Twentieth-century Russian philosophy opens with the resurgence if religious currents if thought that, since the time of Slavophiles, have been isolated in the theological academies. Such thinkers as Fyodorov and Solovyov made religions philosophy once again academically and culturally acceptable in Russia, and their efforts were and are being continued by the Russian philosophers in exile, among whom Berdyaev, Shestov, Frank, and Lossky are the most eminent. Since the Revolution of 1917, philosophy inside Russia has been gradually replaced by political action and the more-or-less "scholastic" efforts to justify such action through various levels of Marxist revisionism. Official Soviet philosophy today is wholly identified with eh fortunes of an ever-changing reinterpretation of dialectical materialism; Russian philosophy in the traditional sense is now almost exclusivity identified with the philosophers in exile and their disciples.

This is one of three volumes of the first historical anthology of Russian philosophical thought from its origins to the present day, with crucial and interpretive commentary. The work includes 68 selections from 27 philosophers, with new translations or re-translations especially for these volumes. (See the Contents page of this book for contents of other volumes/)

Contributions by: James P. Scanlan, Mary Bar Zeldin