Original scientific paper
The Reception of Nikolai A. Berdyaev in Croatia During the Twentieth Century
Ivan Čulo
; Institut Fontes Sapientiae, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The article analyzes the reception of a great Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) in Croatia during the twentieth century, the translations of Berdyaev’s books and essays as well as secondary literature – articles on Berdyaev, on his work or on his influence on Croatian thinkers. The reception of Berdyaev’s thought in Croatia may be traced from as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, notably in the 1920s. In this period he was mainly perceived as an East-Christian gnostic or a Russian Orthodox philosopher.
In the 1930s, Berdyaev’s reception in Croatia intensified, concurrently with his worldwide acknowledgement as a vanguard of at that time blossoming personalism. At the same time, first translations of his works in Croatian appeared: Novo srednjovjekovlje [New Middle Ages] (1932), Istina i laž komunizma [The Truth and Falsehood of the Communism] (1934), Sudbina čovjeka u suvremenom svijetu [The Fate of Man in the Modern World] (1935), and Naziranje Dostojevskog na svijet [Dostoevsky’s World Conception] (1936). As personalistic movement strongly influenced Croatian Catholic thinkers, they mostly leaned on Berdyaev, Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier. Strong personalistic criticism of totalitarisms, especially communism, had an immediate echo in Croatia in the works of Bonifacije Perović, Nedjeljko Subotić, Juraj Paša, Eugen Anišić, Ante Katalinić, Stjepan Zimmermann, Vendelin Vasilj and Dominik Barač.
Berdyaev met with negative reception in the left-oriented circles, which reached its peak after the WWII in the figure of Miroslav Krleža. The rise and anticipated decline of the Marxist ideology in Croatia was inversely proportional with the presence of Berdyaev’s thougth among intellectuals.
In the second half of the century, especially since the 1980s, the interest in Berdyaev’s work in Croatia and in the rest of the former Yugoslavia has been given a new impetus. Several new translations as well as some articles and synthetic works on his thought appeared. All that contributed to his perception as a genuine philosopher, a great advocate of the freedom of man, his work, dignity, and creativity. The exponents of this approach were Josip Kribl, Bonifac Badrov and Ante Kusić.
The collapse of socialism in Croatia marked the end of the negative reception of Berdyaev. His name is no longer perceived as related to a narrow philosophical field or a single work, but is assessed on the basis of his comprehensive philosophical opus as in the works of Ivan Devčić and Borislav Dadić.
Keywords
Nikolai Berdyaev; Russian philosophy; personalism; criticism of totalitarian systems; acceptance in Croatia; Bonifacije Perović; Miroslav Krleža; Ivan Kribl; Ivan Devčić
Hrčak ID:
154373
URI
Publication date:
15.10.2015.
Visits: 3.201 *