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In this remarkable, moving book, which may be the most powerful expression of the country's mystical roots in print, Berdyaev is not so interested in the empirical details of Russian history as he is in "the thought of the Creator about Russia."

The Russian idea is thus a mystical one. Religion and philosophy, not economics or politics, determine history and society. Berdyaev takes up the story in the nineteenth century. He traces the lineage of powerful artists and thinkers (Chaadev, Khomyakov, Kireevsky, Leontyev, Aksakov, Hertzen, Bakunin) who struggled to integrate the polarities of East and West, spirit and matter, male and female in the Russian soul. Demanding all or nothing, alternatively apocalyptic and nihilistic, these Russians strove to justify culture and discover Russia's mystical mission.