Berdyaev << buhrd YAH yehf >>, Nicolas (1874-1948), was a Russian religious and political thinker. He was a zealous member of the Russian Orthodox Church and wanted to reorganize society according to Christian principles. He is considered a Christian existentialist (see Existentialism).
Berdyaev thought it was important to distinguish between the material world governed by the necessity of natural laws, and the spiritual world of freedom. He believed that each person belongs to both worlds—to the material world as an animal and to the world of freedom as a spirit. Berdyaev did not place the greatest importance upon knowledge, which merely mirrors the material world, but upon the creative act, which bridges the gap between the two worlds. He wrote Freedom and the Spirit (1935), The Destiny of Man (1937), and Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography (1950).
Berdyaev was born on March 6, 1874. He was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He was expelled from Russia in 1922, and settled in Paris in 1924. He died on March 23, 1948.
