THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE “NEW CITY”

Annotation

The purpose of this study is to analyze the understanding of Christianity by the authors of the émigré magazine “Novy Grad”. The magazine was published in Paris from 1931 to 1939, and its authors were prominent representatives of Russian religious and philosophical thought: F. Stepun, I. Bunakov, G. Fedotov, N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov, S. Gessen and others. The main priority of the magazine was to understand the Soviet experience of building socialism. Not accepting and criticizing Stalin’s socialism, the Novograders did not accept capitalism as a possible social alternative. In their opinion, the individual was equally oppressed in these regimes. And individual freedom was the highest goal of social development for them. They are looking for a third way for Russia, and in the future for all of humanity. They saw the future just society as a society in which individual freedom and the priority of spiritual values over material ones would be ensured. The Novograders understood that in order to create such a society, it was necessary to change people’s consciousness. They hoped that this could be done with the help of a social reform based on Christianity. But they understood Christianity not as a confession, but as a holistic worldview and way of life, putting its moral and social content in the foreground. Answering the question of why the Novogradians make Christianity the foundation of a future just society, the author relies on the arguments set out in the articles of the leading theorists of “Novy Grad” — N. Berdyaev, F. Stepun, G. Fedotov

Keywords

Christianity, spiritual values, personal freedom, New City, social reform

Literature

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