Berdyaevâs quotes help to better know and understand this famous Russian political and religious philosopher. He was a prominent representative of domestic existentialism and personalism. He wrote the concept of the new Middle Ages and the philosophy of freedom. For seven consecutive years, his name was included in the list of Nobel Prize winners in literature, but he failed to receive the award.
Philosopher's Biography
Berdyaevâs quotes about love, freedom, and man clearly illustrate the scientistâs main thoughts. He was born into a noble family in the Kiev province in 1874. His father was an officer in the imperial army. Berdyaev received his primary education at home, and then was sent to the cadet corps.
In the sixth grade, he dropped out of the corps to begin preparing for exams for university entrance. Even then, the hero of our article admitted that he had a dream to become a professor of philosophy. He began to study at the natural faculty of Kiev University, and then transferred to the law.
In 1897 he was arrested for participating in student unrest. He was expelled from the university and sent to exile in Vologda. But the desire to fight for freedom did not disappear, as evidenced by the quotes of Nikolai Berdyaev, which can be found in his works.
I understood the struggle for freedom, first of all, not as a social struggle, but as a struggle of an individual against the power of society.
In exile, the hero of our article became interested in Marxism. In 1899, the journal New Time published his first article on critical philosophy in relation to socialism. There are many quotes by Berdyaev in which he speaks about socialism.
Socialism is the last truth and the last justice of the bourgeoisie. ... Socialism is bourgeois because it belongs entirely to the natural kingdom of necessity, and not to the supernatural kingdom of freedom. Therefore, socialism is devoid of a creative spirit.
Social work
At the beginning of the 20th century, changes took place in Berdyaevâs worldview. In the article âThe struggle for idealismâ, he denotes his transition from positivism to metaphysical idealism. Together with Bulgakov, Frank and Struve, Berdyaev became one of the leaders of the movement, which opposes the worldview of the revolutionary intelligentsia. These are Berdyaevâs critical quotes of that time, for example, on democracy.
Democracy is already an exit from the natural state, the disintegration of the unity of the people, discord in it. Democracy is essentially mechanical, it says that the people as an integral organism no longer exist. Democracy is an unhealthy state of the people. In the "organic" era of history, no democracies exist and never arise. Democracy is the product of "critical eras."
Since 1903, he takes part in the Liberation Union. In 1913, he writes an anti-clerical work entitled "Suppressors of the Spirit," in which he protects the Athos monks. For this, he is again sent to exile, this time to Siberia. Well-known quotes N. Berdyaev, in which he expressed his understanding of Christianity.
In Christianity there is a duality in relation to man. On the one hand, man is a fallen and sinful being, unable to rise by his own strength, his freedom is weakened and distorted. But on the other hand, man is the image and likeness of God, the pinnacle of creation, he is called to reign, the Son of God has become man, and in Him is eternal humanity. There is commensurability between man and God in the eternal humanity of God. Without this commensurability, the very possibility of revelation cannot be understood. Revelation involves the activity of not only the Revealer, but also the perceiver of revelation. It is two-member.
Free Academy
For this, he is again sent to exile, this time to Siberia. However, the verdict cannot be carried out due to the outbreak of the First World War. Therefore, he spent three years only in exile in the Vologda province. He was directly involved in many endeavors of the Silver Age, revolved in the literary circles of St. Petersburg, was an active member of the Religious and Philosophical Society, formed in Moscow. After the October Revolution, he founded the "Free Academy of Spiritual Culture", which lasted until 1922.
In 1920, the hero of our article became a professor at Moscow University at the Department of History and Philology.
"Philosophical ship"
Berdyaevâs relations with the Soviet regime also did not work out. He ended up in jail twice. The first time he was considered involved in the so-called case of the Tactical Center, although this was not so. The tactical center is an underground anti-Bolshevik organization that appeared in Moscow in 1919.
The second time he was imprisoned in 1922. He stayed in prison for several days, after which he was informed that he was being expelled from the country. To these conclusions he was philosophical, as illustrated by quotes by Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev.
Freedom is my independence and the determination of my personality from within, and freedom is my creative power, not a choice between the good and the evil set before me, but my creation of good and evil.
He was deported from the country by the so-called "philosophical steamboat". At first he settled in Berlin, where he met the philosophers Spengler, Scheler and Kaiserling, carried away by the works of religious mystic Jacob Boehme.
Life in France
Since 1924, Berdyaev lives in Paris, where he remains until his death. In the French capital, participates in the work of the Russian student Christian movement. For 15 years, he has been editing a journal of religious Russian thought called The Way, actively participating in the European philosophical process.
His position improves somewhat after receiving the inheritance. Berdyaev becomes the owner of a pavilion with a garden in Clamart (a suburb of Paris), after which he can no longer worry about the material side of life. He admitted that for the first time in his life he became the owner of the property, began to live in his house, ceasing to hang around in other people's corners and rent homes.
Since then, in Klamar he regularly organizes tea parties on Sundays, which attract his closest friends and admirers of his talent and philosophical thought. These meetings always end with a discussion of a wide variety of issues, opinions are often expressed completely opposite, which is only welcome.
Proceedings of Berdyaev
In exile, Berdyaev publishes a large number of iconic works that determine his creative fate. In 1924, the treatise "The New Middle Ages" was published, in 1931 - a work entitled "On the appointment of man. The experience of paradoxical ethics", in 1939 - "On slavery and freedom of man. The experience of personalistic philosophy."
After the Great Patriotic War in 1946, the treatise âRussian Ideaâ was published, and another year later the work âExperience of eschatological metaphysics. Creativity and objectificationâ. After the death of the philosopher, his followers and relatives publish "The Kingdom of the Spirit and the Kingdom of Caesar", as well as "Self-knowledge. Experience of philosophical autobiography."
Many of Berdyaevâs quotes and aphorisms are devoted to creativity.
Creativity is a continuation of peacemaking. The continuation and completion of peacekeeping is a divine-human cause. God's creativity with man, human creativity with God. But I initially recognized the deep tragedy of human creativity and its fatal failure in peace. This consciousness is a very significant aspect of my book, The Meaning of Creativity. The creative act in its original purity is directed to a new life, a new being, a new heaven and a new earth, to transform the world. But in the conditions of a fallen world, it is heavy, drawn down, submits to the necessary order, it creates not a new life, but cultural products of greater or lesser perfection. The results of creativity are not realistic, but symbolic. A book is being created, a symphony, a picture, a poem, a social institution. There is a mismatch between creative take-off and creative product. I will not repeat what I have written many times about. But I would like to prevent a false understanding of my thoughts. I do not deny the creation of culture at all, I do not deny the meaning of the products of creativity in this world at all. This is the path of man; man must go through the work of culture and civilization. But this is symbolic creativity, giving only signs of real transformation. Realistic creativity would be the transformation of the world, the end of this world, the emergence of a new heaven and a new earth. A creative act is an eschatological act; it is directed towards the end of the world.
In his writings Berdyaev talked a lot about man. Quotes on the nature and essence of people occupy an important place in his work.
There is a prophetic element in philosophy ... A real, called-up philosopher wants not only knowledge of the world, but also change, improvement, rebirth of the world. It cannot be otherwise, if philosophy is, first and foremost, a doctrine of the meaning of human existence, of human fate.
Attempts to return
Berdyaev has repeatedly made attempts to return to his homeland. In 1946, he even managed to obtain Soviet citizenship. But his health deteriorated, he did not have time to come.
In 1948, the 74-year-old Berdyaev died in his office at a desk in Klamar. The philosopher had a heart break. Just two weeks ago, he finished his last book, had already drawn up a new work plan, but did not manage to implement it.
He was buried in the Bois-Tardieux cemetery.
Personal life
Berdyaev was married to Lydia Trusheva. She was the daughter of a well-known lawyer, she was educated in a private boarding school in Switzerland. After returning to Russia, she spent a month in prison with her sister, where she was imprisoned due to suspicions of political activity. After that, the mother sent them to continue their education in Paris.
When Lydia met Berdyaev, she was already married to the Social Democrat Viktor Rapp. After the next arrest, she and her husband were sent to Kharkov, where in 1904 she met the hero of our article.
A few months later, Berdyaev invited her to leave her husband and go with him to St. Petersburg. In his work, the philosopher gave an important place to love. He wrote:
Love is tragic in nature, its thirst is empirically insatiable, it always leads a person from this world to the brink of infinity, reveals the existence of other worlds. Love is tragic because the object of love is fragmented in the empirical world, and love itself is fragmented into divorced, temporary states.
After that, they no longer parted, although they did not live as husband and wife. According to sister Trusheva, they were like apostles or brother and sister. Berdyaev put deep meaning into the concept of spiritual marriage, emphasizing that the main value of the union lies in the absence of bodily and sensual.
Berdyaevâs wife was engaged in charity work, helped with proofreading her husbandâs works, wrote articles and poems.
In 1922, she left for her husband to emigrate. In addition, by that time she had converted to Catholicism, and in the Soviet Union the oppression of Catholics had just begun.
She died shortly before her husband, in September 1945, from cancer of the larynx. Buried in Klamar.