FASCISM IN THE WORKS OF THE AMERICAN HISTORIAN GEORGE MOSSE (1918-1999)

Abstract

The author examines the assessments of fascism presented in the works of the famous American historian G. Mosse. G. Mosse was one of the first to consider fascism as a pan-European phenomenon, emphasizing both the diversity and similarity of various fascist movements. Among the common features that should be considered in national contexts, he singled out: the concept of revolution as a "spiritual revolution", nationalist or racist mysticism, the search for a "third way", revolutionary dynamism and the problem of "taming the revolution", the myth of the new man, the fusion of bourgeois morality and respectability with the ethics of fascism, represented by militant and traditionalist models of courageous men. G. Mosse was one of the first to turn to anthropology to reconstruct the belief system of people who lived in the late XIX and early XX centuries to explain how the Third Reich could become a political reality. G. Mosse pays great attention to the ideological factor, considering the prerequisites of fascism, at a time when the fascist ideology was perceived by historians as complete nonsense. G. Mosse characterizes fascism as a secular religion and turns to the study of the "liturgical elements" of fascism, symbols and myths as means to understand how modern mass movements received popular support. His numerous publications contributed to a paradigm shift in fascist studies. In this sense, he anticipated the cultural orientation of later authors, such famous historians of fascism as S. Payne, R. Griffin and E. Gentile.