Nikolai Berdyaev in Berlin: towards the history of "the new middle ages"

The article examines the Berlin period of Nikolai Berdyaev’s life which is significant, on the one hand, as a transitional in his intellectual biography between the expulsion from Russia and final settlement in France, on the other hand, as one of the least studied in the evolution of his philosophy. The authors focus on the ideological and biographical aspects of his work on the collection of essays “The new Middle Ages” (1924), one of Berdyaev’s most resonant works that brought him popularity in the West. The ideological context of the “new Middle Ages” doctrine is reconstructed by revealing Berdyaev’s attitude to such phenomena as Church, Reformation, revolution, emigre White movement, etc. Special attention is paid to the practical conditions of the appearance of this work, which include Berdyaev’s communication and cooperation with Western (A. Kresling, G.A. von Keyserling) and Russian colleagues (P.B. Struve, S.L. Frank, L.P. Karsavin, N.O. Lossky, etc.), the details of his educational initiatives in Berlin and the features of writing and publishing books and articles.