Timeline of Russian Cosmism
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1772 Biela’s Comet (official designation: 3D/Biela) is first recorded by Jacques Leibax Montaigne and Charles Messier. Much later, in 1826, Wilhelm von Biela will identify the comet as a member of the periodic Jupiter-family. Predictions at the time place the comet on a collision course with 01/14 Earth, bound to destroy the planet sometime in the 1830s (when this doesn't come to pass, Earth’s annihilation by Comet Biela is anticipated for several subsequent decades). ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ1792 While exiled in Siberia (by Catherine the Great), Russian philosopher and writer Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev begins composing his Anastasia Gacheva, Arseny treatise On Man, His Mortality and Immortality. Zhilyaev, and Anton Vidokle O man, whether you be a creature complex or uniform, it is not ordained that your Timeline of intellect disintegrate with your body. Your goal is your felicity and your perfection. Russian Walk the path traced out by nature and believe that when you have outlived your days, the disintegration of your intellect e l Cosmism k o shall not be your lot. You determine your d i V future with the present; and believe, I say n o yet again, believe that eternity is not a t n A dream. d n – A. N. Radishchev a , v e a y 1835 l i h The Russian author and journalist Vladimir Z y n Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803–1869) writes a e s r science fiction novel, The Year 4338, premised on A , a Earth’s imminent destruction by a comet. v e h c a A means has been discovered for travelling G a i to and from the Moon; it is uninhabited and s a t serves only as a source for supplying Earth s a n with various necessities of life, thereby A Ê averting the fatal catastrophe with which 8 1 0 Earth was threatened by virtue of its 2 y immense human population É r m a s i u r m b s e f o C — n Through the use of diverse chemical a 8 i 8 s compounds found in the ground, a means s # u l has been discovered for heating and a R n f r o cooling the atmosphere: ventilators have u e o j n i been devised to avoid high winds É x l e u l f m i - e T The feeling of love for mankind has increased to such a degree that people cannot bear to see tragedies and are amazed at how we could have ever delighted in the sight of moral afflictions, just as we cannot comprehend the pleasure the ancients derived from watching gladiators. 02.14.18 / 14:35:11 EST – V. F. Odoevsky, The Year 4338 Philosophy of the Common Task. Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829–1903) The question of the fate of the Earth leads articulates his philosophy of the Common Task. us to the conviction that human activity must not be bound by the limits of the The idea that through us, through rational Earthly planet. We must ask ourselves: creatures, nature will attain the fullness of Does our knowledge of the fate awaiting the self-awareness and self-governance and 02/14 Earth, of its inevitable end, obligate us to will recreate that which has been destroyed do something, or not? É God educates man and is being destroyed through its through his own experience: He is the King blindness hitherto and will thereby fulfil who does everything not only for man, but the will of God, becoming the likeness of also through man; because there is no Him, Who is its Creator. purposiveness in nature, it must be – N. F. Fedorov introduced by man himself, and in this consists the higher purposiveness. The 1851 Creator re-creates the world through us; he The American paleontologist James Dana resurrects all that has perished É And discovers the phenomenon of cephalization, therefore mankind must not be an idle demonstrating that the evolutionary process passenger, but the servant, the crew of our leading to the creation of man has a directed, Earthly ship, set in motion by a force as yet ascending character: development occurs along unknown. the line of perfecting the nervous systems of – N. F. Fedorov, The Question of living creatures and an increase in brain mass. Brotherhood, or Kinship É ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ1874 e l k Fedorov begins his twenty-five-year post at the o Dostoyevsky begins work on his novel, The d i Rumyantsev Museum Library. V Brothers Karamazov. n o t n A If we compare an archive to a grave, then The transposition of love. I have not d reading, or more precisely research, will be n forgotten those either. The belief that we a , the path toward exhumation, and an v shall come back to life and find each other, e a exhibition, as it were, the resurrection. y all in universal harmony É The resurrection l i – N. F. Fedorov h of our forebears depends on us. Z y n – F. M. Dostoyevsky, preparatory notes for e s While working at the library, Fedorov makes the r The Brothers Karamazov A , acquaintance of sixteen-year-old K. E. a v Tsiolkovsky. e In Ryazan, Russia, K. E. Tsiolkovsky makes his h c a first notes on the conquest of space and G a I regard Fedorov as an exceptional i interplanetary travel, sketches a map of the s a individual, and my meeting him as my good t Solar System, draws an asteroid with a human s a fortune. For me he took the place of n being under conditions of weightlessness, and A Ê university professors, with whom I did not ponders how to achieve weightlessness under 8 1 associate. 0 terrestrial conditions. 2 – K. E. Tsiolkovsky y ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ1880 r m a s i u The economist, essayist, and thinker Sergei r m b s 1878 e Andreevich Podolinsky (1850–1891) publishes his f o C — F. M. Dostoyevsky becomes acquainted with n work The Labor of Man and its Relationship to the a 8 i 8 Fedorov’s ideas. s Distribution of Energy, in which he propounds the s # u l concept of labor as a factor of negative entropy, a R n f r o Who is this thinker, whose thoughts you pointing out that all living creatures – beginning u e o j n have conveyed? If you can do so, tell me his i from plants and ending with man – possess the x l e u l real name. He has intrigued me too greatly f ability to accumulate energy from the Sun and m i - É And then I shall say that essentially I am e T transform it into new, higher forms of energy. in entire agreement with these ideas. I read ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊAutumn 1881-1882 them as if they were my own. N. F. Fedorov meets L. N. Tolstoy and V. S. – Letter from F. M. Dostoyevsky to Soloviev. An intellectual and philosophical Fedorov’s pupil P. P. Peterson, March 24, dialogue develops between the three thinkers. 1878 There are men here too. And God has In replying to Dostoyevsky, Fedorov begins allowed me to get to know two of them. constructing a comprehensive exposition of his Orlov is one, the other, and the main one, is 02.14.18 / 14:35:11 EST Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov. He is the – N. F. Fedorov librarian at the Rumyantsev Library. Remember, I told you about him. He has put In his articles “Beauty in Nature” and “The together a plan of the common task of all General Meaning of Art,” Vladimir Sergeevich mankind, having as its goal the resurrection Soloviev presents the development of the world of all people in the flesh. Firstly, this is not as “the gradual and persistent process” of the as insane as it seems. (Don’t be afraid, I do animation of matter, which has attained its not share and have never shared his views, 03/14 crown in man. but I have understood them so well that I feel capable of defending those views We must define beauty as the against any other credo that has an transformation of matter through the external goal.) incarnation in it of another, supermaterial – L. N. Tolstoy, from a letter to V. I. Alexeev principle. (November 15-30, 1881) – V. S. Soloviev 1884 1891 L. N. Tolstoy presents an exposition of Fedorov’s Famine in Russia ideas on resurrection to members of the Moscow ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊIn the U.S., the first experiments are carried Psychological Society. To the question: “How will out on inducing artificial rainfall by means of all the resurrected generations fit onto the artillery projectiles. Earth?” the writer replies: “The kingdom of ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊN. F. Fedorov seeks to draw attention to the knowledge and governance is not limited to the American experiment, seeing it as one of the first Earth.” steps towards the governance of nature. Through ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ1889–1890 I. M. Ivakin he approaches Tolstoy with a request e l k L. N. Tolstoy and N. F. Fedorov hold dialogues on o to support the idea of the artificial induction of d i art. Fedorov is developing the concept of a V rain. n theoanthropourgical art that serves the causes o t n A of resurrection of the dead and regulation of It is the regulation, the governance of the d nature. He opposes art as the creation of n forces of blind nature that constitute that a , “likenesses” of the past and the living v great task which can and must become the e a (“Ptolemaic art”) to the art of reality that y common one.