Berdyaev’s Debt to Dostoievski

BERDYAEV'S DEBT TO DOSTOIEVSKI J. C. S. W ERNHAM THE greatest Russian metaphysician and the most existential was Dostoievski. Unamuno said that Spanish philosophy is contained in Don Quixote. In the same way we can say that Russian philosophy is contained in Dostoievski."l Tribute to the superlative greatness of Dootoievski came freely from the pen of Nicolas Berdyaev, and he frequently underlines his influence upon the cultural renaissance in Russia at the opening of this century. H Its representatives," he tells us, "all put themselves under the standard of Dostoievski ; they were children of his mind."2 Speaking more particularly of the new trends in philosophy, he observes that "philosophical works often took the form of commentaries upon Dostoievski.'" Acknowledgments of his own indebtedness to Dostoievski are frequent and no less explicit. His "own initiative into philosophy was," he says, "largely due to Dostoievski"; Dostoievski's influence was "more important" for him than "philosophical and theological schools of thought"; and, although there were many thinkers and writers who nourished his "love for the freedom of spirit .. . the moot important of these was Dostoievski.'" In view of such acknowledgments it is surprising that writers on Berdyaev have not sought to demonstrate how central is the influence of Dootoievski upon him. They have, of course, noted the influence where Berdyaev himself underlines it, but they have asserted it only intermittently without demonstrating it systematically. Because of this, they have failed to bring into clear focus the central unity of Berdyaev's thought. They have been content to regard Dostoievski as one source among many, and, in consequence, have been led in their expositions to underestimate his influence by exaggerating the influence of others. It is the aim of this article to remedy that failure and to show that Berdyaev's philosophy is, in substance, though not, of course, in form, of the nature of a "commentary upon Dostoievski." The reason why commentators have failed to do this lies, perhaps, partly with Berdyaev himself. For it is true that he frequently lists the names of authors other than Dostoievski to whom he expresses a personal debt. It is also true that the lists are impressive in their length. That, however, need not be taken to imply that an equal debt lThe Russian Idea (London, 1947), 159. 2D ostoievski (New York, 1934), 216. SDream and Reality (LondoD, 1950), 143. 233 Vol. XXIII, no. 3, April, 1954 4Ibid., 304, 80, 49. 234 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY is owed to each, and, if the contention of this article is correct, it will emerge that what Berdyaev found in most of the others was of the nature of corrohoration, or development, of something already found in Dostoievski. This is not the place, of course, to argue that point, but the substance of the claim can here be illustrated. Of the academic philosophers, Berdyaev respects Kant most highly, and honours him especially as the inaugurator of an anthropocentric philosophy, and as a "metaphysician of freedom, perhaps the only one.'" Our claim is that Berdyaev found Kant, in these respects, to be orientated in the same direction as Dostoievski, for whom "the riddle of the universe is within man" and for whose conception of the world, freedom is central.' Schopenhauer's influence is frequently acknowledged, and Berdyaev confesses that he found Schopcnhauer's refusal to accept the alleged goodness of creation more impressive than the Bible.' Our claim is again, however, that for Berdyaev, Schopenhauer stands, in this respect, merely as impressive corroboration of the words of the rebel, Ivan Karamazov: "In the final result I do not accept God's world, and although I know that it exists I do not in the least degree permit it.'" Berdyaev repeatedly expresses a very great debt to Boehme, "one of the greatest of christian gnostics,'" but he himself makes it clear that in adopting Boehme's theory of the Ungrund, he is accepting what he regards as the implicit presupposition of Dostoievski 's teaching. "If he had developed his teaching about God and the Absolute to its necessary conclusion" he would have "approximated to Jacob Boehme's theory of the Ungrund."'0 The same claim will be argued...