Вторая русская революция и утопический проект духовной аристократии Н.А. Бердяева

Abstract

Throughout many years Berdyaev discusses the problem of spiritual aristocracy formation in Russia. The Russian philosopher defends an imperishable value of spiritual aristocracy, as he doesn’t see a direct connection between the socio-historical environment and the emergence of “knights of spirit”. In his works he underlines the priority of the universal objective Divine will, calls for renewing Christianity and all aspects of public life, connects religious revival only with the development of a person. Berdyaev believes that the ‘people-nation’ can be aristocratic if it is ready to subordinate their own actions to the absolute Divine will. In 1917-1918 the idea of a hierarchical structure of any reality defines a train of Berdyaev’s thought. The being of the free person is closely connected with cosmic hierarchy. Creativity and social equality are not compatible, creativity demands inequality; the nature of creativity and the essence of the person are aristocratic. The Russian thinker welcomes the overthrow of autocracy. He denies class foundation of the ongoing revolution, exposes bourgeois, non-creative base of the socialist idea. Berdyaev sees the cause of ‘the sacred realm’ downfall in the estrangement of Russian people from the state power, absence of spiritual aristocracy in Russia. He accounts for the victory of democracy as an external condition of spiritual knighthood’s making, whose thoughts are directed outside of the empirical world, a necessity and compulsion realm. The Russian philosopher hopes that the democratic revolution will release spiritual forces of the people, whose ascending creative movement will be accompanied by the formation of national spiritual aristocracy. But in July 1917 Berdyaev ascertains that Russia is sacrificed to revolutionary element. He considers the propensity of the Russian person to social utopias as a consequence of centuries-old slavish existence of the people, the absence of the sense of duty and responsibility in the Russian national character. The victory of Bolsheviks in race for power by autumn of 1917 has confirmed Berdyaev’s worst fears: the triumph in Russia of a bourgeois ideal of prosperous habitation in the material world, ideals of equality and justice over a hierarchical principle of the universe design acted as a characteristic symptom of Russian people’s degradation, transformed the project of national aristocracy of spirit into a utopia. The article also shows how the adherents of Marxist ideology have turned this project into a caricature on the philosophy of history.