The life path and stages of creativity of the great Russian philosopher Berdyaev. Berdyaev Nikolay

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev R Born March 6/19, 1874 in Kyiv. His paternal ancestors belonged to the highest military aristocracy. Matb - from the family of the Kudashev princes (on his father’s side) and the Counts of Choiseul-Guffier (on his mother’s side). In 1894 he entered the Kiev cadet corps. However, the environment of a military educational institution turned out to be completely alien to him, and Berdyaev entered the natural sciences department of the Kyiv University of St. Vladimir.
The student environment very significantly influenced the character and life guidelines of Berdyaev. The imperfection of the world now gives rise to a desire in him to change the world, to eradicate evil and injustice. Berdyaev seeks an answer to the question of how to achieve this in the theory of scientific socialism, which he began to study in 1894, in one of the Kyiv Social Democratic circles. At the same time, he continues his studies in philosophy, attending lectures and seminars by Professor G.I. Chelpanov.
Participation in the student movement ends for Berdyaev with arrest in 1898, a month's imprisonment, trial and exile to Vologda (1901 - 1902), where A.A. Bogdanov and A.V. Lunocharsky, B. were already at that time. V. Savinkov, B. A. Kistyakovsky (author of the famous article in the collection "Milestones"), A. M. Remizov and P. E. Shcheglov. By this time, Berdyaev was already known as a “critical Marxist”, the author of the article “A.F. Lange and critical philosophy in their relation to socialism”, which K. Kautsky published in the organ of the German Social Democratic Party “New Time” (No. 32-34 for 1899-1900). Soon this philosophical debut of Berdyaev was supplemented by the appearance of his first book - “Subjectivism and individualism in social philosophy. A critical study of N.K. Mikhailovsky” (St. Petersburg, 1901).
Already in exile, Berdyaev begins to realize the impossibility of combining the materialist understanding of history and philosophical idealism in a holistic worldview, and by 1903 he finally strengthens himself on the path that the former “legal” Marxists P.B. Struve, S.N. Bulgakov, S. .L.Frank. This ultimately led him in 1904 to the magazine “New Way” - the tribune of religious and philosophical meetings organized in St. Petersburg by D.S. Merezhkovsky. But idealism for Berdyaev turned out to be only a transitional philosophical form. The final point is the still unclear image of religious-Christian philosophy, designed to express human experience in a holistic and universal way.
In 1905-1906 Together with S.N. Bulgakov, Berdyaev edits the journal “Questions of Life,” striving to make it a center for the unity of innovative trends in the socio-political, religious, philosophical and artistic spheres. Trip in the winter of 1907-1908. to Paris and intensive communication with Merezhkovsky and his circle stimulated Berdyaev’s conversion to Orthodoxy. Upon returning to Russia, he settled in Moscow, became close to the circle of philosophers united around the publishing house "Put" (G.A. Rachinsky, E.N. Trubetskoy, V.F. Ern, S.N. Bulgakov, P.A. Florensky ) and takes an active part in organizing the religious and philosophical society in memory of Vl. Solovyov. The result of the creative searches of this period is the “Philosophy of Freedom” published in 1911.
In "The Philosophy of Freedom" Berdyaev appears as a continuer of the main traditions of Russian philosophy of the 19th century. Berdyaev's striving for universal conciliarity, called upon to overcome church confessionalism, is in line with the universalism of Vl. Solovyov and his teaching about “God-manhood”.
In the winter of 1912-1913. Berdyaev, together with his wife L.Yu. Trusheva, travels to Italy and brings from there the plan and the first pages of a new book, completed by February 1914. This was “The Meaning of Creativity” published in 1916, in which, Berdyaev noted, his “religious philosophy " was for the first time fully realized and expressed (see: "Self-knowledge. Experience of philosophical autobiography", Paris, 1949, p. 174).
February 1917 Berdyaev greeted. He perceived the fall of the “sacred Russian kingdom” as a false theocracy and “peasant kingdom” in line with the creative tasks of the era. However, over time, Berdyaev becomes more pessimistic. 10 days before the fall of the Provisional Government, he writes: “The traditional history of the Russian intelligentsia is over... it was in power, and hell reigned on earth. Truly, the Russian revolution has some kind of great mission, but not a creative, negative mission - it must expose the lie and emptiness of some idea that the Russian intelligentsia was obsessed with and with which it poisoned the Russian people" (see: Russian Freedom. 1917. Nos. 24-25. P.5).
In 1918, Berdyaev created the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture, at which several seminars began. He gives a course of lectures on the philosophy of history, participates in a seminar on Dostoevsky, and also writes the book “Philosophy of Inequality” (published in Berlin in 1923). In 1920, the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University elected him as a professor. And in 1921 he was arrested in connection with the case of the so-called “tactical center”. In the summer of 1922, another arrest followed, and in the fall - deportation outside the country (see. Vitaly Shentalinsky,"The Philosophical Ship").
From 1922 to 1924 Berdyaev lived in Berlin. Already in this era, he acquired a reputation as a leading philosopher of post-war Europe. He made acquaintances with O. Spengler, M. Scheler, G. von Keyserling.
The beginning of the Second World War and the war between Nazi Germany and the USSR sharpened Berdyaev's patriotic feelings... The first post-war book was “The Russian Idea” (Paris, 1946), dedicated to understanding the history of Russian philosophy.
Berdyaev died on March 23, 1948 at his desk in his home in the Paris suburb of Clamart.

A.V.Polyakov
(with minor abbreviations)

When we hear the word “philosopher,” we most often imagine some ancient, ancient Greek or Roman elder wrapped in sheets. How many thinkers - our compatriots - are we familiar with? In fact, there are no fewer philosophers in Russia than there once were in Ancient Greece, and today we will discuss the work and life path of one of them - Berdyaev. The biography of this man and even his origin greatly affected his thoughts, worldview and attitude.

Total information

It is difficult to briefly tell the biography of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev, since one can talk about his life and work for hours. But let's start from the beginning. The future thinker was born in Kievskaya on March 6 (18), 1874. His father was cavalry officer Alexander Mikhailovich, who later became the leader of the district nobility. Nikolai's mother, Alina Sergeevna, had French roots (through her mother), and through her father she was Princess Kudasheva. This is one of the reasons why the biography of the philosopher Berdyaev is so non-standard and unique - he was brought up not like any other Russian boy, but as a person from an international family. His parents instilled in him a love for the whole world, and not just for his homeland.

Some people may be familiar with Berdyaev's biography and personality from works such as "The Russian Idea" (1948), "The World Outlook of Dostoevsky" (1923), and "The Philosophy of the Free Spirit" (1927-28).

Earlier time

Since Nikolai Berdyaev owes his roots to a noble noble family, he had the honor of studying at the Kiev Cadet Corps, and subsequently at the Kiev University at the faculties of law and science. In 1989, he joined the Marxist movement, for which he was expelled from the educational institution and even exiled to Vologda for three years. In 1901, after returning from exile, an ideological evolution occurred in the biography of Nikolai Berdyaev - a movement from Marxism to idealism. His guides in this were Mikhail Bulgakov, Pyotr Struve and Semyon Frank, who thought in a similar vein. By the way, it was these people who became the founders of a new philosophical movement, which in 1902 was called “Problems of Idealism.” Thanks to Berdyaev and his like-minded people, the eternal problem of religious and philosophical revival arose in Russia.

First works and creative activity

In 1904, significant changes occurred in Berdyaev’s biography: he moved to St. Petersburg and became the editor-in-chief of two magazines at once: “Questions of Life” and “New Way”. At the same time, getting closer to such philosophers as Gippius, Merezhkovsky, Rozanov and others, he founded another movement called the “New Religious State”. For several years, Berdyaev has been writing numerous articles in which he reveals the essence of the religious and spiritual state of Russia and expresses his personal opinion on all this. He combines all his works during this period into several books: “Sub specie aeternitatis: Philosophical, social and literary experiments 1900-1906.”

Moscow and new travels

The biography of N. A. Berdyaev has already been unfolding in Moscow since 1908. He moves here in order to continue his creative development and become one of the participants in the movement to continue and develop Solovyov’s thought. Nikolai also becomes one of the figures in the book publishing house "Path". There he became one of the philosophical authors who contributed to the creation of the legendary collection “Vekhi” in 1909. After this, the thinker had the chance to go on a trip to Italy. There he became imbued not only with the thoughts and spirit of the local people, but also with the beauty and grandeur of architecture and other cultural and religious monuments. This gave impetus to the development of a new philosophy in Berdyaev’s head, which became autonomous, unique and not belonging to any group, but only to him alone. His thoughts on freedom of personality and thought were supplemented by the idea of ​​creativity and the eternal tragedy that is inextricably linked with it (“The Meaning of Creativity”, 1916).

Preparations for the revolution and its beginning opened new doors in Berdyaev’s biography. Against the backdrop of the erupting political situation, he began to work even more actively, expressing his thoughts and considerations about everything that was happening in numerous articles and books. It is worth noting that Nicholas expected the coming of the revolution, since he clearly knew that the period of emperors and Tsars in Russia had completely outlived its usefulness and had become, one might say, a vestige. However, he did not like the power that replaced the former regime even more. He rejected communism and totalitarianism, arguing that this forced “equality” and “brotherhood” was just a guise under which evil was hidden. Note also that in 1919 he wrote a book (which was published in 1923) called The Philosophy of Inequality. In it, he rejected the former democracy and socialism, but this was even before the Bolsheviks came to power. After the formation of the Soviets, Berdyaev came to the conclusion that the tsarist regime was not so bad, and democracy, going hand in hand with socialism, gave the people much more freedom than totalitarianism.

Also, telling the biography of N.A. Berdyaev, it can be briefly noted that after the revolution he began to hold weekly meetings at his home, which even received the name “Free Academy of Spiritual Culture.” Thanks to these activities, he became a recognized leader of the non-Bolshevik public.

Arrests and exile to Germany

Between 1918 and 1922, Berdyaev was arrested three times on behalf of the Soviet government for his cultural and philosophical activities. In 1922, he was exiled to Germany, fearing that because of his thoughts and treatises the foundation of the newly built “Red Russia” would be shaken. It should be noted that the thinker went to Berlin not alone, but with a dozen of his like-minded people, many of whom were members of his “Free Academy”. Being far from his homeland, Nikolai, again, organized the Religious and Philosophical Academy. He also took part in the creation and development of the Russian Scientific Institute, which allowed all our compatriots who were in Berlin to receive an education in accordance with Russian standards. Berdyaev also took part in the creation of the Russian Student Christian Movement. As he himself claimed, exile to Berlin allowed him to do this to the extent that he himself desired, since in his homeland, alas, he would not have been able to do even a fraction of what he was able to accomplish in Germany.

Period of emigration to France

France is the next country to which Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev fled from Soviet communism in 1924. The biography of the thinker in his mother’s homeland was no less interesting and exciting than in Russia or Germany. Firstly, he became the editor-in-chief of the Path magazine, which was published from 1925 to 1940. This publication was the only thread connecting all the migrants in France who left Russia but missed it. Nikolai also wrote the book “The New Middle Ages”. It turned out to be small, but it was from the moment of its release that Berdyav’s wide fame began throughout Europe. For many years, the philosopher has been holding meetings in which representatives of various movements of Christianity - Orthodox, Catholics and even Protestants - participate. He often talks with representatives of the Catholic clergy and compares their culture with the Russian one. It is important to note that the ideology of the Catholic left, which formed in France in the mid-30s, was proposed by Nikolai Berdyaev.

Russian philosopher in a global context

In our short biography of Berdyaev, it is also impossible to miss the fact that he became a conductor of true Russian history to the Western world. In his books “The Russian Idea” he described the main events and trends, as well as the social mood of Russia and, so to speak, conveyed at first hand the entire ideology of our country to the people of the West. Neither before nor after him there was such a person who could convey to other ethnic groups and civilizations, who are accustomed to living and thinking completely differently, in full colors all the charm of the Russian people, land, customs and, most importantly, the events that have become the reason for the formation of certain ideological movements in Russia.

The Second World War

The terrible and terrible war that went on in Russia from 1941 to 1945, oddly enough, gave Berdyaev hope that the Soviet government would become more humane towards the people and soften its totalitarian policies. He even came into contact with representatives of the ruling elite at the end of the war (from 1944 to 1946). However, he soon received information about numerous repressions by Stalin and Beria, as well as new ideological treatises that further shackled the common people. At this point, his hopes for an enlightened future for Russia are cut short, and he stops contacting his native country. In 1947, Berdyaev’s book entitled “The Experience of Eschatological Metaphysics” was published. In the same year he was recognized as an honorary doctor of divinity from the University of Cambridge. Two years later, Nikolai releases an autobiography with clear spiritual and philosophical overtones called “Self-Knowledge.” At the moment, the thinker has over forty books behind him, and he is already considered a world-class author.

Features of philosophy

For the first time, one could guess what kind of philosophy Berdyaev was promoting and what his worldview was from his book “The Meaning of Creativity.” It describes with precision the ideas of objectification, creativity, personality and, of course, the metahistorical or eschatological meaning of history. Nikolai created a kind of dualistic theory of reality; it is often compared with Plato’s philosophical model. However, for the ancient Greek thinker, two worlds - spiritual and physical - exist separately from each other, as if in parallel. But according to Berdyaev, our spirituality, our thoughts and ideology, which does not have a bodily or other tangible shell, bursts into the material plane. And it is precisely thanks to the interaction of these two “universes” that the entire world in which we live, think, develop and walk our destined path functions.

Conclusion

Having learned the short biography of Nikolai Berdyaev, there is a desire to study in more depth not only his life path, but also his creative, spiritual views and interests. His personality, thought, idea were so unique and atypical that they still remain relevant. Re-reading any work of this author these days, you are surprised at how much it corresponds to the time, even despite the fact that it was written almost a hundred years ago.

Biography

Family

N. A. Berdyaev was born into a noble family. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Berdyaev, was a cavalry officer, then the Kyiv district leader of the nobility, later the chairman of the board of the Kyiv land bank; mother, Alina Sergeevna, nee Princess Kudasheva, was French on her mother’s side.

Education

Berdyaev was first raised at home, then entered the 2nd grade of the Kyiv cadet corps. In the 6th grade, he left the building “and began to prepare for the matriculation certificate for entering the university. Then I had the desire to become a professor of philosophy.” In 1894, Berdyaev entered Kiev University - first at the Faculty of Science, but a year later he switched to Law.

Life in Russia

Berdyaev, like many other Russian philosophers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, went from Marxism to idealism. In 1898, for his Social Democratic views, he was arrested (along with 150 other Social Democrats) and expelled from the university (before that, he had once been arrested for several days as a participant in a student demonstration). Berdyaev spent a month in prison, after which he was released; his case dragged on for two years and ended with deportation to the Vologda province for three years, two of which he spent in Vologda, and one in Zhitomir.

In 1898, Berdyaev began to publish. Gradually, he began to move away from Marxism; in 1901, his article “The Struggle for Idealism” was published, which consolidated the transition from positivism to metaphysical idealism. Along with S. N. Bulgakov, P. B. Struve, S. L. Frank, Berdyaev became one of the leading figures of the movement, which first announced itself with the collection “Problems of Idealism” (), then the collection “Vekhi”, in which it was sharply negative characterized the Russian Revolution of 1905.

In the following years before his expulsion from the USSR in 1922, Berdyaev wrote many articles and several books, of which later, according to him, he truly appreciated only two - “The Meaning of Creativity” and “The Meaning of History”; he participated in many endeavors of the cultural life of the Silver Age, first moving in the literary circles of St. Petersburg, then taking part in the activities of the Religious and Philosophical Society in Moscow. After the revolution of 1917, Berdyaev founded the “Free Academy of Spiritual Culture,” which existed for three years (1919–1922).

Life in exile

Twice under Soviet rule Berdyaev was imprisoned. “The first time I was arrested was in 20 in connection with the case of the so-called Tactical Center, to which I had no direct connection. But many of my good friends were arrested. As a result, there was a big process, but I was not involved in it.” Berdyaev was arrested for the second time in 1922. “I sat there for about a week. I was invited to the investigator and told that I was being deported from Soviet Russia abroad. They took a subscription from me that if I appeared on the border of the USSR, I would be shot. After that I was released. But it took about two months before I was able to travel abroad.”

After leaving (on the so-called “philosophical ship”), Berdyaev first lived in Berlin, where he participated in the creation and work of the “Russian Scientific Institute”. In Berlin, Berdyaev met several German philosophers - Max Scheler, Keyserling, Spengler. In 1924 he moved to Paris. There, and in recent years in Clamart near Paris, Berdyaev lived until his death. He wrote and published a lot from 1925 to 1940. was the editor of the magazine "Path", actively participated in the European philosophical process, maintaining relations with such philosophers as E. Mounier, G. Marcel, K. Barth and others.

“In recent years there has been a slight change in our financial situation; I received an inheritance, albeit a modest one, and became the owner of a pavilion with a garden in Clamart. For the first time in my life, already in exile, I had property and lived in my own house, although I continued to need, there was always not enough.” In Clamart, once a week “Sundays” were held with tea parties, where friends and admirers of Berdyaev gathered, conversations and discussions of various issues took place and where “one could talk about everything, express the most opposite opinions.”

Among the books published in exile by N. A. Berdyaev, one should name “The New Middle Ages” (1924), “On the Purpose of Man. The experience of paradoxical ethics" (1931), "On slavery and human freedom. Experience of personalistic philosophy" (1939), "Russian idea" (1946), "Experience of eschatological metaphysics. Creativity and objectification" (1947). The books “Self-Knowledge” were published posthumously. Experience of a philosophical autobiography" (1949), "The Kingdom of the Spirit and the Kingdom of Caesar" (1951), etc.

“I had to live in a catastrophic era both for my homeland and for the whole world. Before my eyes, entire worlds collapsed and new ones emerged. I could observe the extraordinary vicissitudes of human destinies. I saw transformations, adaptations and betrayals of people, and this was perhaps the hardest thing in life. From the trials that I had to endure, I came away with the belief that a Higher Power protected me and did not allow me to perish. Epochs so filled with events and changes are considered interesting and significant, but these are also unhappy and suffering eras for individuals, for entire generations. History does not spare the human personality and does not even notice it. I survived three wars, two of which can be called world wars, two revolutions in Russia, small and large, I experienced the spiritual renaissance of the early 20th century, then Russian communism, the crisis of world culture, the revolution in Germany, the collapse of France and the occupation by its victors, I survived exile, and my exile is not over. I suffered painfully through the terrible war against Russia. And I still don’t know how the world upheaval will end. There were too many events for a philosopher: I was imprisoned four times, twice in the old regime and twice in the new, was exiled to the north for three years, had a trial that threatened me with eternal settlement in Siberia, was expelled from my homeland and, I will probably end my life in exile.”

Berdyaev died in 1948 in his home in Clamart from a broken heart. Two weeks before his death, he completed the book “The Kingdom of the Spirit and the Kingdom of Caesar,” and he already had a mature plan for a new book, which he did not have time to write.

Basic principles of philosophy

The book “The Experience of Eschatological Metaphysics” most expresses my metaphysics. My philosophy is a philosophy of spirit. Spirit for me is freedom, a creative act, personality, communication of love. I affirm the primacy of freedom over being. Being is secondary, there is already determination, necessity, there is already an object. Perhaps some of the thoughts of Duns Scotus, most of all J. Boehme and Kant, partly Maine de Biran and, of course, Dostoevsky as a metaphysician, I consider to be prior to my thought, my philosophy of freedom. - Self-knowledge, ch. eleven.

During his exile for revolutionary activities, Berdyaev moved from Marxism to the philosophy of personality and freedom in the spirit of religious existentialism and personalism.

In his works, Berdyaev covers and compares world philosophical and religious teachings and movements: Greek, Buddhist and Indian philosophy, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, mysticism, Freemasonry, cosmism, anthroposophy, theosophy, Kabbalah, etc.

For Berdyaev, the key role belonged to freedom and creativity (“Philosophy of Freedom” and “The Meaning of Creativity”): the only mechanism of creativity is freedom. Subsequently, Berdyaev introduced and developed concepts that were important to him:

• kingdom of spirit
• kingdom of nature,
• objectification - the inability to overcome the slave shackles of the kingdom of nature,
• transcendence is a creative breakthrough, overcoming the slavish shackles of natural-historical existence.

But in any case, the internal basis of Berdyaev’s philosophy is freedom and creativity. Freedom defines the kingdom of the spirit. Dualism in his metaphysics is God and freedom. Freedom pleases God, but at the same time it is not from God. There is a “primary”, “uncreated” freedom over which God has no power. This same freedom, violating the “divine hierarchy of existence,” gives rise to evil. The theme of freedom, according to Berdyaev, is the most important in Christianity - the “religion of freedom.” Irrational, “dark” freedom is transformed by Divine love, the sacrifice of Christ “from within,” “without violence against it,” “without rejecting the world of freedom.” Divine-human relations are inextricably linked with the problem of freedom: human freedom has absolute significance, the fate of freedom in history is not only a human, but also a divine tragedy. The fate of a “free man” in time and history is tragic.

Books

• "The Philosophy of Freedom" (1911) ISBN 5-17-021919-9
• “The Meaning of Creativity (The Experience of Human Justification)” (1916) ISBN 5-17-038156-5
• “The Fate of Russia (Experiments on the Psychology of War and Nationality)” (1918) ISBN 5-17-022084-7
• “Philosophy of Inequality. Letters to Enemies on Social Philosophy" (1923) ISBN 5-17-038078-X
• "Konstantin Leontyev. Essay on the history of Russian religious thought" (1926) ISBN 5-17-039060-2
• "The Philosophy of the Free Spirit" (1928) ISBN 5-17-038077-1
• “The Fate of Man in the Modern World (Towards an Understanding of Our Epoch)” (1934)
• “I and the world of objects (An experience in the philosophy of loneliness and communication)” (1934)
• "Spirit and Reality" (1937) ISBN 5-17-019075-1 ISBN 966-03-1447-7
• “The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism” http://www.philosophy.ru/library/berd/comm.html (1938 in German; 1955 in Russian)
• “About slavery and human freedom. Experience of personalistic philosophy" (1939)
• “The Experience of Eschatological Metaphysics. Creativity and Objectification" (1947)
• “Truth and revelation. Prolegomena to the Criticism of Revelation" (1996 in Russian)
• "The Existential Dialectic of the Divine and the Human" (1952) ISBN 5-17-017990-1 ISBN 966-03-1710-7

Literature

• L. I. Shestov, “Nikolai Berdyaev (gnosis and existential philosophy)”
• V. V. Rozanov, “At the readings of Mr. Berdyaev”
• Priest A. Men, “Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev”
• Priest G. Kochetkov, “The genius of Berdyaev and the Church”
• Shentalinsky V. “Philosophical Steamship”
• Veniamin (Novik) Ig. “The courage of a man, a publicist, a philosopher” (To the 50th anniversary of the earthly death of Nikolai Berdyaev)
• Titarenko S. A. “Specificities of the religious philosophy of N. A. Berdyaev”
• “I want to understand you, I’m looking for meaning in you...” (N. A. Berdyaev and occultism)
• Yuri Semyonov. About Russian religious philosophy of the late XIX - early XX centuries
• E.A. Korolkova The meaning of asceticism in the philosophy of N.A. Berdyaev
• L. Axelrod Berdyaev and my grandmother

Notes

Links

• Berdyaev's works in the library of Ya. Krotov
• Berdyaev's works in the Vekhi library
• Berdyaev, Nikolai Alexandrovich in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• N. A. Berdyaev “Fundamentals of Religious Philosophy”, published for the first time in 2007 in the ImWerden Library
• Berdyaev, Nikolai Alexandrovich - Biography. Worldview. Aphorisms
• N. A. Berdyaev on the website hpsy.ru. Existential and humanistic psychology
• Cherny Yu. Yu. Philosophy of sex and love by N. A. Berdyaev. Monograph (2004)

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev(1874-1948) was a prominent representative of Russian religious philosophy. Born in Kyiv into a family that belonged to an old noble family. He studied at the Faculty of Science at Kiev University, then at the Faculty of Law. During his student years he was influenced by Marxism, participated in the activities of the Social Democratic Center, and was engaged in the propaganda of Marxist ideas. For participating in an anti-government demonstration, he was expelled from the university and sent into exile in Vologda. In the period following the exile, N.A. Berdyaev is experiencing a worldview crisis: he finally breaks with Marxism and moves to idealism and to a “new religious consciousness.” In his opinion, in the “new religious consciousness” one should abandon traditional Orthodoxy with its asceticism and conservatism.

In February 1917, a bourgeois-democratic revolution took place in Russia, overthrowing the autocracy. Nikolai Berdyaev warmly welcomes her and actively contributes to keeping the country within the framework of bourgeois development. Therefore, he greeted October 1917 with hostility. He expressed this attitude in his work “Philosophy of Inequality.” Nevertheless, he did not stop his creative activity. In 1918, Nikolai Berdyaev created the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture, gave lectures, reports, and wrote articles.

In 1922, Nikolai Berdyaev, together with a group of figures of Russian culture and science, was exiled abroad. While in exile, first in Berlin, then in Paris, N.A. Berdyaev writes a lot, runs the magazine “Put”, and gives lectures. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev became famous thanks to his many books: “On the Purpose of Man”, “Spirit and Reality”, etc. But the greatest interest among Western readers was aroused by books that dealt with the theme of Russia and its historical fate (“The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism”).

Nikolai Berdyaev was a Russian patriot. He wrote: “Despite the Western element in me, I feel like I belong to the Russian intelligentsia. I am a Russian thinker and writer." He died in 1948. He was called the “Russian Hegel of the 20th century.”

Nikolai Berdyaev's main idea is freedom. The philosopher says about it this way: “The uniqueness of my philosophical type lies, first of all, in the fact that I laid the foundation of philosophy not being, but freedom.” This means that he views any problem through the prism of his ideas about freedom. Freedom is self-evident; its existence does not need to be proven. The fact that a person exists, that he rises above the world, speaks of his freedom. Freedom cannot be explained causally, it cannot be explained where it comes from and why. Freedom is baseless; it is known only in mystical experience. But the main thing in Berdyaev’s understanding of freedom is its uncreatedness.

According to Nikolai Berdyaev, there are three types of freedom:
I. Primary, irrational. It is rooted in “nothing”, it is not emptiness, it is what God created the world from. This is what precedes God and the world. Therefore, God has no power over freedom.
(THAT is uncreated freedom. Therefore, God is not responsible for evil.
2. Rational freedom. It is that it leads to the submission of the moral law. And submission is slavery, lack of freedom. What's the solution? The solution is that God turns from a creator into a Savior, a redeemer of sin.
3. Freedom imbued with love for God. This freedom is love. And human improvement is possible only by ascending to such freedom. But this path to freedom, according to N.A. Berdyaev, is difficult, and freedom itself is a heavy burden, it gives rise to suffering, but the refusal of freedom reduces suffering.

From the theme of freedom we move on to the theme of man, personality, creativity. According to N.A. Berdyaev, this is the main theme of his life, and the very idea of ​​man is God’s greatest idea. Implemented by N.A. Berdyaev sees the meaning of his teaching about man. ON THE. Berdyaev elevates man, elevates him to an object of worship, turns him into the center of the world. With this position, a person’s task is creativity, in the process of which salvation from evil and sin occurs.

From the experience of his life, Nikolai Berdyaev was well acquainted with the tendency to suppress the individual observed among the revolutionary intelligentsia. Therefore N.A. Berdyaev condemns all manifestations of this tendency and advocates the primacy of the individual over society.

In “Self-Knowledge” Nikolai Berdyaev writes: “The experience of the Russian revolution confirmed my long-standing idea that freedom is not democratic, but aristocratic. Freedom is not interesting and not needed by the insurgent masses.” Hence the conclusion: freedom is individual, personality is valuable in itself, it is above all.

The meaning of N.A. Berdyaev as an original Russian philosopher is that “in our cruel age he glorified freedom” and called for mercy to man. Along with N.A. Berdyaev, Russian religious philosophy developed in the works of L.I. Shestova, S.A. Bulgakova, P.A. Florensky.

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev was born in the Kyiv province. Studied at the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University. In 1898 he was arrested as a participant in the socialist movement. In his youth he was a Marxist, but soon became disillusioned with the teachings of Marx and became interested in the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov. In 1922 he was expelled from Soviet Russia along with other representatives of the Russian intelligentsiaabroad. Lived in Berlin, Paris. In 1926 he founded the magazine "Put" andabout 1939was its editor-in-chief.

Berdyaev's most significant philosophical works: "Subjectivism and idealism in social philosophy. A critical study about N.K. Mikhailovsky" (1900), "From the point of view of eternity" (1907), "Philosophy of freedom" (1911), "The meaning of creativity. Experience justification of man" (1916), "Philosophy of Inequality" (1923), "The Meaning of History" (1923), "Philosophy of the Free Spirit, Christian Issues and Apologetics" (1929), "The Fate of Man (the Experience of Paradoxical Ethics)" (1931), “Russian thought: the main problems of Russian thought in the 19th and first half of the 20th century” (1946), “The experience of eschatological metaphysics” (1947). His works have been translated into many languages ​​of the world.

The main theme of Berdyaev's works is the spiritual existence of man. In his opinion, human spirituality is closely related to divine spirituality. His teachings are opposed to the concepts of theism and pantheism, which are expressions of naturalistic religious philosophy.

The basis of a certain worldview, according to Berdyaev, is the relationship between spirit and nature. Spirit is the name for such concepts as life, freedom, creative activity, nature is a thing, certainty, passive activity, immobility. The spirit is neither an objective nor a subjective reality; its knowledge is carried out through experience. Nature is something objective, multiple and divisible in space. Therefore, nature includes not only matter, but also the psyche.

God acts as a spiritual principle. The Divine is irrational and super rational; it does not need rational proof of its existence. God is beyond the natural world and is expressed symbolically. God created the world out of nothing. Nothing is not emptiness, but a certain primary principle that precedes God and the world and does not contain any differentiation, primary chaos (Ungrund). Berdyaev borrowed this concept from Jacob Boehme, identifying it with divine nothingness. Berdyaev's creation of the world is closely connected with his solution to the problem of freedom.

APHORISMS AND STATEMENTS OF NIKOLAY BERDYAEV

Creativity is the transition of non-existence into being through an act of freedom.**

Man is a slave because freedom is difficult and slavery is easy.

Utopias turned out to be much more feasible than previously thought. And now there is another painful question: how to avoid their final implementation.

A miracle must come from faith, not faith from a miracle.

Ancient tragedy is a tragedy of fate, Christian tragedy is a tragedy of freedom.

Culture was born from cult.

True conservatism is the struggle of eternity with time, the resistance of incorruptibility to decay.

The most self-loving people are people who do not love themselves.

Revolution is the decay of the old regime. And there is no salvation either in that which has begun to rot, or in that which has completed the rotting.

Revolutionaries worship the future but live in the past.

There is no science, there are only sciences.

The veneration of saints overshadowed communion with God. A saint is more than a man, but one who worships a saint is less than a man. Where is the man?

Freedom is the right to inequality.

Psychoanalysis is psychology without a soul.

There cannot be class truth, but there can be class lies.

God is denied either because the world is so bad or because the world is so good.

The main thought of man is the thought of God, the main thought of God is the thought of man.

Denial of Russia in the name of humanity is the robbery of humanity.

Christ was not the founder of a religion, but a religion.

The Gospel is the teaching about Christ, not the teaching of Christ.

Dogmatism is the integrity of the spirit; he who creates is always dogmatic, always boldly choosing and creating what he has chosen.

The New Testament does not cancel the Old Testament for the still old humanity.

Socialism is a sign that Christianity has not fulfilled its task in the world.

Militant atheism is retribution for slave ideas about God.

Politeness is a symbolically conditional expression of respect for every person

For Berdyaev, there are three types of freedom: primary irrational freedom (arbitrariness), rational freedom (fulfillment of moral duty), freedom permeated with love of God. Irrational freedom is contained in the “nothing” from which God created the world. God the creator arises from divine nothingness, and only then God the creator creates the world. Therefore, freedom is not created by God, since it is already rooted in divine nothingness. God the creator is not responsible for the freedom that gives rise to evil. “God the creator,” writes Berdyaev, “is omnipotent over being, over the created world, but he has no power over non-existence, over uncreated freedom.” Freedom has the power to create both good and evil. Therefore, according to Berdyaev, human actions are absolutely free, since they are not subject to God, who cannot even foresee them. God does not have any influence on the will of human beings, therefore he does not have omnipotence and omniscience, but only helps a person to ensure that his will becomes good. If things were not this way, then God would be responsible for the evil committed on earth and then theodicy would not be possible.

Berdyaev's religious philosophy is closely connected with his social concepts, and the connecting link is the individual and his problems. Therefore, in his works, Berdyaev pays a lot of attention to the consideration of the place of the individual in society and the theoretical analysis of everything that is connected with the individual. For Berdyaev, the individual is not part of society; on the contrary, society is part of the individual. Personality is a creative act in which the whole precedes the parts. The basis of the human personality is the unconscious, ascending through the conscious to the superconscious.

The divine constantly exists in man, and the human constantly exists in the Divine. Human creative activity is a complement to divine life. Man is a “dual being, living both in the world of phenomena and in the world of noumena” [Experience of eschatological metaphysics. P. 79]. Therefore, it is possible for noumena to penetrate into phenomena, “the invisible world into the visible world, the world of freedom into the world of necessity” [P. 67]. This means the victory of spirit over nature; the liberation of man from nature is his victory over slavery and death. Man is primarily a spiritual substance that is not an object. A person has greater value than society, state, nation. And if society and the state infringe on individual freedom, then it is his right to protect his freedom from these attacks.

Berdyaev considers the ethics existing in society as legalized moral rules to which a person’s daily life is subject. But this legalized ethics, the “ethics of the law,” the ethics of legalized Christianity is filled with conventions and hypocrisy. In ethics, he sees sadistic tendencies and unclean subconscious motives for his demands. Therefore, without canceling or discarding this everyday ethics, Berdyaev proposes a higher stage of moral life, which is based on redemption and love of God. This ethics is associated with the appearance of the God-man in the world and the manifestation of love for sinners. There is an irrational freedom in the world that is rooted in the Ungrund and not in God. God enters the world, its tragedy, and wants to help people with his love, strives to achieve the unity of love and freedom, which should transform and deify the world. “God himself strives to suffer in peace.”

According to Berdyaev, the historical process of development of society is a struggle between goodness and irrational freedom, it is “the drama of love and freedom unfolding between God and His other Self, which He loves and for which He longs for mutual love” [The meaning of history. P. 52]. “Three forces operate in world history: God, fate and human freedom. That is why history is so complex. Fate turns the human personality into the arena of the irrational forces of history... Christianity recognizes that fate can only be overcome through Christ” [An Experience of Eschatological Metaphysics ]. The victory of irrational freedom leads to the disintegration of reality and a return to the original chaos.

An expression of the victory of irrational freedom - revolutions, which represent the extreme manifestation of chaos. Revolutions do not create anything new, they only destroy what has already been created. Only after the revolution, during the period of reaction, the process of creative transformation of life occurs, but any projects based on coercion fail. In the modern era, striving to free the creative powers of man, nature is viewed as a dead mechanism that should be subjugated. All achievements of science and technology are used for this.

Machine production is put at the service of man in order to combat nature, but this machine technology also destroys man himself, because he loses his individual image. A person, guided by non-religious humanism, begins to lose his humanity. If a person rejects a higher moral ideal and does not strive to realize the image of God in himself, then he becomes a slave of everything base, turns into a slave of new forms of life based on the forced service of the individual to society to satisfy his material needs, which is achieved under socialism.

In principle, Berdyaev is not against socialism, but he is for a socialism in which “the highest values ​​of the human person and his right to achieve the fullness of life will be recognized.” But this is just a socialist ideal, different from real projects for building socialism, which, when implemented, give rise to new contradictions in public life. The real socialism that they strive to put into practice, according to Berdyaev, will never lead to the establishment of the equality it proclaims; on the contrary, it will give rise to new enmity between people and new forms of oppression. Under socialism, even if it eliminates hunger and poverty, the spiritual problem will never be solved. Man will still be “face to face, as before, with the mystery of death, eternity, love, knowledge and creativity. Indeed, we can say that a more rationally organized social life, the tragic element of life is the tragic conflict between personality and death, time and eternity - will increase in its intensity."

Berdyaev paid a lot of attention to Russia in his works. He wrote that “God himself destined for Russia to become a great integral unity of East and West, but in its actual empirical position it represents an unsuccessful mixture of East and West.” For Berdyaev, Russia's troubles are rooted in the incorrect relationship between masculine and feminine principles. If among Western peoples the masculine principle prevailed in the main forces of the people, which was facilitated by Catholicism, which fostered the discipline of the spirit, then “the Russian soul remained unliberated, it was not aware of any limits and extended indefinitely. It demands everything or nothing, its mood is either apocalyptic , or nihilistic, and it is therefore unable to erect a half-hearted “kingdom of culture.” In the book “Russian Thought,” Berdyaev describes these features of national Russian thought, which are aimed at the “eschatological problem of the end,” at the apocalyptic feeling of an impending catastrophe.

Berdyaev's philosophy represents the most striking expression of Russian philosophy, in which another attempt was made to express the Christian worldview in its original form.