Lev Karsavin: Russian Religiosity and Russian Revolution

ABSTRACT This article examines the unique role of Russian intellectual and émigré Lev Platonovich Karsavin (1882–1952) in understanding “Russian communism” as a phenomenon deeply religious in nature. Trained as a historian, specializing in the history of European religiosity, medieval sects, and heresies, the young Karsavin studied the manifold ways in which religious and politics were interwoven. His experience with concrete historical–cultural research helped Karsavin, who became an active figure in Russian Orthodoxy during the First World War, to analyze the origins of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevism. Finding himself in exile in 1922, Karsavin continued actively developing the theme of the “religious” nature of Russian Bolshevism, believing that this was the only path to overcoming it in the future from an Orthodox Christian standpoint.