Nicholas Berdyaev

The Philosophy of Freedom Nicholas Berdyaev

This is the 1st English translation from Russian: the Russian religious philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev's 1911 book, "The Philosophy of Freedom", which combines some several journal articles previously penned by him, together with chapters written uniquely for this book.. It is among the earliest of his books, immediated preceded by his 1911 book, "The Spiritual Crisis of the Intelligentsia", and followed by his 1912 tome, "Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov" -- all which serve as a significant "key" to primary elements in his thought in this early period. Berdyaev's fundamental motifs of freedom, the person, creativity, spirit -- are already quite evident, and further advanced by his rediscovery research into the thought of often for us significant yet very obscure thinkers, both Russian and foreign. In the present text, the closing appended article entitled, "A Refined Thebaid (The Religious Drama of Huysmans)" is significantly important in the schemata of Berdyaev's thought.

The 1911 "Philosophy of Freedom" seems strongly to serve as a template model to Berdyaev's important work, "The Destiny of Man", written 20 years later in 1931 in exile. Both books consist primarily of 2 Parts: the first section critiquing the then dominant philosophic views of the time; the section section a triadic approach dealing with the Christian revelation and the correlative creative human ethical response to God in a schemata of threefold stages. The "Huysmans" chapter in our present text provides an especially significant "key" as to a source of Berdyaev's triadic approach, and to his intuitions on the philosophy of history and other areas of his religio-philosophic thought. Misperceptions arise from approaching isolated aspects of his thought when isolated from the integral entirety. Hence the importance of Berdyaev's early books and articles to better an understanding into his "matured" later works, which has been the crux of our efforts as an English translator of N. A. Berdyaev's works.

The present book is part of a continuing series of works of Russian Religious Philosophy in 1st English translation under our imprint of "frsj Publications".