‘We Are Not Actually Enemies with Him’: Religious and Anthropological Contradictions of N. A. Berdyaev and V. I. Ivanov

Abstract

The article examines the philosophical dialogue of two key figures of the Silver Age — Vyacheslav I. Ivanov and Nikolay A. Berdyaev. It compares their concepts of creativity, views on freedom, human and religion formulated in their pre-emigrant period. Based on the material of two articles “Charms of Reflected Cultures. V. I. Ivanov” and “Old or New Faith?”, the author reconstructs key points of divergence of religious and philosophical positions of the thinkers and reveals the basis of their contradictions. It is shown that during the period of work on the “The Meaning of the Creative Act” Berdyaev localized the anthropological problem in the conceptual coordinates given by the conceptual pairs pagan/Christian and male/female and considered Ivanov's work and his personality through the prism of this paradigm, concluding that the symbolist is incapable of religious anthropology. In addition, the article analyzes Ivanov’s arguments against Berdyaev’s interpretation of freedom and human. It is concluded that the polarity of their positions is due to the different types of their religious mindset and philosophical worldview.