N.A. Berdyaev: strokes to the portrait of a social philosopher

The article examines the views of N. A. Berdyaev. The author relies on the publications of the historian of Russian sociology V.V. Sapov, problemicizing on nature of thinking and style of Berdyaev’s philosophizing, of how sociological is his methodology, as well as the assessment of his so-called “apophatic sociology”. The author shows that Berdyaev’s social philosophy is based on the doctrine of man (philosophical anthropology), the core of which is religious and philosophical concept of personality (personalism). Parallels are drawn with the views of V.l. Solovyov, S. N. Bulgakov, S. L. Frank, M. Scheler. The ideological and value meaning of Berdyaev’s “Christian sociology” is shown to be based on the ideal of “personalistic socialism”, which he considered “true communism”, and is crowned by eschatology, calling for an “active understanding of the apocalypse”. In conclusion, the author emphasizes the relevance of Berdyaev’s views for our time – the epoch of the dominance of digital techniques, social technologies, and a decline of human spiritual potential.