| Berdyayev, Nikolay Aleksandrovich (1874-1948), Russian philosopher,
known for his Christian existentialist or personalist views. Born of an
aristocratic family on March 19, 1874, in Kyyiv, Berdyayev was educated
at a military academy and at the University of Kyyiv. In 1898 he was expelled
from the university. Imprisoned for two years, he was then exiled for three
years to northern Russia for his Marxist activities. He moved to Saint
Petersburg in 1904. Although Berdyayev initially supported the Russian
Revolution (1917), he eventually became critical of Marxism, perhaps because
he idealized a Christian social system rather than a theoretical system.
For a brief time he was professor of philosophy at Moscow State University,
but his criticism of the Bolsheviks resulted in his deportation from Russia
in 1922. In Berlin he founded the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, which
he moved to Paris in 1924. In Paris he also founded and edited the influential
journal Put (The Way, 1925-1940). He died in Clamart, France, on March
24, 1948. Berdyayev described his philosophical method as "intuitive and
aphoristic rather than discursive and systematic." The foundation of his
world view was his concept of the Ungrund, the mysterious primordial freedom
from which God emerges. Out of this Ungrund, or uncreated potentiality,
God creates humans, spiritual beings whose freedom and capacity for creativity
were of the utmost importance to Berdyayev. He has been called the philosopher
of freedom, for he was preoccupied with the liberation of personality from
all that inhibits free creativity. This concern led him to struggle against
a "collectivized and mechanized society," envisioning a community in which
religious, social, and political relations would enhance personal freedom.
Berdyayev was convinced that human creativity is destined to fail tragically
in this fallen world. He was confident, however, of the eventual coming
of the kingdom of God, an event toward which the Christian's creative activity
aims. By Berdyayev's own estimation his most important books are The Meaning
of the Creative Act (1916; translated 1955), The Destiny of Man (1931;
translated 1937), Solitude and Society (1934; translated 1939), Spirit
and Reality (1937; translated 1939), and Slavery and Freedom (1939; translated
1944)
Contributed by: Robert M. Baird "Berdyayev, Nikolay Aleksandrovich," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. |