ABSTRACT
Lev Shestov’s (1866-1938) own account of his “discovery” of Kierkegaard makes clear that it was through Shestov that Berdyaev was alerted to the existence of Kierkegaard. Nicholas Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) was six years younger than Shestov. Although of aristocratic background, he had like many of his generation espoused left-wing causes in his youth and served a period of three years’ internal exile for subversive activities. In the early 1900s he established himself as a leading figure of the Russian religious renaissance, whilst maintaining a dialogue with Marxism. Partly filtered through the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), a defining figure for the religious renaissance, Berdyaev was strongly influenced by German idealism, especially by Fichte and Schelling and, through them, Jacob Böhme. Nietzsche was another significant influence, but he was also importantly shaped by his engagement with Russian literature and ideas, above all Dostoevsky. Unlike Shestov he did not leave Russia immediately after the Revolution, but stayed on until 1922, when he was one of the intellectuals famously deported by Lenin on the so-called “philosophy steamer.” After a period in Berlin he settled in Paris, where he associated with many Catholic intellectuals (including Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), Étienne Gilson (1884-1978), and Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973)) as well as with fellow émigrés (with many of whom, however, he had strained relations due to political and religious differences). Although Berdyaev’s thought had dualistic tendencies, these were not as extreme as Shestov’s, and there is a counterbalancing synthesizing movement. Nevertheless, as for Shestov, everything depends on freedom, and any synthesis of the manifold polarities of human existence that is not based on freedom will, he believes, end in slavery. Yet there is also a theogonic dimension to Berdyaev’s thought, such that-unlike in Shestov-God is not conceived as entirely external to human beings, but human beings’ actualization of their potential freedom is seen as the way in which God’s freedom is made actual in the world.
