Nihilismo, nihilistas. Sobre una posible fuente de Nietzsche

The paper deals with the sources of Nietzsche’s concept of “nihilism”. It is well known that the term “nihilism” obtains a philosophical meaning thanks to Nietzsche. Martin Heidegger and to a lesser extent Karl Lowith have then contributed to the final philosophical transformation of the term. Nevertheless it is equally well known that Nietzsche is not the creator of the term/concept. The secondary literature on the topic informs us that Nietzsche probably borrowed the term/concept from the literary mediation provided by Turgenev and Dostoevskij. The paper aims at showing that Nietzsche’s reflection upon the theme of nihilism began well before his reading of Dostoevskij (autumn-winter 1887/1888) and at least at the same time as he read Turgenev (second half of the ‘70s). In order to justify this backdating, the paper will show new and unexlopered sources in the Nietzsche-Forschung such as a novel by the writer Karl Gutzkow and a book by the theologian Hermann Reuter.