“Demonic individualism” of Max Stirner versus positivism and Marxism (Russian discussions about the “end-of-the-century” philosopher)

The relevance of one of the “eternal” questions of Russian intellectual life - the creators of which new values have the world “revolving around them” (as was polemically designated by S. Frank) - was determined by the sharpness of the very historical moment: the revolutionary situation (in accordance with its Marxist formulation) was maturing in the depths of a country that was still great, but already struck by “disease”. The country whose supreme power, political elites, and intelligentsia could in no way cope with their foreordained tasks. The need for the reassessment of values was understood as commitment to revolutionary radicalism by some, and as a recognition of the “theoretical primacy” of spiritual axioms over “external forms of coexistence” by others. Some opposed the idea of internal self-improvement to “conciliarity”, while others absolutized the role of the individual in history, literally “creating idols for themselves”. The article addresses the problem of a radical reassessment of human’s relationship with the world in the “egoistic” philosophy of Max Stirner, whose ideas served as the basis for the Nietzschean revolt against social foundations, traditional values and Christian morality - social, anarchic rebellion against the foundations of the social order and the state. It is argued that the “religion of man” as a critical rethinking of Feuerbach’s ideas turned out to be adequate to the content and form of the new philosophical (“anthropological”) paradigm. The paper proves that these ideas, which are very extravagant in form (in their representations of cognitive meanings), but based on fair critical conclusions, found in Russian culture fertile ground and original resonance for a number of reasons (objective and subjective factors of social development on the eve of the first Russian revolution). A logical conclusion is made that in the socio-cultural context of the “end of the century” (amid the general crisis of knowledge, discrediting of “classical rationality”, collapse of humanism, and shift in the cultural paradigm) the colorful figure of another “ruler of thoughts” best corresponded to the expectations of the stakeholders (on the “left” and “right”, in the center, and on the periphery of the confrontation between the latest ideas and opinions).