Background
Fedorov, Nikolai Fedorovich was born in 1828 in Tambov province.
Fedorov, Nikolai Fedorovich was born in 1828 in Tambov province.
Studied at the Richelieu Lyceum, Odessa, without graduating.
1854-1868, teacher of history and geography at various provincial schools. 1874-1898, librarian of the Rumiantsev Museum in Moscow.
Fedorov is difficult to classify among his practically oriented compatriots, let alone within the categories of Western academic philosophy. His insistence that science and technology could control the weather, harness solar energy, convert the earth into a vessel for the colonization of space, and even reconstitute the bodies of the dead, suggests a secular Enlightenment faith in progress. In fact, he was deeply critical of theories of progress as disrespectful to the dead and dying, and deprecated the roles of science and industry in contemporary society. His identification of humanity’s common task the mastery of the blind, death-dealing forces of nature in order to raise the dead—is set within a Christian context. The ‘disrelatedness’ and ‘unbrotherliness’ which he abhorred in nature and society stems from the Fall; the capacity to raise the dead and thereby realize the Kingdom of God is contingent upon Christ’s resurrection and redemption. Fedorov’s thought frequently infringes on the fantastic, but the ‘projective’ philosophy of action of this singular, self-appointed spokesman for the unlearned was greatly esteemed by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Solov’ev; his influence is also seen in Berdyaev.