fedorov

Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov was highly praised by such people as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy (literature), Afanasi Fet (poetry), Vladimir Solovyov (philosophy) and Konstantin Tsiolkowsky (astronautics). (Fedorov's name is also spelt Fyodorov, mainly in non-Russian Europe and Asia.)

Fedorov, a 19th-century Russian, formulated an immortalist philosophy from a Christian perspective. Bastard born in 1829 of Prince Pavel Ivanovich Gagarin and Elisaveta Ivanova, a woman of lower-class nobility, Nikolai (with his mother and her other children) had to leave his father's home at age four, due to the prince's death. The family continued to be well-cared for, however. Fedorov studied law, though for only three years, then began fourteen years of wanderings in seven cities, teaching in elementary schools. In 1868 he began 25 years as a librarian with the Rumyantsev Museum. After retiring, and until his death in 1903, he worked in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Fedorov wrote much but was not interested in publication nor in writing to be easily understood. He was largely unknown to his contemporaries. His works, published posthumously, were (in proper spirit) available only free of charge from the publishers, who renounced all rights. Little on or by him has been available in English, though this is changing.

Fedorov, due to his Christian perspective, found the widespread lack of love among people appalling. He divided these non-loving relations into two kinds. One is alienation among people: "non-kindred relations of people among themselves." The other is isolation of the living from the dead: "nature's non-kindred relation to men." "Man must not live for him self alone (egoism) nor only for others (altruism) but with all men and for all men." Fedorov is referring to all people of all time (past, present, future). He is speaking of a project to unite humankind, the colonization ("spiritualisation") of the universe, the quest for the Kingdom of God, the creation of cosmos from chaos, the death of death, even the resurrection of the dead. Fedorov believed, and passionately felt, that resignation in the face of death and separation of knowledge from action was false Christianity. He cautioned against being fooled into worshipping the blind forces of Satan. Rather, one should actively participate in changing what is into what ought to be. Let us now look at Fedorov's views on various topics.

Parents give their lives to the raising of their children. Children should devote their lives to the raising of the dead. "Death is a triumph of blind, nonmoral power"; "a man who would not return life to those from whom he received it is not worthy of life or freedom." Fedorov thought of "replacing childbirth by the raising of the dead." In redirecting the "unconscious process of birth into a universal resurrection," "mankind can make all worlds support life." No doubt (Woody Allen would be pleased to know) "the actualization of this project would demonstrate that life is not an accidental or useless gift." According to Fedorov, science will mean "control over all the molecules and atoms of the world, in order to collect what is dispersed, to unite what is disintegrated, i.e., to create our forefathers in bodily form."

A citizen, a comrade, or a team-member can be replaced by another. However a person loved, one's kin, is irreplaceable. Moreover, memory of one's dead kin is not the same as the real person. Pride in one's forefathers is a vice, a form of egoism. On the other hand, love of one's forefathers means sadness in their death, requiring the literal raising of the dead. Politics must be replaced by physics. The politics of egoism and altruism must be replaced by Christianity which "knows only all men." Pride is a Tower of Babel which separates us from one another. Love is a "fusion as opposed to a confusion."

"The desire for cessation of activity in old age ... is not humility before the Divine" but Satan-worship. "Regardless of wars, our real enemy remains (for the time being) the blind, death-dealing power legalized by" social Darwinism (`only the fit ought to survive') "The true relation of a rational creature to the irrational power" of nature "is that of the regulation of a natural process." "No matter how deep the causes of mortality may be, mortality is not primordial; it is not an unconditional necessity. The blind power in whose dependence a rational creature finds himself can itself be controlled by reason."

For Fedorov, "complete and universal salvation" is preferable to "incomplete or non-universal salvation in which some men -- the sinners -- are condemned to eternal torments and others -- the righteous -- to an eternal contemplation of these torments." That is to say, Fedorov's bold science project, "the common task", is not the only possible route to salvation. "Salvation may also occur without the participation of men ... if they do not unite in the common task"; "if we do not unite to accomplish our salvation, if we do not accept the Gospel message," then a "purely transcendent resurrection will save only the elect; for the rest it will be an expression of God's wrath," "eternal punishment." "I believe this literally." "Christianity has not fully saved the world, because it has not been fully assimilated." Christianity "is not simply a doctrine of redemption, but the very task of redemption."

Have we made any real progress since Fedorov's time? Fedorov would have considered another question more important: What are the sons of man doing now in quest of the kingdom of God? In spite of this more important question, we nevertheless note that our first man in space orbited the earth in 1961 as if by magic. In fact, his name was Gagarin -- the name of Fedorov's father.

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