The philosophy of time and history in the thought of Sergei Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdiaev

This thesis explores the problem of time and the connected problem of history in the thought of two Russian thinkers, Sergei Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdiaev. After an introduction tracing the history of these problems in philosophical thought from the ancient Greeks to the twentieth century, the main body of the thesis is divided into two central chapters, the first on Bulgakov and the second on Berdiaev. Analysis of their two contrasting approaches to these questions reveals opposite formulations of the time-history relationship, in which Bulgakov suggested the primacy of history over time, whilst Berdiaev maintained the primacy of time over history. Subsequent exploration aims to account for these different organisations of the time-history relationship, and discusses how for Bulgakov a deterministic pattern of thought about time and history was central, and how for Berdiaev a paradoxical approach to these problems was dominant. Across this discussion, these thinkers’ various points of contact with classical, European and Russian intellectual traditions is highlighted, and in this way their thought on these questions is located within an intellectual context which extends beyond Russia.