«Istorija stanovlenija samosoznajuščej duši Andreja Belogo v kontekste nemeckoj istoriosofii (X. St. Čemberlen, O. Špengler)» [«Andrej Belyjs Geschichte der Entwicklung der Bewusstseinsseele im Kontext der deutschen Historiosophie (H. St. Chamberlain, O. Spengler)»]

One significant context for Andrei Belyi's Istoriia stanovleniia samosoznaiushchei dushi ( ISSD ) is contemporary German "historiosophy" as represented by Houston Stewart Chamberlain's The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) and Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West (1918), both of which are treated in this article alongside Belyi's reception of them. It explores the similarities and differences between these works and Belyi's own culturo-historical project. It will be argued that Belyi's ISSD , with its characteristic concept of a spiraliform evolution of culture, can be understood in methodological terms as a synthesis of Chamberlain's linear with Spengler's cyclical view of cultural history. As a conception of evolving human self-consciousness, understood as the decisive driving force of cultural development, Belyi's anthropological view surpasses former biological references to a cultural-historical morphology in both the concepts of Darwinist racial conflict (Chamberlain) and botanical life cycles (Spengler). This methodological focus of Belyi's work is also reflected in its stylistic aspects.