The Hero (Trans. from Germ. by Ivan Dubytskyi). In My [We], Winter, 1934, pp. 161-174.

The article is a Ukrainian translation of the excerpt “The Hero” from the selected works of Max Scheler, Schriften aus dem Nachlass von Max Scheler. Within this text, the hero appears as an ideal type of personality whose defining feature is an orientation toward the noble; this type is grounded in the values of self-control (self-mastery) and the will to power. The hero is conceived both as a type of agent – “a person of actuality” who realizes ideas in practice – and as a racial prototype that establishes an ideal for sexual selection. Alongside the type of the hero, Max Scheler also distinguishes other ideal personality types, namely the genius and the saint.

The essay outlines the principal varieties of the heroic type, including the statesman (man of state), the chieftain, and the colonizer. Particular attention is devoted to an analysis of the figure of the statesman, emphasizing that this type of personality should be characterized not only by the striving for domination but also by an awareness of the value of the spiritual culture of one’s own people, as well as by a sense of responsibility not only toward that people but toward humanity as a whole. According to Scheler, the limit of the expansion of state power is defined by the solidarity of humankind as a religious-moral principle of the reciprocity of all actions.