S. L. Frank and N. A. Berdyaev: the value foundations of interaction between the individual and the state
Abstract
The article is focused on the analysis of the political and legal concepts of two key figures of early twentieth-century Russian religious philosophy – S.L. Frank and N.A. Berdyaev. Against the background of the historical crisis of European civilization, revolutionary upheavals, and the emergence of totalitarian regimes, both of them developed personalist philosophical systems in which the person is regarded as the highest spiritual value, irreducible to the state, society, or collective aims. The article shows that, despite a shared personalist minimum and a common critique of political absolutism, Frank and Berdyaev diverge in their fundamental ontological and anthropological premises, which lead to two alternative models of the relationship between the person and the state: Frank’s «organic-legal personalism» and Berdyaev’s «existential-eschatological personalism». The analysis of these two paradigms makes it possible to identify the deep value foundations of political and legal thought and to offer new perspectives for understanding the interaction between the human being and the state under the conditions of the contemporary crisis.