YAKOV KROTOV'S DAILY

History of freedom: Russian and Western terms

Freedom and liberty in Russian has two equivalents: "volya" and "svoboda." Both words are ancient and rooted in Indo-European. "Volya" comes from "will," "svoboda" from "sua," "self." To be free means to belong only to myself.

In modern Russian language most people don't know ethimology of these two words, and "svoboda" is used much more often, to express both political and personal freedom. So "freedom of religion" will be "svoboda religii" etc. "Volya" is usually understood as something more archaic, as a freedom to behave without bounds. "Volya" is also designation of large open spaces like steppe.

Differences between Russian and Western European word usage in this case are not as crucial as sometimes they are depicted. The "Western" idea of political liberty (or political freedom) is perfectly well understood in Russia, and people do make their choice quite meaningly, although they make liberty more important value than safety not as often as in the West.

Boris Mezhuyev made recently an interesting observation discussing Vladimir Solovyov's understanding of liberty. Solovyov shared Roman Catholic (Augustinian) point of view: freedom is a negative phenomenon, and to follow God human must give up his freedom. Absolute freedom is an absolute evil. Nickolay Berdyaev was more Russian Orthodox: he thought that freedom is in God and sin is betrayal of freedom. Sanctity is absolute freedom. May be this opposition is two black-and-white, but it is not accidental.