1st English translation: "The Philosophy of Inequality" is a significiant and passionately intense work by the eminent Russian religious philosopher, Nicholas Berdyaev (1874-1948), written in the early months following the 1917 Communist Revolution in Russia. It was published only later in 1923 in Berlin, following his expulsion from Russia. With his perspective of a personalist existentialism and philosophy of freedom, Berdyaev voices a powerful critique of societal myths and mentalities that lead to a crushing totalitarian control over life, not only Russia then, but now also for our contemporary world. The present volume also includes the 1st English translation of Berdyaev's 1918 article, "Spirits of the Russian Revolution: Gogol/Dostoevsky/L. Tolstoy", which traces the prophetic literary motifs reflected in the Soviet Communist Russian Revolution. The present volume likewise includes the addition of an intensive chapter by the translator, addressing Berdyaev's Religio-Philosophic thought in its connection to aspects of Orthodox Christian theological insights, in an attempt to validate N. A. Berdyaev as indeed verymost an Orthodox Christian philosopher.

The Philosophy of Inequality: Letters to my Contemners, Concerning Social Philosophy

Politics & Social Sciences

Berdyaev, Nicholas

Philosophy

Frsj Publications

Revised 1st English Language Edition (2015): "The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia: Articles on Societal and Religious Psychology (1907-1909)", was written by the noted Russian Religious Philosopher, Nicholas Berdyaev ( alt. Berdiaev, Berdiaeff; 1874-1948). The original Russian text was published in 1910. The present text is the first time that this work has been translated into English, and is among those hitherto inaccessible earlier Berdyaev books, written while still in Russia, prior to his 1922 permanent banishment from Russia by the Soviet Communist regime. Significant towards an understanding of the formation of Berdyaev's matured thought, the book presents insights into the societal, literary, cultural and religious currents of foment in Russia and beyond, in the immediate years following the "1905 Russian Revolution". The vast literature of the "Russian Religious Renaissance" in Russia prior to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and continued in the Russian emigre community in the West, - has only somewhat found itself available in English translation. The present text is of value not only to the academic specialist of European and Russian historical or religio-philosophic thought of this period, but also the general reader, eager to rediscover long dormant ideas, and to better understand the enigma that is Russia. Berdyaev's ideas have benefited many a reader in their personal paths of "God-seekers". The translator of this work into English has been a extensive translator of Berdyaev's works situated on the Internet, seeking to revive the profound spirit of the insights of Berdyaev's generation.

The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia: Articles on Societal and Religious Psychology (1907-1909)

1st English translation: "Russian Religious Philosophy", a series of lectures by the noted Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Aleksandr Men' (1935-1990), shares insights and details into the lives and thought of some major Russian philosophic figures, Soviet era former "forbidden authors", significant names just then beginning to be repatriated and published in Russia. Fr Men' was able to lecture openly, he even spoke on Russian television during these final Soviet years -- it was the hopeful "Gorbachev era", a time of "perestroika" (restructuring) and "glasnost'" (openness), even regarding religious renewal. These Lectures discuss a series of seminal Russian religio-philosophic figures and events: Vl. Solov'ev, S, N. & E. N. Trubetskoy, L. Tolstoy, D. S. Merezhkovsky & Z. Gippius, N. A. Berdyaev, the priests S. Bulgakov & P. Florensky, S. L. Frank, G. P. Fedotov, Mother Maria (Skobtsova) -- most in exile abroad, some perishing tragically. Personal details of Fr. Men's own life are interwoven with some of these figures. The modern reader, both the general reader and the specialist, can find much of value and intellectually enriching in this text. The search for the meaning of life and the philosophic love of truth have never gone out of fashion... These Lectures, along with much else, were later transcribed by the "Aleksandr Men' Fond" in Moscow. The final Lecture was on "Mother Maria Skobtsova", who perished in Ravensbrueck Nazi concentration camp. One mere week later, on 9 Sept. 1990, Fr. Aleksandr Men' was himself brutally murdered, a crime never since solved nor perpetrator found. The publication of this text is intended to serve both in respectful tribute to his profound legacy, and in 25th Year Commemoration of the Memory of Fr. Aleksandr Men'!

Russian Religious Philosophy: 1989-1990 Lectures

Men', Fr. Aleksandr

1st English Translation from Russian: "The Crucible of Doubts" comprises four separately published works in 1929 by E. Skobtsova nee Pilenko (1891-1945), -- as booklets on Khomyakov, Dostoevsky, Vl. Solov'ev, and a Journal Put' article. These are significant and rare to find texts by a major figure in Russian religio-philosophic thought. Elisaveta Skobtsova in 1932 became the celebrated Orthodox Christian nun, Mother Maria of Paris, perishing in Ravensbrueck concentration camp in 1945, and recently canonised as a Saint in 2004. Truly an extraordinary woman, a Symbolist poet from the Russian cultural Silver Age, S-R revolutionary, default brave mayor, emigre religio-philosophic creative mind, incisive in thought and intrepid, with her monastic praxis of "Orthodox Action". She was an active WWII Resistance figure, sheltering Jews, and is recognised for such in WWII Holocaust memorials. Skobtsova is representative of that portion of the Russian Intelligentsia who blazed their path back to Christ and the Church. Our present title, "The Crucible of Doubts" is inspired by an apt saying by Dostoevsky: "Through the crucible of doubts my hosanna hath passed". Each of these three Orthodox figures in the booklets of Skobtsova has left an lasting imprint upon Orthodox religious thought. The old head of the Slavophils, A. S. Khomyakov, brought into currency the concept of "Sobornost'", as authentic "communality" or "catholicity", in answer to Papal pretensions. Skobtsova's booklet on Dostoevsky comprises an "Essential Dostoevsky" in a compactly concise compendium. Herein is the creative genius of Dostoevsky, all his uniquely pervasive insights, with his succint personified motifs and intensive themes, a rich fare for both student and scholar. With Skobtsova's "Vl. Solov'ev" booklet we meet with the radically significant religio-philosophic concept of "God-manhood", a profound Christological "long dead dogma" resuscitated by Solov'ev, to form the basis of an authentic Christian anthropology. Vl. Solov'ev was a seminal figure within Russian religio-philosophic thought, inspiring also the current of Sophiology, religiously and aesthetically. Although "God-manhood" is the ideal, "man-godhood" its antithesis proves to be the ugly reality prophetically foreseen by Dostoevsky. Skobtsova's 1929 article in Journal Put', "In Search of Synthesis", strives to provide meaningful an answer. A short eulogy of Mother Maria Skobtsova by the Russian religious philosopher, N. A. Berdyaev, opens the collective text of "The Crucible of Doubts". Mother Maria Skobtsova was a notable member of that remarkable gathering of Orthodox emigre religious intellectual figures of her generation in Russian Paris, which helped keep alive the light of faith in Russia during the long dark "Soviet night". A portion of this rich legacy has been rediscovered in Russia, and abroad. Skobtsova's writings contained in "The Crucible of Doubts" have however not been reprinted in Russian language since their original 1929 publication. This book can serve as an engaging read for both student and scholar, as well as anyone pondering the insights of a Christian existentialism, even beyond Orthodox Christian a perspective. Of minor note, the translator has extensively translated articles of the Russian religious philosopher, N. A. Berdyaev, including several books in 1st English translation, available from the selfsame publisher of this Mother Maria Skobtsova text...

The Crucible of Doubts: Khomyakov, Dostoevsky, Solov'ev, In Search of Synthesis, Four 1929 Works

Skobtsova (Mother Maria), E.

1st English Translation from Russian: "The Fate of Russia" is an insightful book by the eminent Russian religious philosopher, Nicholas Berdyaev (1874-1948). There is an "irony of fate" regarding the book in its "untimely" timeliness -- a collection of WWI related articles from 1914-1916, it was published in 1918 only after the Russian Communist 1917 Revolution and Russia's subsequent dropping out of the war, but before the total closure of independent presses. Thus, "untimely" at the moment of its appearance, it is at present quite "timely" as regards an understanding of the enigmatic visage of post-Soviet Russia for the world. Berdyaev was banished from Russia by the Communists in 1922, a "forbidden author" during the Soviet period. "The Fate of Russia" is divided into five segments, the first exploring the psychology of the "Russian Soul", the vastness of the Russian Land, a great East-West historically conflicted between its European and Asiatic-Mongol inheritance, the choice, as expressed by Vl. Solov'ev, between Xerxes or Christ. In separate articles, Berdyaev writes also of the French, the Germans and the Polish. WWI proved to be the "graveyard of empires", spawning further historical nightmares into our own time. Like Spengler, Berdyaev had presentiments of the "End of Europe", which in modern a perspective has seemed a slow-motion spiritual and cultural collapse, like the slow fading away of the Roman Empire. In our own time, particularly acute has become the question whether the nation state has become obsolete, to be subsumed and replaced by ideological concerns. Berdyaev addresses various aspects of "nationalness", its various guises. We live increasingly in a world of mass society beset by a totalitarian stifling of and intrusion upon the person, by both technology and the state. Two of Berdyaev's articles in the final segment speak of "Spirit and the Machine", and "Democracy and the Person". Other articles address the contrast between words and reality in societal life, its political abstractive manifestations and the conventional lie. Throughout all his many writings over his lifetime, Berdyaev was a champion of authentic freedom of the person at spiritual and creative a depth, innate to the dignity of the person, the freedom of conscience, a responsible freedom not bestowed by some whatever social concordat. For both Russia and the modern world, it remains the choice between the barbaric totalitarianism of Xerxes, or the innate freedom preached by Christ. This is the first appearance of Berdyaev's current tome, "The Fate of Russia", in the English language. It represents yet another hitherto unavailable work within the continuing series of our efforts at translation of primary texts in Russian Religious Philosophy.

The Fate of Russia

1st English Translation from Russian: "Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov" is an insightful book penned in 1912 by the eminent Russian religious philosopher, Nicholas Berdyaev (1874-1948). Under the perspective of "Khomyakov and us," the book explores, at depth and with extensive quotes, details of Khomyakov's life and thought.
 The book presents a number of ironies. A. S. Khomyakov was a central intellectual figure within the current of classical Slavophilism, which is typically glossed over for students of Russian thought as a conservative defense of the backwardness of the old Russian lifestyle; Khomyakov's view of Europe, however, as "the land of holy wonders" explodes this calumny. Rather, it is an Europe which is to be deeply engaged in accord with the Russian national psyche, not merely parroting the West. Khomyakov thus reworked Hegel and Schelling into a philosophy of "concrete idealism" based upon "an integral wholeness of life."
 The Slavophils supported the Russian Autocracy, but Khomyakov was regarded as a "dangerous man" by the tsar's functionaries. Khomyakov grounded Autocracy upon historical an event, when the Russian people peacefully and in accord chose Mikhail Romanov and his descendants to "assume the burden of rule." In this was a "poison pill." Khomyakov was an avid supporter of the Orthodox Church, but his theological writings were not allowed to be published, and had to be printed abroad, in French.
 Freedom, authentic freedom was a core tenet of the Slavophil conservatism, rendering them incompatible for employ by the bureaucracy, which they detested. Khomyakov discerned within history two conflicting creative types: the one, in fetish magical a mind is oriented towards necessity and external materiality, massive works of lifeless mute stones; the other, reflecting inward freedom and the fluid plasticity of life grounded in the human word and consciousness of the uniqueness of "person."
 The Orthodox Church was central a motif in Slavophil thought. Khomyakov saw the inner essence of the Church as comprising "love and freedom." Against papal pretensions he coined the concept of Sobornost', a vision of true catholicity grounded in communality, based not upon force and blind obedience, but rather upon authentic love and freedom, as any true community must be.
 Berdyaev is critical of Khomyakov on various points: reliance upon a static and outmoded lifestyle, their apocalyptic deafness to the imperative "Thy Kingdom Come" of the "Our Father" prayer, an insensitivity to the mystical dynamics of the sacraments and mysticism in general, and a blind hostility to the religious heritage of Roman Catholicism and the Romance peoples, apart from the issue of the papacy. But there resonates strongly within Berdyaev his already existing core motifs of person, freedom, creativity, spirit, which are apparent there as well in Khomyakov's thought, in embryonic a form. All this renders Khomyakov as revolutionary in spirit under conservative a guise. A curious paradox quite ironic! This echoes in spirit also the famous saying by St Alexander Nevsky: "Not in power is God, but in truth."
 This is the first appearance of Berdyaev's 1912 book, "Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov," in English translation. It represents yet another hitherto unavailable work within our continuing series of efforts at translation of primary texts in Russian Religious Philosophy, under the imprint of "frsj Publications."

Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov

1st English translation: "Russian Religious Philosophy," a series of lectures by the noted Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Aleksandr Men' (1935-1990), shares insights and details into the lives and thought of some major Russian philosophic figures, Soviet era former "forbidden authors," significant names just then beginning to be repatriated and published in Russia. Fr Men' was able to lecture openly, he even spoke on Russian television during these final Soviet years -- it was the hopeful "Gorbachev era," a time of "perestroika" (restructuring) and "glasnost'" (openness), even regarding religious renewal.These Lectures discuss a series of seminal Russian religio-philosophic figures and events: Vl. Solov'ev, S, N. & E. N. Trubetskoy, L. Tolstoy, D. S. Merezhkovsky & Z. Gippius, N. A. Berdyaev, the priests S. Bulgakov & P. Florensky, S. L. Frank, G. P. Fedotov, Mother Maria (Skobtsova) -- most in exile abroad, some perishing tragically. Personal details of Fr. Men's own life are interwoven with some of these figures.The modern reader, both the general reader and the specialist, can find much of value and intellectually enriching in this text. The search for the meaning of life and the philosophic love of truth have never gone out of fashion...These Lectures, along with much else, were later transcribed by the "Aleksandr Men' Fond" in Moscow. The final Lecture was on "Mother Maria Skobtsova," who perished in Ravensbrueck Nazi concentration camp. One mere week later, on 9 Sept. 1990, Fr. Aleksandr Men' was himself brutally murdered, a crime never since solved nor perpetrator found.The publication of this text is intended to serve both in respectful tribute to his profound legacy, and in 25th Year Commemoration of the Memory of Fr. Aleksandr Men'!

The present text, "Astride the Abyss of War and Revolutions: Articles 1914-1922" represents 1st English translation and publication of an extensive sbornik/collection of 98 articles (numerically, about 20% of the total corpus of his works) by the eminent Russian religious philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, regarding societal, political, cultural and religious matters, which remain of great continuing critical importance for our modern world.
The historical period covered spans Russia's entry into WWI, the challenges of upholding the war effort, the collapse of the Old Regime under the rot of Rasputinism, and the subsequent two 1917 "Russian Revolutions." First was the "February Revolution," the inherently unstable attempt by wartime Russia to create a democratic republic under Kerensky's Provisional Government, a brief moment of freedom, of "freedom of the word and thought," which in turn was undermined by ideological societal agitation for an ever continued "deepening of the Revolution," not merely political but societal. Berdyaev argues that there can be no true "social revolution" without a radical inner transformation of the human person; revolution as such is destructively non-creative a process and but reflects a continuation of the old poison under new guises. Russia under the revolutionary fervour merely replaced Rasputin with Lenin, and the pogrom-minded Black Hundredists mentality with a pogrom-minded Red Hundredists mentality...
The second 1917 "Russian Revolution," the "October Revolution," occurred with Lenin's Bolshevik-Marxist coup. Our text hints at rumours, even then, of Germany's hand in foisting Lenin upon Russia to sabotage the war effort. Instead of freedom, Lenin's Communism proclaimed a "dictatorship of the proletariat." There is a truism that revolutions ultimately devour their makers, whether in 1939 under Stalin, or in the century long revolutionary movements in Russia that saw their ultimate climax and demise in these years of bloody anarchy and Civil War. Much of Berdyaev's writings of this later period will be published only abroad, with his 1922 banishment from Russia, -- such as his fiery tome, "The Philosophy of Inequality."
Our present text may be considered part of the current Centenary interest into WWI, the "Great War," and its tragic aftermath of residual effects, which have continued through subsequent traumatic events to quake the quietude of modern life.
As in the dynamics of any classical tragedy, and gifted with historical hindsight, we are beset with the paralysis of terror at the impending fated disasters that are to ensue, and thus share in the healing process of catharsis. Berdyaev has proactive and creative an understanding of the Russian religio-philosophic theme of "God-manhood," grounded upon the ontological concept of person, in authentic freedom at spiritual a depth. Berdyaev's sympathy with the thought of N. F. Fedorov suggests a "Memory Eternal" to all who have perished, that their lives and struggles have not been in vain, and opens a path to transcend the alienation within modern man.
The "Table of Contents" for the present text, as well as for other books under the imprint of "frsj Publications," may be found at the website berdyaev.com, qv. This is another in our series of providing primary texts of Russian Religious Philosophy in 1st English translation.

Astride the Abyss of War and Revolutions: Articles 1914-1922

The present text, "Astride the Abyss of War and Revolutions: Articles 1914-1922" represents 1st English translation and publication of an extensive sbornik/collection of 98 articles (numerically, about 20% of the total corpus of his works) by the eminent Russian religious philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, regarding societal, political, cultural and religious matters, which remain of great continuing critical importance for our modern world.
The historical period covered spans Russia's entry into WWI, the challenges of upholding the war effort, the collapse of the Old Regime under the rot of Rasputinism, and the subsequent two 1917 "Russian Revolutions". First was the "February Revolution", the inherently unstable attempt by wartime Russia to create a democratic republic under Kerensky's Provisional Government, a brief moment of freedom, of "freedom of the word and thought", which in turn was undermined by ideological societal agitation for an ever continued "deepening of the Revolution", not merely political but societal. Berdyaev argues that there can be no true "social revolution" without a radical inner transformation of the human person; revolution as such is destructively non-creative a process and but reflects a continuation of the old poison under new guises. Russia under the revolutionary fervour merely replaced Rasputin with Lenin, and the pogrom-minded Black Hundredists mentality with a pogrom-minded Red Hundredists mentality...
The second 1917 "Russian Revolution", the "October Revolution", occurred with Lenin's Bolshevik-Marxist coup. Our text hints at rumours, even then, of Germany's hand in foisting Lenin upon Russia to sabotage the war effort. Instead of freedom, Lenin's Communism proclaimed a "dictatorship of the proletariat". There is a truism that revolutions ultimately devour their makers, whether in 1939 under Stalin, or in the century long revolutionary movements in Russia that saw their ultimate climax and demise in these years of bloody anarchy and Civil War. Much of Berdyaev's writings of this later period will be published only abroad, with his 1922 banishment from Russia, -- such as his fiery tome, "The Philosophy of Inequality".
Our present text may be considered part of the current Centenary interest into WWI, the "Great War", and its tragic aftermath of residual effects, which have continued through subsequent traumatic events to quake the quietude of modern life.
As in the dynamics of any classical tragedy, and gifted with historical hindsight, we are beset with the paralysis of terror at the impending fated disasters that are to ensue, and thus share in the healing process of catharsis. Berdyaev has proactive and creative an understanding of the Russian religio-philosophic theme of "God-manhood", grounded upon the ontological concept of person, in authentic freedom at spiritual a depth. Berdyaev's sympathy with the thought of N. F. Fedorov suggests a "Memory Eternal" to all who have perished, that their lives and struggles have not been in vain, and opens a path to transcend the alienation within modern man.
The "Table of Contents" for the present text, as well as for other books under the imprint of "frsj Publications", may be found at the website berdyaev.com, qv. This is another in our series of providing primary texts of Russian Religious Philosophy in 1st English translation.

The Crisis of Art

1st English translation from the Russian: "The Crisis of Art," an insightful booklet of 47 pages by the Russian religious philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev in 1918, originally comprised 3 articles. The present English text has been expanded into 9 related articles written by Berdyaev during this period, arranged into a threefold triadic schema. The 1st triad of articles in the present text are those contained in the original 1918 Russian text. The cover article, "The Crisis of Art," serving also as title to the booklet, examines cultural trends in art, both visual and literary, such as Symbolism, Decadentism, Cubism, Futurism (Filippo Marinetti) with mention of now obscure figures as Chiurlenis. Both "Picasso" visually and A. Bely's 1916 "Peterburg" novel give expression to the disintegrative features of the modern consciousness. The second triad of articles concern the Russian cultural figure, Vyacheslav Ivanov, mentioned in the initial article, concerning the lost aspect of "theurgy" in art, and attempts to recapture this in light of Nietzsche's Dionysianism. A "culture" as such in its dynamic youthful origins developes from within the "cultus," the "religious cult," and later ossifies losing its vitality. But such attempts at recapturing this initial experience typically prove artificial, prove to be mere "affectations of culture," of the genuine "experience," in Berdyaev's critique of Vyach. Ivanov. The third triad of articles further addresses this defect. The article on A. Bely's 1910 novel, "The Silver Dove," is a chilling account of a member of the Russian intelligentsia, intellectually very sophisticated but empty of soul and bearing, becoming involved with a Russian Khlysty-like sect, "the Doves." The second article, written abroad in 1923, addresses A. Bely's reminiscences of the Russian poet Aleksandr Blok (died 1921), and a failure at a "discerning of spirits" among the cultural element. The final Berdyaev article, on the obscure French Catholic figure Léon Bloy (died 1917), is the most engagingly unique in our text. Written in 1914, for nearly a century until 2005, this was the only source written in Russian on L. Bloy, and nigh impossible to find, but a treasure to peruse. Bloy is in ways considered final representative of a decadentist French literary cultural trend, whose names are unfamiliar to most. But L. Bloy is characteristic of no trend, nor would any trend be comfortable having him. Roughly contemporary to Nietzsche, he bears similarities with Nietzsche, but whereas Nietzsche retreated into lofty isolation, L. Bloy took the "low road" into the bourgeois muck of life. He is a man obsessed with the Absolute, with the "existential man," with the unrepeatable unique fate and destiny of each person, concerning which it is only for God to judge. At first impression he provokes and repels, he is an irascible and impossible fellow, an obsessive with uncouth words and mannerisms. But on second thought, as Berdyaev notes, he is typical of the Russian "holy fools" of old, and we come to feel fascination that we have encountered the perspicacity of a seer. He is a man at the extreme, one relying on no tomorrow or the day after, and his obsession at times borders on the demonic, as Berdyaev notes, requiring a "discerning of spirits." His intuition of the "aloneness" of both God and the individual person is unique. Bloy's critique of the "bourgeois" is not the typical socio-political label of ideologues, but a pervasively profound "metaphysics of bourgeoisness." Léon Bloy richly deserves further study as a significant French Catholic personalist and existentialist philosophic figure, which Berdyaev's article invites. The 10th article appended in our text was not penned by Berdyaev; rather, it suggests the threefold triadic structure to our text, symbolically. The present book is part of a continuing series of works of Russian religious philosophy in 1st English translation.

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Books by Frsj Publications

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The Philosophy of Inequality: Letters to my Contemners, Concerning Social Philosophy

The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia: Articles on Societal and Religious Psychology (1907-1909)

Russian Religious Philosophy: 1989-1990 Lectures

The Crucible of Doubts: Khomyakov, Dostoevsky, Solov'ev, In Search of Synthesis, Four 1929 Works

The Fate of Russia

Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov

Russian Religious Philosophy: 1989-1990 Lectures

Astride the Abyss of War and Revolutions: Articles 1914-1922

Astride the Abyss of War and Revolutions: Articles 1914-1922

The Crisis of Art