program, though I'm not 100% sure what the subjects of their papers will be: Jean Pierre Laurant (authority on Guénon, giving a paper on "The Myth of the Esoteric Transmission in the 19th Century: The History of a Transformation") and Hans-Thomas Hakl (authority on Evola, giving a paper on "Die römische Tradition").

Also of interest for general context: Christine Maillard ("Ex oriente lux: Zur Funktion Indiens und zum Indienbild in Texten der abendländischen esoterischen Tradition ") and Mark Sedgwick ("Sufis as Mythic Bearers of Esoteric Tradition").

A pdf version of the full program is available online.

I think this should be a very good conference, but I must declare an interest: this is the inaugural conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, a new learned society with which I am personally involved.

Interesting Traditionalist publisher & bookseller in Europe

My attention has just been drawn to Integral Tradition Publishing, a website that offers a full range of Traditionalist works priced in euros.

It has also started publishing some books itself--the first being Metaphysics of War: Battle, Victory & Death in the World of Tradition, a collection of essays by Evola in which "Evola selects specific examples from the Aryan and Islamic traditions to demonstrate how traditionalists can prepare themselves to experience wars in a way that could allow them to transcend the limited possibilities of life in our materialistic age, entering the world of heroism."'

Integral Tradition Publishing is also of interest because it has a Scandinavian section.

New addresses for Aristasia

It has been pointed out that the addresses I gave for Aristasian websites in the Catalog of Contemporary Traditionalism are no longer working. This is not an isolated problem--the Catalog needs so much time to maintain properly that I may soon have to give up on it.

Anyhow, the main Aristasian address is now www.aristasia.co.uk. Enjoy! And note that sections of the key Aristasian text, The Feminine Universe, are available online.

Traditionalism in Poland

I do not know Polish, and have never been aware of any significant Traditionalist activity in Poland. However, there is a Polish journal, Reakcjonista, as well as a Polish text archive of the writings of Julius Evola. There is also a discussion group, Regnum Forum, which currently seems inactive.

To judge from its table of contents, Reakcjonista is following a formula also used elsewhere--classic Traditionalist texts by Guénon and Evola (especially Evola), with other texts by contemporary local Traditionalists, especially Marek Rostkowski.

Main bands for Scene Traditionalism

A correspondent, Eduard ten Houten, has been kind enough to supply some more information on Neo-Folk Music Scene Traditionalism.

First, there's an article well worth reading (if you know German): Nordolf, "Der Ruf nach den alten Göttern: Zum Zusammenhang zwischen Neuheidentum, europäischem Erbe und Gothic / Avantgarde Musik" (Calling on the Old Gods: Links between Neopaganism, European Heritage, and Gothic/Avantgarde Music). Nordolf traces the interest of these bands in Evola through figures such as Ernst Jünger, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ezra Pound, Corneliu Codreanu, and Karl Maria Wiligut.

Then, even if you don't know German, the article ends with a long list of CDs that looks pretty comprehensive to me. Elsewhere, Qvirinvs provides a shorter list of purely Traditionalist[ic?] bands. Given the emphasis on Evola, it is not a great surprise that many of these are Italian:

• Ain Soph *#
• Apud Inferos
• Camerata Mediolanese *
• Extreme Spite Wing
• Hirpus
• Janus
• Mors Summa
• Thronus Abyss
• Viking

Bands with a * featured on the classic compilation CD, Cavalcare la tigre -
Julius Evola: Centenary.

Bands with a # are ones whose names seem to me (very impressionalistically, provisionally, and unscientifically) to be the most notable and/or interesting.

I've given only links that I know--the absence of a link does not mean there is no website.

Next in importance as a region comes Germany/Austria

• Allerseelen * (Austria)
• Orplid * (German)
• Turbund Sturmwerk (Austria)
• Von Thronstahl *# (German)

Then there's America (Alraune,* Blood Axis,*# and Waldteufel*), Scandinavia (Gemeinschaft, Green Army Fraction, and Weisse Rose), Great Britain (Death in June,# Herr, and Sol Invictus#), Hungary (Actus, and Scivias*#), Switzerland (Der Arbeiter, and Gibroaltar), and finally France (Lonsai Maikov *) and Argentina (Argentum).

Note: Sol Invictus # isn't on Qvirinvs's list--I'm not sure why.

Finally, here are some lyrics from Ain Soph's Kshatriya:

Die Treue ist stärker als Feuer
Sich erheben, auferstehen
Eine Form und eine Ordnung schaffen
Aufrecht durch die Ruinen
Den schwersten Weg auswählen
Unseren Mut in Metall gießen
Endlich wiedergeboren durch das Blut
Stark durch unsere Ehre
Kshatriya

Source: Nordolf's article.

Kremlin defends Dugin

An indication of what the Kremlin thinks of Alexander Dugin: On June 5, 2007, Dugin was banned from entry into Ukraine (where he was to attend a conference) and deported back to Russia. In honored tit-for-tat style, Russia immediately banned and deported a Ukrainian--Mykola Zhulinsky, a presidential aide. According to the International Herald Tribune, Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian ambassador to the Ukraine, explained that this was "in response to Ukraine's treatment of Dugin."

Of course, Ukraine and Russia are not on the best of terms anyhow right now, but it is striking that the Kremlin ranks Dugin with a presidential aide.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

June 14 is this Blog's first birthday, but I'll be traveling on that day and so will post the birthday message in advance.

The graph below shows visits and page views since the blog was started. Last month (May 2007), for example, 686 visitors viewed 1,505 pages between them.

Most of these visitors came from Europe and North America. The map below shows only the last 100 visitors, but is fairly typical.

(Hello Libreville, Gabon, if you are reading this!)

All these details are kindly provided by Sitemeter. Don't worry--all it reveals to me is your location and sometimes your ISP, and how many pages you looked at--no more.