NIKOLAI BERDYAEV (1874-1948) was a prominent Russian religious thinker and philosopher who became a critic of Soviet totalitarianism and a leading representative of Christian existentialism, emphasizing the spiritual significance of human freedom and the human person.

As a student in Kiev, Berdyayev engaged in Marxist activities that led in 1899 to a sentence of three years’ internal exile in northern Russia.  He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1922 and became known as the foremost Russian émigré in France.  Although he condemned the crimes and violence of the Soviet state, he believed, unlike most of his fellow emigrées, that the seeds of messianism were present in post-revolutionary Russia.

The influence of Dostoevsky was central to his thought.  In developing his existentialist philosophy, Berdyayev was inclined to prefer unsystematic and mystical modes of expression over logic and rationality.  He said on numerous occasions that he thought and wrote intuitively rather than discursively.  He asserted that truth was not the product of a rational quest but the result of "a light which breaks through from the transcendent world of the spirit."  Nevertheless, he was not a naively irrational thinker; he brought an enormous fund of philosophical knowledge combined with the profundity of his own thought to support his view of existence.

Above all, he believed in the reality and significance of spirit, and emphasized the importance of creativity that requires personal freedom.  From this nucleus of concepts, Berdyaev developed a remarkable set of writings on topics such as time, history, personality, Russia, nationalism, communism, the cosmos and God.  His attitude toward religion exemplified the originality and independent nature of his thought.  He said he preferred the Russian Orthodox Church to the other major Christian denominations because he felt there was more latitude there for his own views on the need for freedom and creativity in religious life.  According to him, "I never severed my link with the Orthodox Church, although confessional self-satisfaction and exclusiveness are alien to me."


The following books are in PDF format:

* Beginning and the End, The (Harper & Bros., 1957).  R.M. French, trans.
* Bourgeois Mind & Other Essays (Sheed & Ward, 1934).  Bennigsen and Attwater, trans.
* Christianity and Anti-Semitism (Philosophical Library, 1954).  Alan A. Spears, trans.
* Destiny of Man, The (Harper & Bros., 1960).  Natalie Duddington, trans.
* Divine and the Human, The (Bles, 1949).  R.M. French, trans.
* Dostoevsky (Meridian, 1957).  Donald Attwater, trans.
* Fate of Man in the Modern World, The (Michigan, 1961).  Donald A. Lowrie, trans.
* Freedom and the Spirit (Scribner, 1935).  Oliver Clarke, trans.
* Meaning of History, The (Bles, 1936).  George Reavey, trans.
* Meaning of the Creative Act, The (Collier, 1962).  Donald A. Lowrie, trans.
* Origin of Russian Communism, The (Michigan, 1972).  R.M. French, trans.
* Russian Idea, The (Macmillan, 1948).  R.M. French, trans.
* Russian Revolution, The (Michigan, 1966).
* Slavery and Freedom (Scribner, 1975).  R.M. French, trans.
* Solitude and Society (Bles, 1938).  George Reavey, trans.
* Truth and Revelation (Collier, 1962).  R.M. French, trans.

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