Nikolai Berdiaev

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (/bərˈdjɑːjɛf, -jɛv/;Russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; March 18 [O.S. March 6] 1874 – March 24, 1948) was a Russian political and also Christian religious philosopher who emphasized the existential spiritual significance of human freedom and the human person. Alternate historical spellings of his name in English include "Berdiaev" and "Berdiaeff", and of his given name as "Nicolas" and "Nicholas".

Nikolai Berdyaev was born at Obukhiv,Kiev gubernia (Russian Empire) in 1874, in an military family. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Berdyaev, came from a long line of Kiev and Kharkov nobility. Almost all of Alexander Mikhailovich's ancestors served as high-ranking military officers, but he resigned from the army quite early and became active in the social life of the Kiev aristocracy. Nikolai's mother, Alina Sergeevna Berdyaeva, was half-French and came from the top levels of both French and Russian nobility. He also had Polish as well as Tatar origins.

Greatly influenced by Voltaire, his father was an educated man that considered himself a freethinker and expressed great skepticism towards religion. Nikolai's mother, Eastern Orthodox by birth, was in her views on religion more Catholic than Orthodox. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father's library allowed him to read widely. He read Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Kant when he was only 14 and excelled at languages.