Nietzsche's Orphans: Music Metaphysics and the Twilight of the Russian Empire (Eurasia Past and Present)

About this book

A prevailing belief among Russias cultural elite in the early twentieth century was that the music of composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff Aleksandr Scriabin and Nikolai Medtner could forge a shared identity for the Russian people across social and economic divides. In this illuminating study of competing artistic and ideological visions at the close of Russias "Silver Age " author Rebecca Mitchell interweaves cultural history music and philosophy to explore how "Nietzsches orphans" strove to find in music a means to overcome the disunity of modern life in the final tumultuous years before World War I and the Communist Revolution.