Russian anarchism as a theory and a religious experience

This article is considered the ethical-political and existential descriptions of Russian anarchism in the second half of the 19th century. The dynamics of this concept in pre-Soviet and Soviet dictionaries are explored. Anarchism is describing through some opposition to the philosophy of freedom or its existential reading. The basis of this opposition, is differentiation between an Anarchism theory and an Anarchism as subjective experience. Special attention is paid to the theory of N. Berdyaev and L. N. Tolstoy. The ethics of freedom and life-alienation сconsidered as a common ground of non-participation in bureaucratic governance and the violence of power. Tolstoy went much further than his educators, linking the ethics of freedom and life rejection into a single whole of non-participation in the bureaucratic system of government and violence of power. It is shown that Tolstoy's defamiliarisation does not mean indifference, but only the practical realization of the mission entrusted to Man by God. As Tolstoy emphasis Divine Will becomes a modification of the Kantian imperative, primarily in the performance of moral duty to God and himself. The connection between Tolstoy's humanist teaching and his experience of interpreting American religious citizenship theories is revealed.