The author discusses his own philosophy of "personalism" as he attacks the enslaving institutions of modern life

Slavery and Freedom

Politics & Social Sciences

Berdyaev, Nikolai

Philosophy

Scribner

In this powerful, moving book, first published in 1946, Berdyaev is not so interested in the empirical details of Russian history as he is in “the thought of the Creator about Russia.” The "Russian idea" is thus a mystical notion. Religion and philosophy―not economics or politics―determine history and society. Berdyaev begins his story in the nineteenth century, tracing the lineage of such powerful artists and thinkers as Chaadev, Khomyakov, Kireevksy, Leontyev, Aksakov, Hertzen, and Bakunin, all of whom struggled to integrate the polarities of East and West, spirit and matter, and male and female in the Russian soul. That soul, however, is so immense, boundless, and vague that it is incapable of settling for "the halfway kingdom of culture." Demanding all or nothing―alternately apocalyptic and nihilistic―Russians strove to justify culture and discover Russia's mystical mission. Impatient with the slow pace of history, distrusting all authority, and yet haunted by a vision of unity, thinkers such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Federov, and Solovyov created an original and vital religious philosophy that culminated in the Russian renaissance at the beginning of the twentieth century. The fruit of these great figures―of whom Berdyaev was one (others included Florensky, Bulgakov, Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, Blok, and Bely)―was cut short by the 1917 Revolution. More recently, their works have been available in self-published (Samizdat) editions. A great philosophical and spiritual rebirth was occurring underground. Now they are available again in this book, which is essential reading for an understanding of the new Russia.

The Russian Idea (Library of Russian Philosophy)

History

Russia

Lindisfarne Books

The Philosophy of Freedom

This is the 1st English translation from Russian: the Russian religious philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev's 1911 book, "The Philosophy of Freedom", which combines some several journal articles previously penned by him, together with chapters written uniquely for this book.. It is among the earliest of his books, immediated preceded by his 1911 book, "The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia", and followed by his 1912 tome, "Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov" -- all which serve as a significant "key" to primary elements in his thought in this early period. Berdyaev's fundamental motifs of freedom, the person, creativity, spirit -- are already quite evident, and further advanced by his rediscovery research into the thought of often for us significant yet very obscure thinkers, both Russian and foreign. In the present text, the closing appended article entitled, "A Refined Thebaid (The Religious Drama of Huysmans)" is significantly important in the schemata of Berdyaev's thought.
 The 1911 "Philosophy of Freedom" seems strongly to serve as a template model to Berdyaev's important work, "The Destiny of Man", written 20 years later in 1931 in exile. Both books consist primarily of 2 Parts: the first section critiquing the then dominant philosophic views of the time; the section section a triadic approach dealing with the Christian revelation and the correlative creative human ethical response to God in a schemata of threefold stages. The "Huysmans" chapter in our present text provides an especially significant "key" as to a source of Berdyaev's triadic approach, and to his intuitions on the philosophy of history and other areas of his religio-philosophic thought. Misperceptions arise from approaching isolated aspects of his thought when isolated from the integral entirety. Hence the importance of Berdyaev's early books and articles to better an understanding into his "matured" later works, which has been the crux of our efforts as an English translator of N. A. Berdyaev's works.
 The present book is part of a continuing series of works of Russian Religious Philosophy in 1st English translation under our imprint of "frsj Publications".

Frsj Publications

The Meaning of History

In her brilliant new opening essay, Banerjee says of Berdyaev "he was never more than a curious but unwelcome guest in history. He fearlessly engaged it on the level of ideas while remaining alien to its means and ends, gifted with an incurable longing for transcendence." Witness to two world wars, Berdyaev observed the destruction of established cultures in the traumatic birth of new systems. Arrested on political suspicion-by Czarist and then by Bolshevik police�he died in exile in France in 1948, carrying forth his intellectual work until the end.Berdyaev considered the philosophy of history as a field that laid the foundations of the Russian national consciousness. Its disputes were centered on distinctions between Slavophiles and Westerners, East and West. The Meaning of History was an early effort, following World War I, that attempted to revive this perspective. With the removal of Communism as a ruling system in Russia, that nation returned to an elaboration of a religious philosophy of history as the specific mission of Russian thought. This volume thus has contemporary significance. Its sense of the apocalypse, which distinguishes Russian from Western thought, gives the book its specifically religious character.In order to grasp and oppose the complex phenomenon of social and cultural disintegration, Berdyaev shows that human beings must rely upon some internal dialectic. After the debacle of the war, the moment arrived to integrate Russian historical experiences into those of a Europe, which, although torn by schism, still claimed to be the descendant of Christendom. The book is remarkable for its powerful stylistic grace, and astonishingly contemporary feeling.

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Routledge

In her brilliant new opening essay, Banerjee says of Berdyaev "he was never more than a curious but unwelcome guest in history. He fearlessly engaged it on the level of ideas while remaining alien to its means and ends, gifted with an incurable longing for transcendence." Witness to two world wars, Berdyaev observed the destruction of established cultures in the traumatic birth of new systems. Arrested on political suspicion-by Czarist and then by Bolshevik police―he died in exile in France in 1948, carrying forth his intellectual work until the end.Berdyaev considered the philosophy of history as a field that laid the foundations of the Russian national consciousness. Its disputes were centered on distinctions between Slavophiles and Westerners, East and West. The Meaning of History was an early effort, following World War I, that attempted to revive this perspective. With the removal of Communism as a ruling system in Russia, that nation returned to an elaboration of a religious philosophy of history as the specific mission of Russian thought. This volume thus has contemporary significance. Its sense of the apocalypse, which distinguishes Russian from Western thought, gives the book its specifically religious character.In order to grasp and oppose the complex phenomenon of social and cultural disintegration, Berdyaev shows that human beings must rely upon some internal dialectic. After the debacle of the war, the moment arrived to integrate Russian historical experiences into those of a Europe, which, although torn by schism, still claimed to be the descendant of Christendom. The book is remarkable for its powerful stylistic grace, and astonishingly contemporary feeling.

Americas

Spirit and Reality

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Sophia Perennis et Universalis

Solitude and Society

Self-Knowledge: An Essay in Autobiography

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

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