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Abstract:

The article examines the characteristics and assessments of the German nation that the German writer Thomas Mann (1875–1955) formulates in his journalistic works, primarily during the First and Second World Wars. Along with the writer’s views, the general context of ideas about Germany’s “special civilizational path” and the antinomy of “culture and civilization” characteristic of German philosophical and social thought in the 19th and 20th centuries is analyzed. Instead of the opposition between the early conservative-nationalistic and mature democratic political positions of the writer, which is typical for German studies, the work examines Thomas Mann’s concept of the German nation as an evolving unity in which assessments and methods of consideration change, while the characteristics of the properties highlighted by the writer remain essentially unchanged. Particular attention is paid to the comparison of the image of the German mentality in the essays of Thomas Mann and the work “On Germany” (1813) by Germaine de Staël.