The concept of Russian cosmism by Michael Hagemeister

Abstract

Michael Hagemeister’s monograph dedicated to N. F. Fedorov, published in 1989, became the first fundamental research in the West, which is devoted to Russian cosmism. Hagemeister highly appreciates the ethical component of N. F. Fedorov’s teaching about the need to remember people who have passed away but is critical of the faith of followers of this teaching in the possibility of resurrection. Hagemeister denies Russian cosmism as an original trend in Russian science and philosophy. From his point of view, Russian cosmism is only a syncretic ideology that includes heterogeneous elements of pseudoscientific theories, esotericism, occultism, theosophy and panpsychism. In creating this syncretic image of Russian cosmism, there is also the «fault» of Hagemeister himself - he did not differentiate the views of the most significant Russian cosmists, instead he criticized only the cumulative «syncretic ideology» that arose during the years of «perestroika». Hagemeister’s reduction of Russian cosmism to pseudoscience and esotericism is not justified in his works by methodological analysis and experimental results but is based only on faith. Hagemeister’s desire to connect Russian cosmonautics and science in general with magic and the occult, allegedly underlying them, is misguided because of the difference in the ways in which nature is subdued by magic and experimental science. Hagemeister’s excessive politicization of Russian cosmism is also very controversial. The largest Russian cosmists (V. F. Odoevsky, N. F. Fedorov, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, V. I. Vernadsky, A. L. Chizhevsky) did not have a common political program, the political views of Russian cosmists are often diametrically opposed.