Dostoevsky
by Nicholas Berdyaev
This puts the revolutions in perspective as more than a rush for jeans and fridges. Berdyaev quotes Dostoevsky’s Notes From The Underground, saying: “Man’s whole business is to prove to himself that he is a man and not a cogwheel.” Berdyaev and Dostoevsky focus on the freedom we have to choose between good and evil and this makes the book relevant not only to 1989 but to today as well, because, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has been a reluctance among people – both ‘underground’ and “overground” to accept the burden of responsibility that comes with freedom.
Recommendations from our site
“The reason I like this so much is that it lays bare the thinking of two great Russians. Berdyaev fled the Revolution in 1921 having initially welcomed it as an expression of human freedom, much like the 1989 revolutions. But when he realised the oppressive nature of the new regime, he couldn’t tolerate it any more than it could tolerate him as an apostle of freedom.” Read more...
The best books on The Fall of Communism
Nick Thorpe, Journalist
