Anti-utopian Mood, Liminality, and Literature. Irma Ratiani

in 1911 – Nikolai Berdyaev’s “The Philosophy of Freedom” and in 1916 – “The Meaning of the Creative Act”.

      “The veritable aim of my dispute, – points out Solovyov, – is not the denial of a concrete religion, but the detection of a lie. This lie cannot be justified in any way” (Solovyov 1914: 85).

      Berdyaev Specified:

      Utopia is always totalitarian; totalitarianism is always utopian in the conditions of the existing world. The issue of freedom relates to it. In its essence, utopia always confronts freedom. The utopias of Thomas More, Campanella and others leave no space for freedom. It is paradoxical but freedom, free life, us the most unachievable utopia…. Exactly this effort of freedom is forgotten by social utopias, which do not obtain freedom through perfection and harmony… What is the main mistake of the socialist utopists? The social utopia of Marx, like the one suggested by Fourier, believes that the world of Caesar can become a perfect, harmonious community that is a fundamental mistake. Only Paradise can be perfect and harmonic, the world of soul and not that of Caesar. (Berdyaev 1995: 354–355)