Berdyaev and the Russian Idea

In late 1922, Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) was forced into exile, along with the flower of Russian culture (suffice it to mention just the philosophers Pitirim Sorokin, Semyon Frank, Nikolai Lossky and Sergei Bulgakov). Although he is best known as a religious philosopher, the range of Berdyaev’s work defies such a narrow term. Even a simple, incomplete list of his works shows the variety of his interests: The Philosophy of Freedom (1911), The Meaning of Creation (1916), The Fate of Russia (1918), The Philosophy of Inequality, The Meaning of History (1923), The World View of Dostoyevsky (1923), The New Middle Ages (1924), The Russian Idea (1946), Self-Knowledge (1949) ...

Berdyaev’s philosophy has already been the subject of many books and is far too complex to address in such a small space. In brief, Berdyaev admitted to being a dualist. On the one hand, he distanced himself from a world that he saw as harsh and destructive. On the other, he passionately attempted to transform that world. Berdyaev believed in the cooperation of God and man, in divine humanity. He spoke of the Kingdom of God as the ultimate ideal but believed that this kingdom must be built not only by God but also by human effort. Along with this went other contradictory convictions. Knowledge is dead – Berdyaev believed, faith alive. And human creation is a means of changing the world, yet any creative act is doomed.

Berdyaev did not believe that history is capable of progressive motion. He felt that history is filled with contradictions between good and evil and that the struggle between these two forces will culminate in “metahistory” – or the Kingdom of God.

Berdyaev’s political views were fluid and unstable. At one time, he considered democracy acceptable, but later turned into a serious critic. He rejected complete economic freedom and thus approached communism. Yet Berdyaev’s views on Bolshevism in Russia also fluctuated greatly. From 1917-1922, there were no limits to his opposition to the communist tyranny. But he later became convinced that the Revolution was God’s judgment on the people and that it is impossible to go against God’s will.

The events of Berdyaev’s life are simple. Born in Kiev into a distinguished noble family, he studied at the Kiev Cadet Corps, then went on to university. There, he developed an interest in Marxism and was barred from university for spreading socialist propaganda.

Starting in 1905, Berdyaev’s “God-seeking” period began. He actively participated in the religious-social movement and became one of the founders of the Russian religious renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century.

Probably Berdyaev’s most amazing gift was his ability to predict the future. Of the 1917 Revolution, Berdyaev wrote: “I experienced the Russian Revolution as a moment of my own fate. I had long considered revolution in Russia to be inevitable and fair. But I did not imagine it in rainbow colors. On the contrary, I foresaw that, during the Revolution, freedom would be destroyed and extremist elements hostile to culture and the soul would be victorious in it.” Berdyaev foretold the Bolsheviks’ ascent to power in 1907. Later, he would also predict the Second World War and the triumph “of false religion,” as he called Stalin’s authoritarian cult.

During his five years under the Soviet regime, Berdyaev participated actively in public life. He took part in religious marches against the persecution of church figures and in the work of committees helping the hungry and sick. In 1920, Berdyaev was elected a professor of Moscow University, where he lectured for a year. But he soon felt the danger to spiritual culture contained within the Bolshevik Revolution. “The Revolution did not spare the creators of spiritual culture,” he wrote. “It treated spiritual values with suspicion and hostility. The philosophy under whose symbol the Revolution took place not only did not recognize the existence of the soul and spiritual activity, but also considered the soul to be an obstacle to the realization of the communist regime, a counter-revolution.”

And so, the philosopher had the idea of uniting spiritual figures and creating a center to continue Russian spiritual culture. The Free Academy of Spiritual Culture was created in 1919 and existed until Berdyaev’s exile in 1922. There, lectures, seminars and public meetings took place (always attended by the Cheka). Opinions were traded and discussed freely. Although the Academy’s sessions were never advertised in any newspaper, they drew more and more participants with time.

The Academy’s popularity soon had the authorities worried. One by one, the Academy’s best teachers were summoned to the Cheka and even arrested (Berdyaev twice). Then it was “suggested” that they leave the USSR. “I did not want to leave Russia, did not want to be made an emigré,” Berdyaev wrote. “I believed in the internal process of the rebirth of communism, in the emancipation from the yoke that takes place through spiritual rebirth.”

In exile, Berdyaev discovered that this rebirth would not come about quickly or easily. First, he spent several years in Berlin, where he continued to write and founded an academy on the model of his earlier one in Moscow. Later, he moved to Paris, where he organized the journal Put (Path) (1926-1939), in which many of his works were published for the first time. Berdyaev died near Paris on March 24, 1948.

Berdyaev’s philosophical and spiritual contributions are enormous. Long known in the United States and Europe, he is only now being discovered in all his complexity in his homeland. One of Berdyaev’s best-known works The Russian Idea (1946), reflecting the historical struggle between Slavophiles and Westernizers, doubtless strikes a chord in today’s Russia. “The Russian people belong to the religious type,” the philosopher wrote. “The ethical ideas of the Russian are very different from the ethical ideas of Western peoples ... The Russian idea is more communal than the Western one.” True or not, this idea will continue to be hotly debated as Russia maps a path into the uncertain future.

In Brief

Russian Life has already written about the fasting traditions of Veliky Post or Lent (see March 1997 issue), in anticipation of Easter. And, by now, we all know that March 8 is “International” Women’s Day. But March also contains other important, though lesser-known events in the world of Russian history and culture.

March 19 marks 100 years since the opening of St. Petersburg’s Russian Museum, located in the Mikhailovsky Palace (built for Emperor Paul I’s fourth son Mikhail). After the death of the Mikhailovsky’s last tenant, Grand Duchess Yekaterina Pavlovna, the royal family was unable to keep up the palace, and it became state property. Soon afterwards, Emperor Alexander III purchased the building and decided to turn it into a museum of Russian art. Today, the Russian Museum houses the work of Russian artists from all periods, and the visitor can see everything from Andrei Rublyov’s famous icons to the paintings of the “golden” 19th century – by Borovikovsky, Ivanov, Aivazovsky, Shishkin and others.

March 3 marks 80 years since the signing of the Soviet-German Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. With a fragile new government and a hopelessly undisciplined military, Lenin was determined to avoid war with Germany at all costs. And so, against the advice of Trotsky and others, he was forced into a degrading peace which was to last a little over nine months. Under the terms of the treaty, Turkey gained several regions in southern Russia, and Ukraine and the Baltic States were recognized as independent states, with puppet governments controlled by Germany. All in all, 700,000 square kilometers of Russian territory were seized with a population of 56 mn (a third of the population of the Russian empire).

Delving further back into history, on March 14, 385 years ago, Mikhail Romanov  – founder of the Romanov dynasty – was elected tsar. After the Time of Troubles ended and the Polish invaders were defeated, the zemsky sobor met to choose a ruler. Related to Ivan the Terrible and seen by the people as a legitimate successor, Romanov was the obvious choice. His dynasty would last until the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917.

March also contains the anniversaries of several prominent Russian writers and artists. March 1 marks 135 years since the birth of writer Fyodor Sologub (1863-1927). Sologub went down in the history of Russian belles lettres primarily as the author of the novel The Petty Demon (1892-1902), as well as the translator of Voltaire, Maupassant, Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Wilde.

On March 16, 195 years ago, Russian poet Nikolai Yazykov (1803-1847) was born. An accomplished lyricist who sang the glories of Russian nature, Yazykov’s work sometimes resembled that of his life-long friend Alexander Pushkin.

March 17 marks 90 years since the birth of Boris Polevoy (1908-1981) – a Soviet  writer of socialist realism. A war correspondent for the newspaper Pravda during the Second World War, Polevoy not only wrote about the heroics of the Russian troops, but also showed the other, frightening side of war. His book The Story of a Real Man (1946), in which a wounded Soviet pilot returns to fight against the Germans, was meant to inspire the Russian people with communist ideals. Polevoy was later awarded the International Peace Prize for his essay collection American Diaries.

On March 30, 155 years ago, writer Konstantin Stanyukovich (1843-1903), was born. The son of an influential Russian admiral, the young Stanyukovich seemed destined to become a naval officer. Bowing to his father’s wishes, he studied in the Naval Cadets Corps, all the while dreaming of university. In order to beat “this foolishness” out of Konstantin’s head, his father sent him on a three-year sea voyage around the world. But, though Stanyukovich gained remarkable naval experience, his dream remained. After returning from the voyage, he moved to the country (and was stripped of his inheritance), where he taught and began to write. At the same time, he began publishing the journal Delo (Business), known for its democratic leanings. For several anti-government publications, Stanyukovich was exiled to Tomsk, where he continued to write, mostly about sailors and the sea.

March 7 marks 120 years since the birth of artist Boris Kustodiyev (1878-1927). A student of Repin’s and a master at depicting the peasant and merchant lifestyles, he was also a great portrait painter. His portrait of Fyodor Shalyapin (printed in last month’s issue of Russian Life) is especially well-known.

March 12 marks 135 years since the birth of Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945), the founder of geochemistry, biogeochemistry and radiogeology. One of Vernadsky’s pupils wrote that “his ingenious ideas will be studied and absorbed for decades and whole centuries.” Vernadsky not only created new sciences – his study of the biosphere (living creatures and their environment) revolutionized the study of nature as a whole.

–Valentina Kolesnikova