Nikolai Berdyaev

Nikolai Berdyaev
Born	Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev March 18, 1874 Kiev, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	Clamart, France
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Russian philosophy
School	Christian existentialism, personalism
Main interests	Creativity, eschatology, freedom
Notable ideas	Core motifs: freedom, the person, spirit, creativity
Influences Böhme, Seraphim of Sarov, Kant, Baader, Khomyakov, Dostoyevsky, Leontiev, Solovyov, Nietzsche, Semyon Frank, Hegel, Sergey Bulgakov
Influenced Ellul, Huxley, Kroner, Marcel, Džalto, Maurin, Watts, Semyon Frank, Sergey Bulgakov, Ivan Devčić, Mortimer J. Adler

Berdyaev's grave, Clamart (France)

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (/bərˈdjɑːjɛf, -jɛv/; Russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; March 18 [O.S. March 6] 1874 – March 24, 1948) was a Russian political and also Christian religious philosopher who emphasized the existential spiritual significance of human freedom and the human person. Alternate historical spellings of his name in English include "Berdiaev" and "Berdiaeff", and of his given name as "Nicolas" and "Nicholas".

Biography

Nikolai Berdyaev was born at Obukhiv, Kiev Governorate in 1874, in an aristocratic military family. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Berdyaev, came from a long line of Kiev and Kharkiv nobility. Almost all of Alexander Mikhailovich's ancestors served as high-ranking military officers, but he resigned from the army quite early and became active in the social life of the Kiev aristocracy. Nikolai's mother, Alina Sergeevna Berdyaeva, was half-French and came from the top levels of both French and Russian nobility. He also had Polish and Tatar origins.

Greatly influenced by Voltaire, his father was an educated man that considered himself a freethinker and expressed great skepticism towards religion. Nikolai's mother, Eastern Orthodox by birth, was in her views on religion more Catholic than Orthodox. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father's library allowed him to read widely. He read Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Kant when he was only 14 and excelled at languages.

Berdyaev decided on an intellectual career and entered the Kiev University in 1894. It was a time of revolutionary fervor among the students and the intelligentsia. He became a Marxist and he was arrested in a student demonstration and expelled from the university. His involvement in illegal activities led in 1897 to three years of internal exile to Vologda, in northern Russia, a milder sentence compared than that faced by many other revolutionaries.

In 1904, he married Lydia Yudifovna Trusheff. The couple moved to Saint Petersburg, the Russian capital, and the centre of intellectual and revolutionary activity. He participated fully in intellectual and spiritual debate, eventually departing from radical Marxism to focus his attention on philosophy and Christian spirituality.

A fiery 1913 article, entitled "Quenchers of the Spirit", criticising the rough purging of Imiaslavie Russian monks on Mount Athos by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church using tsarist troops, caused him to be charged with the crime of blasphemy, the punishment for which was exile to Siberia for life. The World War and the Bolshevik Revolution prevented the matter coming to trial. After the October Revolution of 1917, as the Bolshevik régime began consolidating its power with a growing suppression of non-Lenin Marxist Intelligentsia, Berdyaev remained steadfast in his criticism of its totalitarianism and the domination of the state over the freedom of the individual. Nonetheless, he was permitted, for the time being, to continue to lecture and write.

His disaffection culminated, in 1919, with the foundation of his own private academy, the "Free Academy of Spiritual Culture". It was primarily a forum for him to lecture on the hot topics of the day and to present them from a Christian point of view. He also presented his opinions in public lectures, and every Tuesday, the academy hosted a meeting at his home because official Soviet anti-religious activity was intense at the time and the official policy of the Bolshevik government, with its Soviet anti-religious legislation, strongly promoted State atheism.

In 1920, Berdiaev became professor of philosophy at the University of Moscow. In the same year, he was accused of participating in a conspiracy against the government; he was arrested and jailed. The feared head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, came in person to interrogate him, and he gave his interrogator a solid dressing down on the problems with Bolshevism. Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book The Gulag Archipelago recounts the incident as follows:

[Berdyaev] was arrested twice; he was taken in 1922 for a midnight interrogation with Dzerjinsky; Kamenev was also there.... But Berdyaev did not humiliate himself, he did not beg, he firmly professed the moral and religious principles by virtue of which he did not adhere to the party in power; and not only did they judge that there was no point in putting him on trial, but he was freed. Now there is a man who had a "point of view"!

The Soviet authorities eventually expelled Berdyaev from Russia, in September 1922. He became one of a group of prominent writers, scholars and intellectuals who were sent into forced exile on the so-called "philosophers' ships".

At first, Berdyaev and other émigrés went to Berlin, where he founded an academy of philosophy and religion, but economic and political conditions in the Weimar Republic caused him and his wife to move to Paris in 1923. He transferred his academy there, and taught, lectured and wrote, working for an exchange of ideas with the French and European intellectual community, and participated in a number of international conferences.

During the German occupation of France during World War II, Berdyaev continued to write books that were published after the war, some of them after his death. In the years that he spent in France, Berdyaev wrote 15 books, including most of his most important works. He died at his writing desk in his home in Clamart, near Paris, in 1948.

Primary source biographical works in English are Berdyaev's intellectual autobiography, published originally under the title Dream and Reality, and Donald A. Lowrie's 1960 book, Rebellious Prophet: A Life of Nikolai Berdyaev, written in close collaboration with Berdyaev's sister-in-law, Evgenia Rapp, and others of their close acquaintance under the auspices of the Berdiaev Société.

Philosophy

David Bonner Richardson described Berdyaev's philosophy as Christian existentialism and personalism. He emphasized the importance of creativity that requires personal freedom.

According to Marko Markovic, "He was an ardent man, rebellious to all authority, an independent and "negative" spirit. He could assert himself only in negation and could not hear any assertion without immediately negating it, to such an extent that he would even be able to contradict himself and to attack people who shared his own prior opinions".

He also published works about Russian history and the Russian national character. In particular, he wrote about Russian nationalism:

The Russian people did not achieve their ancient dream of Moscow, the Third Rome. The ecclesiastical schism of the seventeenth century revealed that the muscovite tsardom is not the third Rome. The messianic idea of the Russian people assumed either an apocalyptic form or a revolutionary; and then there occurred an amazing event in the destiny of the Russian people. Instead of the Third Rome in Russia, the Third International was achieved, and many of the features of the Third Rome pass over to the Third International. The Third International is also a Holy Empire, and it also is founded on an Orthodox faith. The Third International is not international, but a Russian national idea.

Theology and relations with Russian Orthodox Church

Berdyaev was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, and believed Orthodoxy was the religious tradition closest to early Christianity.

Berdyaev criticized Russian Orthodox Church and described his views as anticlerical,, but this should be considered in the context of an abusive distortion of the "we" aspect of churchly Sobornost by a pseudo "us-them" class divisive Marxist-like mentality. He considered himself closer to Orthodoxy than either Catholicism or Protestantism. According to him, "I can not call myself a typical Orthodox of any kind; but Orthodoxy was near to me (and I hope I am nearer to Orthodoxy) than either Catholicism or Protestantism. I never severed my link with the Orthodox Church, although confessional self-satisfaction and exclusiveness are alien to me."

Berdyaev is frequently presented as one of the important Russian Orthodox thinkers of the 20th century. However, neopatristic scholars such as Florovsky have questioned whether his philosophy is essentially Orthodox in character, and emphasize his western influences. But Florovsky can hardly be considered an objective unbiased critic, having been savaged in a 1937 Journal Put' article by Berdyaev, along with Florovsky's own extreme ultra-Byzantine views impelling his 1955 career change. Paul Valliere has pointed out the sociological factors and global trends which have shaped the Neopatristic movement, and questions their claim that Berdyaev and Vladimir Solovyov are somehow less authentically Orthodox.

Berdyaev affirmed universal salvation, as did many important Orthodox theologians of the 20th century. Along with Sergei Bulgakov, he was instrumental in bringing renewed attention to the Orthodox doctrine of apokatastasis, which had largely been neglected since it was expounded by Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century, although he rejected Origen's articulation of this doctrine.

The aftermath of the Russian Revolution and Civil War, along with Soviet interference, caused the Russian Orthodox emigre diaspora to splinter into three Russian Church jurisdictions: the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (in schism from Moscow Patriarchate until 2007); the parishes under Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgiyevsky) that went under the Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarchate; and parishes that remained under the Moscow Patriarchate. Berdyaev was among those that chose to remain under the omophor of the Moscow Patriarchate. He is mentioned by name on the Kosun/Chersonese Diocesan history as among those noted figures who supported the Moscow Patriarchate West-European Eparchy (in France now Korsun eparchy).

Currently, the house in Clamart in which Berdyaev lived, now comprises a small "Berdiaev-museum" and attached Chapel in name of the Holy Spirit, under the omophor of the Moscow Patriarchate. On 24 March 2018, the 70th anniversary of Berdyaev's death, the priest of the Chapel served panikhida-memorial prayer at the Diocesan cathedral for eternal memory of Berdyaev, and later that day the Diocesan bishop Nestor(Sirotenko) presided over prayer at the grave of Berdyaev.

Works

The first date is of the Russian edition, the second date is of the first English edition

• Subjectivism and Individualism in Societal Philosophy (1901)
• The New Religious Consciousness and Society (1907) (Russian: Новое религиозное сознание и общественность, includes chapter VI "The Metaphysics of Sex and Love")
• Sub specie aeternitatis: Articles Philosophic, Social and Literary (1900-1906) (1907; 2019) ISBN 9780999197929 ISBN 9780999197936
• Vekhi - Landmarks (1909; 1994) ISBN 9781563243912
• The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia (1910; 2014) ISBN 978-0-9963992-1-0
• The Philosophy of Freedom (1911)
• Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov (1912; 2017) ISBN 9780996399258 ISBN 9780999197912
• "Quenchers of the Spirit" (1913; 1999)
• The Meaning of the Creative Act (1916; 1955) ISBN 978-15973126-2-2
• The Crisis of Art (1918; 2018) ISBN 9780996399296 ISBN 9780999197905
• The Fate of Russia (1918; 2016) ISBN 9780996399241
• Dostoevsky: An Interpretation (1921; 1934) ISBN 978-15973126-1-5
• Oswald Spengler and the Decline of Europe (1922)
• The Meaning of History (1923; 1936) ISBN 978-14128049-7-4
• The Philosophy of Inequality (1923; 2015) ISBN 978-0-9963992-0-3
• The End of Our Time [a.k.a. The New Middle Ages] (1924; 1933) ISBN 978-15973126-5-3
• Leontiev (1926; 1940)
• Freedom and the Spirit (1927–8; 1935) ISBN 978-15973126-0-8
• The Russian Revolution (1931; anthology)
• The Destiny of Man (1931; translated by Natalie Duddington 1937) ISBN 978-15973125-6-1
• Lev Shestov and Kierkegaard N. A. Beryaev 1936
• Christianity and Class War (1931; 1933)
• The Fate of Man in the Modern World (1934; 1935)
• Solitude and Society (1934; 1938) ISBN 978-15973125-5-4
• The Bourgeois Mind (1934; anthology)
• The Origin of Russian Communism (1937; 1955)
• Christianity and Anti-semitism (1938; 1952)
• Slavery and Freedom (1939) ISBN 978-15973126-6-0
• The Russian Idea (1946; 1947)
• Spirit and Reality (1946; 1957) ISBN 978-15973125-4-7
• The Beginning and the End (1947; 1952) ISBN 978-15973126-4-6
• Towards a New Epoch" (1949; anthology)
• Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography (1949; 1950) alternate title: Self-Knowledge: An Essay in Autobiography ISBN 978-15973125-8-5
• The Realm of Spirit and the Realm of Caesar (1949; 1952)
• Divine and the Human (1949; 1952) ISBN 978-15973125-9-2
• Truth and Revelation (n.p.; 1953)
• Astride the Abyss of War and Revolutions: Articles 1914-1922 (n.p.; 2017) ISBN 9780996399272 ISBN 9780996399289

Sources

• '"Bibliographie des Oeuvres de Nicolas Berdiaev" établie par Tamara Klépinine' published by the Institut d'études Slaves, Paris 1978
• Berdyaev Bibliography on www.cherbucto.net
• By-Berdyaev Online Articles Index

See also

• Christian existentialism
• Christian philosophy
• Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Søren Kierkegaard
• List of Russian philosophers
• Nikolai Lossky
• Orthodox Christian theology
• Philosophers' ship
• Russian Religious Renaissance
• Vekhi

Works cited

• Donald A. Lowrie. Rebellious Prophet: A Life of Nicolai Berdyaev. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1960.
• M. A. Vallon. An apostle of freedom: Life and teachings of Nicolas Berdyaev. Philosophical Library, New York, 1960.
• Lesley Chamberlain. Lenin's Private War: The Voyage of the Philosophy Steamer and the Exile of the Intelligentsia. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2007.
• Marko Marković, La Philosophie de l'inégalité et les idées politiques de Nicolas Berdiaev (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1978).

Further reading

• Braybrooke, Neville (1952). "The Significance of Berdyaev," Contemporary Review, Vol. CLXXXI, pp. 52–55.

External links

• Works by Nikolai Berdyaev at Unz.com
• Berdyaev Online Library and Index
• Dirk H. Kelder's collection of Berdyaev essays and quotes
• Philosopher of Freedom
• ISFP Gallery of Russian Thinkers: Nikolay Berdyaev
• Nikolai Berdiaev and Spiritual Freedom
• Nicolas Berdyaev And Modern Anti-Modernism
• Fr. Aleksandr Men' Lecture on N. A. Berdyaev
• Odinblago.ru: Бердяев Николай Александрович (Russian)
• Korsun/Chersonese Eparchy (Russian and French language)