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THE RUSSIAN COSMISTS the Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers

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THE RUSSIAN COSMISTS the Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers THE RUSSIAN COSMISTS The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers GEORGE M. YOUNG OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxfurd University's objective of <xcdlence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Mdboume Mexico City Nairobi New Ddhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Ponugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Viemam Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press. Inc. Published by Oxford University Press. Inc. 198 Madison Avenue. New York. NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced. stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means. electronic. mechanical. photocopying. recording. or otherwise. without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Young. George M. The Russian cosmists : the esoteric futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and his followers / George M. Young. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-989>94-5 (hardcover: alkaline paper) - ISBN 978-0-19-989295-2 (ebook) I. Philosophy. Russian-History. 2. Cosmology-Philosophy.~. Fedorov. Nikolai Fedorovich. 1828-190~. 4. Philosophers-Russia. 5. Philosophers-Soviet Union. I. Tide. B4>~5.C6Y 68 >012 2011041924 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Preface ix 1. The Spiritual Geography of Russian Cosmism 3 General Characteristics 4 Recent Definitions of Cosmism 7 2.. Forerunners of Russian Cosmism 12. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842.) 12. Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802.) 14 Two Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711-I76S) and Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) 14 Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) 16 Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) 17 3. The Russian Philosophical Context 2.1 Philosophy as Passion 2.1 The Destiny of Russia 2.2. Thought as a Call for Action 2.4 The Totalitarian Cast of Mind 2.S 4. The Religious and Spiritual Context 2.7 The Kingdom of God on Earth 2.7 Hesychasm; Two Great Russian Saints 2.8 The Third Rome 32. Pre-Christian Antecedents 33 s. The Russian Esoteric Context 36 Early Searches for "Deep Wisdom" 36 Popular Magic 38 vi Contents Higher Magic in the Time of Peter the Great 39 Esotericism after Peter the Great 43 Theosophy and Anthroposophy 44 6. Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the Philosopher of the Common Task 4 6 The One Idea 4 6 The Unacknowledged Prince 51 The Village Teacher 55 First Disciple; Dostoevsky and Tolstoy 60 The Moscow Librarian 68 Last Years: Askhabad; The Only Portrait 7 1 7. The "Common Task" The Esoteric Dimension of the "Common Task" Fedorov's Legacy 8. The Religious Cosmists 92 Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) 92 Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) 108 Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) 119 Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) 134 9. The Scientific Cosmists Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) 171 10. Promethean Theurgy Life Creation Cultural Immortalism God Building Reaiming the Arrows of Eros Technological Utopianism Occultism II. Fedorov's Twentieth-Century Followers 193 Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) 193 Contents vii Svyatogor and the Biocosmists 197 New Wine and the Universal Task 200 Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) 201 Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932.) 2.08 Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-192.2.) 2.14 12.. Cosmism and Its Offshoots Today 2.19 The N. F. Fedorov Museum-Library 2.19 The Tsiolkovsky Museum and Chizhevsky Center 2.2.3 ISRICA-Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology 2.2.4 Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912.-1992.) and Neo-Eurasianism 2.2.6 The Hyperboreans 2.2.9 Scientific Irnmortalism 2.31 Conclusions about the Russian Cosmists 2.35 Notes 2.43 Bibliography 2.61 Index 2.75 Preface THIS STUDY BEGAN some years ago, in 1964, in a Yale graduate school seminar on Dostoevsky taught by Robert Louis Jackson. As I recall, ten or twelve of us were in the seminar, and early in the term Professor Jackson gave us a list ofsome ten or twelve topics for weekly reports. We chose by our order in the class roll, and I watched in dismay as one after another all the best "Dostoevsky-and" topics were chosen: Bakhtin, Vyacheslav Ivanov, the Elder Amvrosy, Dickens, Pushkin, Images of Childhood, the Ideal of Beauty. When the choice reached me, as last in the alphabet, two topics were left, neither of which I had ever heard o£ So, having no idea what I was in for, I chose Nikolai Fedorov. The first information I found about him came from a footnote to Dolinin's edition of Dostoevsky's letters, and reading that footnote again and again I began to think to myself: this is a big idea! When the week for my report came, I gave it and have been thinking and writing about Fedorov and topics related to him since. This study presents several corrections and a great many updates, and is an adventurous outgrowth of my 1979 book, Nikolai Fedorov: An Introduction. When I wrote that work, I was not a proponent of Fedorov's teachings but admired the strength and boldness of his philosophical imagination. Over the years, my attitude to Fedorov's ideas has not changed significantly, and in writing the present book I find that I view the thoughts of most of the other Cosmists much in the same way I view Fedorov's: hugely fascinating, in­ spiring, stimulating, but not ideas I would insist that friends and readers drop everything to live by. Mental health warning: fascinating as they are, at least to me, all the Cosmists were and are highly controversial-some would say even kooky-thinkers, recommended for mature audiences only. In mechanical matters, the translations are mine unless otherwise noted. In the notes and bibliography I have used a standard system of transliteration, but in the body of the text I have used familiar English spellings rather than x Preface consistent transliterations for certain Russian words and names. In quoting other commentary in English, I have used that author's spelling of Russian names instead of changing them to be consistent with my spellings. Over the years, many people, some no longer alive, have supported and helped my writing in general and my work on Fedorov and the Cosmists in particular. I would like to express my gratitude to all of them, but will men­ tion only a few teachers, colleagues, friends, and editors: Gale Carrithers, William Blackburn, Reynolds Price, Fred Chappell, Wallace Kaufman, Robert Louis Jackson, Victor Er~ich, Richard Gustafson, Rene Wellek, Michael Holquist, John Dunlop, Gordon Livermore, George Zimmar, George L. Kline, William F. Buckley, Jeffrey Hart, Peter Jarotski, Walter Arndt, Robert Siegel, James Tatum, Charles Stinson, Anouar Majid, Mat­ thew Anderson, Susan McHugh, Lee Irwin, Maria Carlson, Kristi Groberg, Bernice Rosenthal, Betty Bland, Richard Smoley, John Algeo, David London, Svetlana Semenova, Anastasia Gacheva, Valery Borisov, Julie Scott, Steven Armstrong, Cynthia Read, and Ben Sadock. I am grateful to the University of New England librarians for help in research, and to the Center for Global Humanities of the University of New England for generous financial assis­ tance to complete research and writing. Most important of all to me over these many years has been the love and support of my wife Patricia, son Roy, daughter Susannah, and son-in-law Patrick. Always in my mind, I wish to dedicate this book to the memory of my parents, George and Mary Ella Young, and my sister Patricia Pryor. The Russian Cosmists I The Spiritual Geography of Russian Cosmism There is that in the Russian soul which corresponds to the immensity, the vagueness, the infinitude of the Russian land, spiritual geography corre­ sponds with physical. ... Two contradictory principles lay at the founda­ tion of the structure of the Russian sou~ the one a natura~ Dionysian, elemental paganism and the other ascetic monastic Orthodoxy. The mutu­ ally contradictory properties ofthe Russian people may be set out thus: des­ potism, the hypertrophy ofthe State, and on the other hand anarchism and licence: cruelty, a disposition to violence, and again kindliness, humanity and gentleness: a beliefin rites and ceremonies, but also a quest for truth: individualism, a heightened consciousness ofpersonality, together with an impersonal collectivism: nationalism, laudation ofself, and universalism, the ideal ofthe universal man: an eschatological messianic spirit ofreli­ gion, and a devotion which finds its expression in externals: a search for God, and a militant godlessness: humility and arrogance: slavery and revolt. But never has Russia been bourgeois. -NIKOLAI BERDYAEV, Ihe Russian Idea SINCE THE COLLAPSE of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian intellectuals have directed much of what Berdyaev describes as their traditional prodigious, contradictory, but creative mental energy toward bringing back into focus­ and finding new signs ofvitality in-writers, artists, thinkers, and intellectual currents suppressed, degraded,
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