nature

2024. Vol.9. №4.

Nicholas Berdyaev’s Thoughts on Human Freedom in the Face of Contemporary Challenges: Technology, Civilization and “the Revolt of the Masses”

Feb 10 2025

Androsenko S. V. Nicholas Berdyaev’s Thoughts on Human Freedom in the Face of Contemporary Challenges: Technology, Civilization and “the Revolt of the Masses” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №4. P. 44-67.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-4-44-67

Annotation

The article reconstructs the ideas of one of the most famous Russian Christian thinkers Nikolai Berdyaev on the man’s relationship with technology, which became more complicated in the 20th century due to both the unprecedented growth of its power and the challenge that the philosopher called “democratization of culture”. On the one hand, technology reveals man’s creative power, and the growth of technology’s power to a certain extent makes man’s life easier. On the other hand, technology and technification in the broader sense mean a mediated and often alienated relationship of man with nature and other people, communities and ultimately to himself. Technification develops a specific engineering perception not only of nature but also of life in general, which carries the threat of dehumanization, i.e., turning of production, cognitive and cultural sphere, natural and urban environment and man himself into something similar to a machine. At the same time, Berdyaev considers the crisis generated by technology, the challenges posed by technification and automation, which tear man away from the mother-earth and cosmic rhythms, accelerate or slow down time, compress or stretch space, thus questioning the very natural order previously experienced as unshakable and given by God, as a positive phenomenon emphasizing the religious meaning of technology. The article shows how Berdyaev’s main intellectual ideas and philosophical-anthropological intuitions can be followed through the challenges of the 21st century.

Keywords

N. A. Berdyaev, man, philosophical anthropology, technology, nature, freedom, culture, civilization, peasants, mass culture, mass society, engineering.

About the author

Sofia V. Androsenko, PhD Student, Philosophy Department, Moscow State University, Press Secretary, St Philaret’s Institute. Tokmakov per., 11, Moscow, 105066.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Additional Info

Submitted Thursday, 12 September 2024
Reviewed Friday, 18 October 2024
Copyright © Auhtors, 2024
Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2024. Vol.9. №3.

Nikolai Setnitsky and Alexander Chayanov: On ideals, exploitation, non-capitalist systems and regulation of nature

Oct 25 2024

Nikulin A. M. Nikolai Setnitsky and Alexander Chayanov: On ideals, exploitation, non-capitalist systems and regulation of nature // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №3. P. 47-72.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-3-47-72

Annotation

The author conducts a comparative biographical analysis to consider the social-philosophical and political-economic views and the interdisciplinary intellectual heritage of the remarkable Russian scientists N. A. Setnitsky and A. V. Chayanov on the ideals of social development, features of capitalist and non-capitalist economic systems, issues of regulating the relationship between man and nature in the 1920s–1930s. The article identifies the fundamental worldview ideas of the “agrarian-relativist” Chayanov and the “apocalyptic cosmist” Setnitsky, which determined their theoretical-methodological approaches to the cognition and transformation of reality, focusing on the comparative analytical assessment of their utopian and futurological forecasts and projects. The author concludes about the significance of the intellectual heritage of Setnitsky and Chayanov for the study of contemporary political, economic and environmental issues in Russia and the world.

Keywords

N. A. Setnitsky, A. V. Chayanov, capitalism, non-capitalist systems, city, village, exploitation, nature, utopia, cosmism.

About the author

Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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