ABSTRACT
Nikolai Alekseev (1879–1964) spanned the revolutionary divide in twentieth-century Russian history. While he received his intellectual formation under Pavel Novgorodtsev before the revolution of 1917, he spent much of his career in the Russian emigration. The author of numerous theoretical works, Alekseev was more of an activist than many of his colleagues in Russian jurisprudence and religious thought. Before the revolution, his activism took the form of student radicalism and prodemocracy agitation. During the civil war, he served in White military units. In the emigration, he became involved in the Eurasianist movement. He also participated in the Life and Work movement, a branch of the Ecumenical Movement. This engaged him directly in Christian social ethics and church affairs. Alekseev sought to envision what an Orthodox rule-of-law state might look like in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet regime. Alekseev did not believe that the future Russian state could simply replicate the forms of Western liberalism. Russia, past and present, was different from the West and would have to find its own way. Alekseev’s Russian exceptionalism has attracted the interest of the nationalist Right in postcommunist Russia, but enthusiasm for Alekseev in these circles is based on distortions of his thought.
