Portrait of Nikolai Berdyaev

Birthday profile

Nikolai Berdyaev

Nikolai Berdyaev, Russian-French philosopher and theologian (died 1948)

Born
March 18, 1874
Died
March 24, 1948
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1874

About Nikolai Berdyaev

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (; Russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Бердя́ев; 18 March [O.S. 6 March] 1874 – 24 March 1948) was a Russian philosopher, theologian, and Christian existentialist who emphasized the existential spiritual significance of human freedom and the human person. == Biography == Berdyaev was born on 18 March [O.S. 6 March] 1874 in Obukhiv, Kiev Governorate (present-day Ukraine) to an aristocratic military family. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich Berdyaev, came from a long line of Russian nobility. Almost all of Alexander Mikhailovich's ancestors served as high-ranking military officers, but In the sixth grade, he left the cadet school and began studying for the matriculation exams for admission to the university. Nikolai's mother, Alina Sergeevna Berdyaeva, was half-French and came from the top levels of both French and Russian nobility. She also had Polish, Georgian and Tatar origins. Berdyaev decided on an intellectual career and entered the Kiev University in 1894. It was a time of revolutionary fervor among the students and the intelligentsia. He became a Marxist for a period and was arrested in a student demonstration and expelled from the university. His involvement in illegal activities led in 1897 to three years of internal exile to Vologda in northern Russia.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

The world when Nikolai Berdyaev was born

Nikolai Berdyaev was born in 1874. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Top headlineFirst zoo in US opens in Philadelphia
  • Technology milestoneBarbed wire patented
  • Notable inventionBarbed wire fencing
  • World population~1.54B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderUlysses S. Grant
  • U.S. population41.8M

1874 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Nikolai Berdyaev's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18742026
Population41.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.