The Russian Idea (Library of Russian Philosophy) [Hardcover]

Nikolai A. Berdiaev (Author)

Book Description

Series: Library of Russian Philosophy | Publication Date: May 1992

In this remarkable, moving book, which may be the most powerful expression of the country's mystical roots in print, Berdyaev is not so interested in the empirical details of Russian history as he is in 'the thought of the Creator about Russia.' The Russian idea is thus a mystical one. Religion and philosophy, not economics or politics, determine history and society. Berdyaev takes up the story in the nineteenth century. He traces the lineage of powerful artists and thinkers (Chaadev, Khomyakov, Kireevsky, Leontyev, Aksakov, Hertzen, Bakunin) who struggled to integrate the polarities of East and West, spirit and matter, male and female in the Russian soul. Demanding all or nothing, alternatively apocalyptic and nihilistic, these Russians strove to justify culture and discover Russia's mystical mission.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Imperative reading for persons interested in Russian culture." -- Alexander Vucinic "No one wishing to understand Russian thought should overlook it." -- Donald A. Lowrie

Language Notes

Text: English, Russian (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Lindisfarne Pr; 2nd edition (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940262541
• ISBN-13: 978-0940262546
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,404,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Introduction to Russian Intellectual Culture, August 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Russian Idea (Library of Russian Philosophy) (Paperback)

This book is an interesting, fast-paced tour through the and ideas that shaped Russian thought in the 19th and 20th Century. The style is at times expository, at times anecdotal, but never overly difficult. It's a great tool for students of Russian history, politics and culture.

For me personally the most interesting discussion in this book is the place of religious symbolism in Russian social and political thought. Berdyaev draws some interesting parallels between the Slavophile and Liberal visions for Russia that help to shed light on the Revolutionary vision that defined the nation in the 20th Century. The book remains relevant to post-Soviet Russia as a guide to the intellectual heritage of current Russian political and social thought. It is also an excellent companion to the study of Russian literature.

Also valuable is Berdyaev's discussion of the influence of 19th Century German philosophy on the Russian intellectual tradition and his analysis of the mystical ("religious", if you will) aspects of Russian atheism.

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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Russia's Mystical Idea; influencing Russian political and social thought, June 24, 2006

By 

Didaskalex "Eusebius Alexandrinus" (Kellia on Calvary, Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Russian Idea (Library of Russian Philosophy) (Paperback)

"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 Russia before 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

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good idea to read the Russian idea, March 19, 2004

By 

W. Jamison "William S. Jamison" (Eagle River, Ak United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Russian idea (Hardcover)

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.