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A well-reasoned and superbly translated discussion of complex societal and religious issues of history
Now with a new introduction by Professor of Russian Maria Nemcova Banerjee, The Meaning Of History is a philosophical treatise by intellectual Nikolai Berdyaev, witness to two world wars, who survived arrest for political suspicion first by Czarist and then by Bolshevik police, who died in exile in France in 1948 doggedly pursuing his studies and analysis to the end. Observing the philosophy of history as a field that formed the foundations of Russian national consciousness, Berdyaev discusses celestial and metaphysical as well as mundane history, the role of Judaism and Jews in Russian history ("Semitism has been grafted on to the Christian spirit and is indispensable to its destiny. The theme of dualistic messianism, which first appears in Jewish history, has become that of universal history"), the Renaissance and Humanism, and much more. A well-reasoned and superbly translated discussion of complex societal and religious issues of history in general, and Russian history in particular.
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Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Nikolai (Aleksandrovich) Berdyaev, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1993 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Modern Age, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006. The length of the article is 3012 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Revisiting Nikolai Berdyaev.(Russian philosopher)(Critical essay)
Author: George A. Panichas
Publication: Modern Age (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 48Issue: 4Page: 375(6)

Article Type: Critical essay

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Customer Reviews (3)

Russia's Mystical Idea; influencing Russian political and social thought

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;"R. Kipling



East, and West:
Russians are accustomed to referring to Russia as the East, although, as one thinker said, "our spiritual, political, and cultural centers are not in the East. Furthermore, even if we belong to the East, it is the East of Europe that we belong to. And if the real East and the real Far West can meet, the meeting of two parts of the unified European culture is all the more natural."

Russia & West Europe:
After the reforms of Peter the Great, when Russia returned to Europe, the relationship between Western Europe and Russia became so tight that the European WWI, led to the 'Russia catastrophe'. Russia was already part of Europe, and its collapse resulted in degeneration of many European countries. As early as the 19th century, when Russia acquired its cultural and artistic self-consciousness, her thinkers were persuaded into the Western idea of Russia's extra-European path and has chosen to adopt it. This very idea of the special path, which was to be used for leaving Europe behind and turning Russia, as Peter Chaadaev put it, into Europe's "joint court,' supported by the majority of Russian thinkers, Westerners as much as Slavophiles (Chaadaev, Danilevsky, Herzen, and others). They didn't admit that they had picked up this concept from the West. European Russians, as Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov and Bunin believed themselves a part of Europe; a curious concept, no one recalls.

Russian religious thought:
As Russia entered the modern age in the nineteenth century, many Russian intellectuals combined the study of Western philosophy with a return to their own traditions, culminating in the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and the religious philosophy of their famous contemporary, Vladimir Soloviev.
Exploration of the central issues of modern Russian religious thought by studying the work of Soloviev and other religious philosophers who developed his ideas in the early twentieth century as Florensky, and S. Bulgakov, generally placed in the contexts of both Western philosophy and Eastern Orthodoxy, presents a substantially new perspective on Russian religious thought. The work of these philosophers, influenced virtually all aspects of modern Russian tradition, and many aspects of twentieth-century Soviet culture, and enhanced a rich philosophical tendency devoted to issues of community, humanity and even divinity, that transcend Russian boundaries and national soviet historical eras.

Russia's mystical mission:
Demanding all or nothing, alternatively apocalyptic and nihilistic, Russians strove to justify culture and discover Russia's mystical mission. Impatient with the slow processes of history, distrusting authority while haunted by a vision of unity, great thinkers, as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Federov, and Solovyov created an original and vital religious philosophy that culminated in the Russian Renaissance of the twentieth century. The fruit of these heroic figures, of whom Berdyaev was one, included Florensky, Bulgakov, Rozanov, etc., was cut short by the 1917 Revolution. In recent years, however, their works have been available in self-published editions. Underground, a great philosophical and spiritual rebirth (renaissance) was occurring.

Russia's mystical idea:
Berdyaev's 'Russian idea' is thus a mystical one, he suggests that theology, not political economics determine Russian history and society. He takes up the story, starting with the nineteenth century, tracing the powerful chain of artists and thinkers as Bakunin, Chaadev, Khomyakov, Leontyev, among others, who struggled to dissolve the East and West polarities in the Russian soul. This immense, boundless soul, is so mystically vague that it is incapable of settling for "the halfway kingdom of culture."
Vladimir Kantor, eminent Russian scholar, masterfully summarizes the case, "thinkers appeared who turned the idea of Russia's European involvement into a determining one. I'll mention here the ranks of philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev. ... irrational myth of the socialist world. It would be unfair to underestimate the role of the Russian diaspora. The names and texts of Nikolai Berdyaev, Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Nabokov and others were reaching Soviet Russia."

Nikolai A. Berdyaev:
Berdyaev (1874-1948) was born in Kiev into an aristocratic family. He was educated in a military school and later entered the University of Kiev, from which he was expelled for embracing Marxism and taking part in political agitation. At twenty-five he was exiled from Kiev to the north of Russiabefore the Revolution. He had broken with Marxism, previously, together with Bulgakov, contributing to a symposium that reaffirmed Orthodox Christianity. After the Revolution, he was appointed by the Bolshevists to teach philosophy in the University of Moscow, but soon fell into disfavor for his independent political opinions. He settled first in Berlin, where he opened a Russian Academy of Philosophy and Religion, then moved to Paris, where he lectured in a similar institution. He was invited to lecture at the Sorbonne in 1939, and survived the German occupation with no harm.

Christopher Bamford
A Fellow of the Lindisfarne Association, is the editor in chief of Steiner Books and has lectured, taught, and written widely on spiritual and esoteric traditions.

Book Reviews:
Now that this book is available again, and the next installment of the Russian idea is being prepared, it is no doubt, an essential reading for an understanding of the new Russia, by Americans and Europeans, lay and experts.
"Imperative reading for persons interested in Russian culture." Alexander Vucinic
"No one wishing to understand Russian thought should overloook it." --Donald A. Lowrie, The Rebellious prophet: A life of Nicolai Berdyaev

A Good idea to read the Russian idea
The Russian Idea by Nicolas Berdyaev

A very nice feature of this edition is the introduction by Alesander Vucinich. The in depth description of Berdyaev's philosophical development in association with historical developments not only prepares the way for a better reading of this book but also prepares the way towards and understanding of all of Berdyaev's work. It is the sort of summary that I suppose would have found real enthusiasm in Berdyaev himself had he the chance to read it.

A Great Introduction to Russian Intellectual Culture
This book is an interesting, fast-paced tour through the and ideas thatshaped Russian thought in the 19th and 20th Century. The style is at timesexpository, at times anecdotal, but never overly difficult.It's a greattool for students of Russian history, politics and culture.

For mepersonally the most interesting discussion in this book is the place ofreligious symbolism in Russian social and political thought.Berdyaevdraws some interesting parallels between the Slavophile and Liberal visionsfor Russia that help to shed light on the Revolutionary vision that definedthe nation in the 20th Century. The book remains relevant to post-SovietRussia as a guide to the intellectual heritage of current Russian politicaland social thought. It is also an excellent companion to the study ofRussian literature.

Also valuable is Berdyaev's discussion of theinfluence of 19th Century German philosophy on the Russian intellectualtradition and his analysis of the mystical ("religious", if youwill) aspects of Russian atheism.

Use this book as a starting point foryour study of modern Russia, but don't make it your only stop in thejourney. Treat it rather as a "bibliography in expository prose"for further investigation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wow Daddy-o
Yea man,this book is hot.Man, James McLachlan is one hip cat. Its like deep dady-o.When I'm playing my kongas I have my wife read me this book and its like jiving, man.Well I'm out man.Peace Daddy-o ... Read more

Book Description
Personality, Spirit, and Ethics presents an existentialpersonalist approach to the ethics of Nicholas Berdyaev, usingexpositions of his basic views and ethical extentions relative to hisgeneral philosophy and pro-religious outlook. This book presents adialectical perspective of cardinal issues in understanding Berdyaev'sethical principles in relation to personal and social life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good intentions, too bad not getting there
I acquired with great hopes the book of Professor Emeritus Slaatte, because part of my own ongoing work covers Berdiaev, beside a few other important thinker figures. However, I must say that Prof. Slaatte's book turned out to be a disappointment. Despite the evidently good intentions of the author, he does not really get "there". This is to be regretted all the more, because the Index of the book is promising and consists of very relevant Berdiaevian entries, and because Prof. Slaatte's reading approach involves a multitude of detailed references to pages in Berdiaev's books.

For this or that reason, Prof. Slaatte's book does not really go into the thought of Berdiaev but somehow stays gliding in the surface. I see it as possible that Prof. Slaatte's own frame of reference is too different to allow ascent or descent into Berdiaev's sphere. The part of Berdiaev's ample production that Prof. Slaatte goes through is also limited. I find the best book on Berdiaev to be the one by Olivier Clement's, but it is only available in French, albeit in an edition that is not sold out by far. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A look at bold religious views quite unfamiliar to me
Sometimes I pick up a book for no apparent reason.I had never heard of Nicholas Berdyaev in my life, but the identification of his ideas with Freedom in God led me to give this little book a look.Berdyaev was a Russian who embraced Marxism in his youth before turning to the values of Orthodox Christianity; he rejected Russian Communism in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, and he was in fact exiled in 1922, eventually settling to live and teach in Paris.This discussion of his ideas helps elucidate some of the differences between eastern and western Christianity, serves up an interesting take on Russian Communism in its post-World War II incarnation, and proposes the interesting idea of a New Middle Ages as being a good thing.

Berdyaev practiced a somewhat mystical sort of Christianity, entrenched in the conception of the God-man.Religion was merely a social phenomenon telling believers what to believe; Berdyaev disliked the hierarchical structure of the Church and concentrated on the unity of Christ and man, believing that man should in fact work toward the end times when he would in fact become God.He criticized western Christianity for its obsession with sin and the need for salvation, and he yearned for the return of man to a life centered around nature and communion with God.A Christian Humanist, he looked back on the Renaissance, Reformation, and Industrial Revolution with disdain, tracing the origins of the detachment of humanism from Christianity to those times.He criticized modern society for its compartmentalization of religion, arguing that God should be at the center of all things.He criticized capitalism for its emphasis on the accumulation of wealth and power, but he actually saw Russian Communism as the culmination of the bourgeois and capitalist mentality, describing it as a system of government in which the individual was subsumed by the society as a whole.

Berdyaev longed for a New Middle Ages, a time when men would once again return to God to find true freedom and meaning free of the corrupting influences of money and power and the unhelpful symbolism of the Church hierarchy and thus establish a society truly built on love and genuine communion on a wholly spiritual scale.Author E.L. Allen criticizes Berdyaev for failing to recognize the potential of democracy to provide the kinds of personal freedoms he felt were crucial to establishing a personal communion with God.

This is a short little book, but it contains some very interesting ideas on both capitalism and Communism, an unusual criticism of Communism from a former Marxist, and a bold take on the future society Berdyaev longed for.His mystical take on Christianity is interesting, and I found his insights into the breakup of Christianity into its western and eastern Orthodox forms surprisingly informative. ... Read more