Osvold Spengler (Spengler Oswald)

(1880-1936)
Born May 29, 1880 in Blankenburg (Germany). He studied philosophy, history, mathematics and art in Munich and Berlin universities, received his doctorate in 1904. He worked as a teacher in Hamburg. Academic career began at Munich University as a mathematics teacher. Tried to do journalism, but after the Nazis came to power in 1933 and the withdrawal of one of his books led a solitary life.
In 1918 was published the first volume of his famous work Decline of the Western world (Der Untergang des Abendlandes, 2 vols., 1918-1922, revised version of the first volume came out in 1923). In this most significant of his works Spengler predicted the death of Western European and American civilizations, which will follow the brutal 'era caesarism'. The story itself, . his view, . a kaleidoscope of eight 'organic' cultural-historical types, . or cultures: Egyptian, . Indian, . Babel, . Chinese, . Apollonian (Greco-Roman), . magic (Byzantine-Arab), . Faustian (Western) and Mayan culture,
. Ninth - the culture of the future, Russian-Siberian. Citing a variety of historical data, Spengler tried to prove two points in respect of these crops. According to the first thesis, all cultures, which he regarded as 'organisms', followed the same pattern of development and death, which unfolds in the course of one and the same historical cycle. All of them pass through the stages of pre-culture, culture and civilization and marked by crises of the same type and similar events and figures. Thus, Alexander plays the same role in ancient culture as Napoleon in the west, similar to correlate Pythagoras and Luther, Aristotle and Kant, the Stoics and the socialists. According to the second point, each culture has its unique 'soul', or a form of experience and creativity, which is expressed in art, thought and action. West 'Faustian' soul is characterized by the desire to infinity, which is equally expressed in the Gothic cathedral, the infinitesimal calculus, the music of Bach, imperialist diplomacy of force, radio and bank credit

. Among other significant works of Spengler - Man and Technology (Der Mensch und die Technik, 1931), Years of decisions (Jahre der Entscheidungen, 1933), in which he wrote about the complex political and spiritual situation in Germany after World War I.
. Spengler died in Munich, May 8, 1936.