Narratives and concepts on the First World War in the social and political essays by N.A. Berdyaev and V.I. Vernadsky

The paper analyzes and reconstructs views of N.A. Berdyaev and V.I. Vernadsky on the First World War as a specific military-political event and on the war as a substantial historical and socio-cultural phenomenon. The current state of political processes and the need to understand the fundamental meanings of war determine relevance of this work. The paper presents Berdyaev’s narratives on the first world conflict in history reflected in his publications in the newspapers ‘Birzhevye Vedomosti’ and ‘Utro Rossii’, which regularly appeared from 1914 to 1917. These narratives revealed causes and characteristics of the conflict, as well as specifics in the conceptual explanation of war as a historical and metaphysical phenomenon. As the content and interpretative specifics of such concepts as war, imperialism, liberation, etc. were revealed; interconnections were provided between abstract concepts, ideological constructions and specific events in the domestic and foreign policies of the Russian state and the world as a whole. The paper follows thematic variability, expansion of the problematic fields and alteration of contexts in consideration of war following dynamics of the current events and conditioned by individual reaction of the philosopher and his personalized attitude to reality. The paper examines V.I. Vernadsky's view on the First World War in a comparative way and identifies his scientistic approach and the progressivist basis. It reveals the admissible consequences and tendencies of the world conflict, which the scientist substantiates in his article ‘War and the Progress of Science’ (1915). The paper shows the difference in their ideas on the military conflict and similarities in their assessment of certain aspects of the war.

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References
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