Berdiaev, Nikolai A. (1874–1948)

KONSTANTIN GAVRILKIN

Nikolai Berdiaev (also spelled Nicholas Berdyaev) was one of the foremost repre­sentatives of a generation of Russian intel­lectuals, many of whom, after a shortlived interest in Marxism and socialism, embraced Orthodox Christianity in the 1900s and gave birth to the so-called Russian Religious Renaissance of the 20th century (Zernov 1963). Exiled from Russia by the Bolshevik regime in 1922, Berdiaev, after a short stay in Berlin, moved to France, where he spent the rest of his life (1924–48), playing a key role in uniting the intellectual forces of the Russian diaspora both as pro­moter of various academic and cultural institutions and editor-in-chief of the journal Put’ which, under his leadership (1925–40), became the most significant Russian intellectual periodical of the time.

From the early books, Philosophy of Freedom (1911) and The Meaning of Creativity (1916), to the philosophic autobiography, published posthumously (1949), Berdiaev was preoccupied with the problems of freedom, creativity, and the dialectic of divine and human. Berdiaev believed that a static concept of God needed to be replaced with a dynamic one in order to provide an adequate under­standing of human life and history. He argued that freedom was ontologically prior to God, who was bound by it himself. The creation of the world – of something that never existed before – was a unique act of freedom, the archetype of creativity. Human beings received from God the gift of freedom: it is reflected in personhood and creativity, the true image and likeness of God. However, human existence in the world is tragic, since freedom allows indi­viduals to choose evil which cannot be eradicated except by the same free will. Furthermore, existence in the world is dual- istic at its core: as a free and creative person, the human being belongs to the noumenal world of spirit, freedom, and creativity; as an individual, he or she is immersed in the phenomenal world of objectification through body, society, politics, culture, and economy.

According to Berdiaev, all human institutions, including the church, carry in themselves the threat of enslaving human spirit and freedom when they cease to encour­age and promote creativity. The Russian revolutions, the collapse of the Romanov Empire, the two world wars, and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany – all of which he personally witnessed and experienced – he understood as the revolt of human spirit against the institutions that enslaved freedom in the name of false ideas. But the revolt itself led to a greater tragedy still. Berdiaev believed that the most tragic problem of modern history was the inherent dualism, the opposition between the church and the world. He was hopeful that the church of the Third Testa­ment – the Testament of the Spirit – would embrace creativity and freedom, and that theosis and transfiguration of the world, rather than its damnation and curse, would again inspire the church in her path through history.

SEE ALSO: Russia, Patriarchal Orthodox Church of

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Berdiaev, N. (1950) Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography, trans. R. M. French. London: G. Bles.

Vallon, M. A. (1960) An Apostle of Freedom: Life and Teachings of Nicolas Berdyaev. New York: Philosophical Library. Zernov, N. (1963) The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd.