N.A. Berdyaev's Chiliastic "Mirage" and Eurasianism

In: Idei i idealy: naučnyj žurnal = Ideas & ideals : a journal of the humanities and economics, Band 14, Heft 1-2, S. 408-427

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of N. A. Berdyaev's ambiguous and contradictory attitude to Eurasianism - the ultra-right political trend of Russian emigration in the 1920s and 1930s. The author sees the reasons for Berdyaev's rapprochement with the Eurasians in the collapse of the religious and mystical ideal that captured the philosopher's imagination during the First World War. Under the influence of religious excitement that seized part of the Russian intelligentsia in the pre-war period, he believed in the nearness of the end of history and the onset of the millennial Kingdom of God on earth. According to Berdyaev, Russia was called upon to fulfill its historical mission in this final act of the world drama. This role (the "Russian Idea") was to unite the East and the West in a global religious and cultural synthesis. The revolution of 1917 destroyed Berdyaev's eschatological ideal and forced him to radically reconsider his view. From a Christian anarchist, he turns into a statesman, a defender of conservative values and social hierarchy. During this period, his social philosophy is very close to the ideology of fascism. But fascism was a pan-European phenomenon and in each country had its own original versions. The Eurasian movement was one of the varieties of Russian fascism. Berdyaev's political sympathies brought him closer to this movement and became the main reason for long-term cooperation with its leaders. However, the commitment to the values of individual freedom and Christian personalism as the basis of his worldview did not allow Berdyaev to go far in his passion for right-wing conservative ideas. In the late 1920s, he sharply criticized the totalitarian features of the Eurasian ideology. After the National Socialists came to power in Germany, Berdyaev gets the opportunity to compare European far-right regimes and creates a general theory of totalitarianism. In this theory, he uses Eurasian concepts and terminology. Thus, Eurasianism becomes a model for him, on the basis of which he develops his theory of totalitarianism. After the end of the Second World War, the philosopher got deeply disappointed. After the end of the Second World War, the disappointment of the philosopher was due to the failure of his hopes for a softening of the political regime in the USSR. He was again seized by gloomy forebodings of an unsuccessful end to human history. And although the hope for a favorable outcome of the struggle between good and evil did not leave Berdyaev until the end of his life, a sense of realism weakened those hopes and faith in the feasibility of the "Russian Idea".