Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution of 1917, Moscow University continued to consist of four faculties: history and philology, physics and mathematics, law, and medicine. Nor was there any change in the number of departments, although many professors left Moscow during the civil war; in particular, P.I. Novgorodtsev, S.N. Bulgakov, and E.N. Trubetskoi left the university in 1918. But on the other hand, N.A. Berdiaev, P.B. Struve, and S.N. Prokopovich began to lecture at the university. True, Struve worked at the university for a very brief period in 1918, while Prokopovich taught courses in economics, not philosophy. As for Berdiaev, alongside his lectures at the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture, which he had set up in 1918, he began to give lectures at Moscow University—single lectures at first and then in 1920, after being elected professor1 by the council of the faculty of history and philology, series of lectures on Dostoevsky's worldview and on the philosophy of history, which subsequently served as the basis for his fundamental works Dostoevsky's Worldview [Mirosozertsanie Dostoevskogo] and The Meaning of History [Smysl istorii]. Berdiaev's professorship at the university did not last long: in the fall of 1922 he was expelled from the country.