Self-knowledge

Nikolaj Alexandrovič Berďajev (1874 Kiev – 1948 Clamart, France) was a significant Christian-oriented Russian philosopher. In 1922 he was expelled form Russia as a regime enemy with a large group of writers, scientists and public figures. Among his major themes were the issues of art production and the philosophy of history. He lived through the WW II with the eschatological feeling of the ultimate clash of the powers of good and evil.

He worked intensively. The most important works from the latest period of his life (he died while writing The Kingdom of Spirit and the Kingdom of the Emperor) are The Outline of Eschatological Metaphysics (1941) and Self-knowledge – the outline of philosophical biography (1946). Although our edition is just a mare fragment of this work, it demonstrates the immense wealth of Russian philosophical thought.