In 1922, nearly 200 representatives of Russia's intellectual and literary elite (including Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Ivan Ilyin, Pitirim Sorokin, and others) were arrested, forced to board what became known as the “Ship of Philosophers,” and expelled from the Soviet Union as “counterrevolutionary elements.” As Svetlana G. Il'inskaya details in our first selection, such actions (which would become harsher over time) dealt a terrible blow to the development of philosophy, literature, psychology, law, sociology, economics, and other fields of knowledge in the Soviet Union.
Seven decades later, when the intellectual straitjacket was finally loosened, a recovery project began (Il'inskaya registers her reservations about the Russian government's current involvement in this process). The articles in this issue of the Russian Social Science Review explore this reengagement with pre-Soviet tradition, and especially with traditions of spirituality, in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and literature. In our second selection, Ol'ga A. Zhukova writes about the philosophical legacy of Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948), whose “unorthodox interpretation of human freedom and the reality of the Spirit became a kind of manifesto for religious existentialism.” In “Prayer, Silence, and Psychotherapy,” F.E. Vasilyuk discusses two texts by L.S. Vygotsky (1896–1934)—one on Hamlet, the other on a traditional Jewish day of mourning. “An essential question (object) of these texts,” writes Vasilyuk, “is the secret of genuine human overcoming of suffering. …Vygotsky's idea creates the basis for religiously oriented, ‘synergetic’ psychotherapy where the main process will be spiritual, including prayer.” In her survey of Orthodox literature, Svetlana Boiko describes popular works in this tradition as not simply didactic but descriptive of “contemporary man in all the fullness of his spiritual persona.” Adding to the popular appeal of these works, according to John Givens, is their “genre mobility,” even including the detective story and the thriller. “The questions they raise are of relevance to all mankind,” Boiko reminds us, as are their themes: love for those close to us, the struggle against evil and the challenges of living for the spirit. Finally, Feliks Nodel’ offers an intriguing account of how he and his students as well as critics grapple with the unorthodox portrayal of Yeshua (Jesus) in the novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1941), grandson of two Orthodox priests.
—P.A.K.