“Philosophy of Disorder”: Reception of N.A. Berdyaev’s Works in the Arabic Press of the Mid-Twentieth Century

Abstract

The article is devoted to the Arabic reception of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev works in the mid-twentieth century. The author demonstrates the influence of Berdyaev’s theories on a number of Arab intellectuals (e.g. ʻAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī (1917–2002), ʻAbbās Maḥmūd al-ʻAqqād (1889–1964) and Anṭūn Saʻādah (1904–1949)), and also reveals the influence of the work “Slavery and Freedom” on the political press of the 1940s. The popularity of Berdyaev’s existentialism in the intellectual circles of Lebanon and Egypt is explained as a natural consequence of its manifestative nature and terminological simplicity. The study is preceded by a brief summary of the translations of Berdyaev’s works into Arabic, completed in 1960–2019.