The Apostle to the Intelligentsia : Father Alexander Men’ and the Rediscovery of the Russian Silver Age

Sammanfattning: This thesis seeks to shed light on a remarkable figure in Russian history, Father Alexander Men’. How and why did Men’ identify Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev, and other pre-revolutionary cultural figures as representatives of authentic Russian religious culture? Why would a popular Russian Orthodox priest present the writings of mystics, anarchists, and the Silver Age counterculture as the antidote for seventy years of Soviet materialism? What role did Judaism and the Russo-Jewish intellectual tradition have on Men’s identifications as an Orthodox priest? I use a semiotic theory of culture following Yuri Lotman and the Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School as a framework to analyze the historical development of Orthodox personalism. Through this we find a coherent justification for Men’s cultural project. This thesis traces this line of thought from theories of cultural unity by Pyotr Chaadayev, through Christian universalism in Vladimir Solovyov, the existential personalism of Nikolai Berdyaev, and finally through Men’s personal relationship with Nadezhda Mandelstam.