Иван Грозев. „Новата културна раса“ в естетико- религиозния проект на българския модернизъм
Ivan Grozev and the “New Cultural Race” in the Aesthetic Religious Project of Bulgarian Modernism

Summary/Abstract: The aesthetic-religious views of Ivan Grozev, a Bulgarian writer, poet and spiritual awakener, combine various aspects whose unifying center is the mystical ability of man to reach God: the Christian idea of man’s aspiration for God; theosophical and Masonic conceptions; and elements of Hellenistic philosophy and mystery. In his articles and studies that he published in the journal Hyperion, Ivan Grozev promoted ideas about the poet as “a priest and a prophet”, his “worldly sacrifice”, and “the steps towards godly knowledge” (scientist, genius, mystic). As a true Theosophist, he contrasts his utilitarian times with the spiritual from past eras (reason vs. mysticism), affirming the idea of a “New Heaven” and a “New Cultural Race” for the devoted ones. The Bulgarian modern consciousness from the late 19th and early 20th century perceived such ideas as a new type of religion of the aesthetic, and at the same time as a new ethic of the creator (prophet, Übermensch in the sense of Nietzsche or Rudolf Steiner) as a necessity of spiritual creation of a new cultural race that abandons mercantilism for the sake of ideal values.

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