The discussion about the person has marked the thought of the 20th century. Philosophers, theologians, sociologists, artists, writers, and politicians were involved in the discussion about the person, while in France the term personalism appeared. A distinct position in all this personology is occupied by the work of the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev and the book at hand.

In the pages of this essay of personalistic philosophy, as the author calls it, the thought about the person is developed in all possible fields: theology, anthropology, philosophical ontology and epistemology, ethics and socio-political thought, philosophical history. One is impressed when considering the breadth of knowledge and interests of this Russian philosopher, one of the most important, if not the most important, Russian philosopher of the 20th century.

The coherent fabric of all this knowledge is the concept of the person. Whatever the person is, it constitutes the fact of human freedom, whatever is opposed to the person exists as a temptation that leads to slavery, sometimes even voluntary servitude of the human being. Therefore, this essay deals with the freedom of the human being as the quintessential characteristic of personal human existence and correspondingly the slavery of the human being as the quintessential temptation of the depersonalization of human existence.