Paradoxically, Russian philosophy of the Silver Age experienced a final renaissance during and immediately after the grueling years of the Russian Civil War. Despite difficult material conditions, government censorship, ideological and political estrangement, and significant emigration, philosophy flourished in universities, public societies, kruzhki (“circles”) and resurgent thick journals and monographs. As before the Revolution, neo-idealist religious thought predominated, and there was significant cross-fertilization among philosophy, literature, religion, and obshchestvennost′, the distinctly Russian intellectual sense of public duty. This renaissance ended abruptly in 1922 with the expulsion of most of Russia's most prominent philosophers, the elimination of traditional philosophy departments at the most important universities, and the closure of non-Marxist philosophical societies.

Once abroad, the expelled philosophers had to determine their mission: what was the proper role of a Russian philosopher in exile?