TRIUMPH OF SINGULARITY: MAN, WORLD AND CULTURE IN NIKOLAI BERDYAEV’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Authors:   Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University (Veliky Novgorod, Russian Federation), Avanesov Sergey S. 
Published: December 2021

The article investigates the problem of the mutual relationship of the autobiographical text, personal existence, and human culture. The subject of analysis is Nikolai Berdyaev’s book “Self-knowledge”. The research context is set by three initial positions: culture is made up of personal biographies; the connection of a private biography with a common human culture is carried out through an autobiography; cultural memory communicates to the facts of individual life the status of universally significant events that persist outside of time. On the example of Berdyaev’s autobiographical text, the purpose, structure, language, and motives of a philosophical autobiography are considered. The article shows that the leading motives of the author of “Self-knowledge” are the defense of singular existence and the fight against the destructive action of time. For Berdyaev, it is very important to emphasize the independence of the history of his personal life from the general history of the world, and also to free individual memory from its connection with chronology. Therefore, the autobiography does not list the facts in their historical sequence but shows the whole life at once and in its entirety. Further, the author of the autobiography not only records the events of the past but selects them for publication in his text: he retains in his memory only that which has a high value for culture. Finally, it is the autobiography that makes it possible to bridge the gap between the past and the present: all important events of the past are constantly relevant, which means they belong to eternity. Defragmentation of episodes, axiological selection of events, the relevance of the past – these are the results that are achieved on the path of the philosopher’s recollection of himself. Autobiography allows the philosopher to discover the uniqueness of his existence, but at the same time it reveals the imperfection of this existence to him. The power of time over human life is expressed as the threat of inevitable death that awaits every person in the future. Memory, according to Berdyaev, should become not only a tool for remembering the past but also a weapon in the fight against death. Victory over death is achieved through participation in the eternal meaning of culture, which the author discovers not in empirical history, but in his inner personal life. The ahistoricism of this meaning is emphasized by the nonlinear structure of the autobiographical text and the aphoristic nature of its language. In addition, the author sees himself in this text sub specie aeternitatis as an unchanging, eternal subject. The assertion of one’s own singularity and immutability, according to Berdyaev, turns out to be the main means of preserving universal human culture from destruction in time. Consequently, (1) autobiography is the most philosophical genre of all philosophical genres, (2) any philosopher can most successfully develop his doctrine only in the sphere of personal memories, (3) an autobiographical book is the main philosophical work of Berdyaev. It is in this book that the philosopher achieves the ideal of existential philosophy: the coincidence of personal life, individual thinking, text, and culture.