Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity

Social Imaginaries 2.2 (2016) 165-181 Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? Maxim Khomyakov Abstract: he paper is devoted to the analysis of Russian ‘experience and interpretation’ (P. Wagner) of the situation of modernity. he author considers the time of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as especially important for understanding Russian modernity and chooses to demonstrate complexities and contradictions of this understanding by the example of Nikolay Fedorov’s Philosophy of Common Task. he paper starts with a characterisation of modernity (according to Castoriadis) as the double signiication of autonomy and rational mastery of the world. hen it proceeds to the description of the circumstances of Russian society of the nineteenth century, which, according to the author, were deined by the opposition of ‘the people’ (narod) and ‘intelligentsia’. It is in this situation, he argues, Russian society had to autonomously interpret its position in the world. In the majority of the cases, according to the author, it chose precedence of the mastery and control over autonomy and freedom. he author analyses Fedorov’s projectivist philosophy of resurrection as one of the most striking interpretations ever given to the ideas of autonomy and rational mastery of the world. He argues that Philosophy of Common Tasks incorporated the trends and ideas inherent in Russian understanding of modernity. hese features made it an ideology equally popular both among Orthodox Christian thinkers of the time and among communists of the 1920s. Key words: Russian philosophy — rational mastery — modernity — Philosophy of Common Task — resurrection — Russian cosmos — projectivism — autonomy — regulation of nature. Modernity: Experiences and Interpretations Today we are all living in a time of crisis. Such an understanding of the present time has become almost common now, after a short period of overoptimism about ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama 1992); this fact became obvious in the 9/11 attacks, in the wars in the Middle East and the Ukraine, in the apparent inability of western societies to handle the most horriic migration 166 Maxim Khomyakov crisis since World War II. his is a crisis of values, of patterns of action, of the very mode of living in our modern societies. In short, this is a crisis of modernity itself. On the other hand, since its birth in the bloody religious conlicts of the sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries, modernity has always been in crisis, so that one could only wonder if being in crisis was not an essential feature of modernity itself… After all, if modernity is essentially about human beings autonomously creating the world they live in, it is simply doomed to be in crisis. Autonomous actions are not infallible, of course, and the future always stays open. Any such crisis makes us turn back, rethink our understanding of the world, and reconigure, if possible, our life. In short, any such crisis calls modernity into question. his means that in order to answer today’s questions we should probably ind not only a solution to the problem of what it means to be modern nowadays, but also address the question on how we came to be such as we are, what decisions we have already collectively made and how these decisions continue to inluence the current state of afairs. In short, we rethink our past and reconigure our future not as abstract rational actors, but as historical beings from a particular point in time and space. We act from this particular point, and our actions are underpinned by the interpretation we give to our situation in the world and to the collective and individual experiences we have. Our modernity, then, is nothing else but our ‘experience and interpretation’ (Wagner 2008). It is obvious, of course, that the experiences are as numerous as the interpretations, and that not only do civilizations and nations difer in their being (and their understanding of their being) modern, but there also exists a plurality of often conlicting and sometimes incompatible interpretations and understandings inside each nation or civilization. he interplay of these interpretations constitutes a particular constellation of modernity in every single point in time and space. Some apparently lost alternatives can be revived again and something peripheral for the moment can become a central element in the future. he humanities and social sciences preserve these alternatives, thus also preserving the hope for other potentially better possible futures. his explains the importance of exercises in historical sociology or intellectual history. hese exercises appear to gain in importance from the current situation of crisis, since they not only help us to map our own position, but also provide us with some possibly valuable alternatives. his also explains why we think it might be important to do what this article purports to do, namely, to reconstruct one element of one individual moment in the complex trajectory of the modernity of one particular culture. he culture in question is Russian, and the moment is its dash to modernity in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 167 he Russian experiences and interpretations of modernity are probably of universal interest. During one century, this country creatively went through imperial autocratic, totalitarian and late Soviet models of modernity to the current strange state of torpor, which seems to be increasingly the state of afairs for many modern societies. We hope that this article will contribute to the understanding of the intricate and uneasy path of this culture in modernity. We will start with a short characterization of modernity as the double imaginary signiication of autonomy and rational mastery of the world (Castoriadis 1997). hen we proceed to the description of the circumstances in which Russian society of the nineteenth century tried to ind its own interpretation of this double signiication and, thus, to answer to the main questions of modernity. After that we will briely analyze one of the most striking interpretations ever given to the ideas of autonomy and rational mastery of the world, the so-called Philosophy of the Common Task by Nikolay Fedorov. In conclusion, we will linger a bit upon the importance of Fedorov’s interpretation for Russian culture and society. Autonomy and Rational Mastery of the World: Russian Circumstances Since Johann Arnason’s and Peter Wagner’s seminal works on modernity (Arnason 1989; Wagner 1994), it has become almost a commonplace to refer to Cornelius Castoriadis’s characterization of modernity as based upon a certain ‘double imaginary signiication’. Namely, the modern period, according to Castoriadis, ‘is best deined by the conlict, but also the mutual contamination and entanglement, of two imaginary signiications: autonomy on the one hand, unlimited expansion of ‘rational mastery’, on the other. hey ambiguously coexisted under the common roof of ‘reason’’ (Castoriadis 1997, pp. 37-38). Arnason thinks of these two principles, or, rather, ‘signiications’ as having divergent, mutually irreducible logics so that ‘the pursuit of the unlimited power over nature does not necessarily enhance the capacity of human society to question and reshape its own institutions, and a coherent vision of the autonomous society excludes an unquestioning commitment to the more or less rationalized phantasm of total mastery’ (Arnason 1989, p. 327). hese logics, however, are not only divergent, but also ‘entangled’, and both are present in modernity from its very outset (Carlenden 2010, p. 57). In short, ‘modernity has two goals—to make man master and possessor of nature, and to make human freedom possible. he question that remains is whether these two are compatible with one another’ (Gillespie 2008, p. 42). Importantly, these two pillars of modernity are not really deinite principles, they are rather signiications, in other words, ‘multiform complexes of meaning that give rise to more determinate patterns and at the same time remain open to other interpretations’ (Arnason 1989, p. 334). he interpretations are given and the deinite patterns are formed, in real historical situations 168 Maxim Khomyakov by real people, and thus relect a complex interplay of diferent elements, including other imaginary signiications, pre-modern traditions, popular sentiments or political considerations. he question of how these patterns are formulated against a particular socio-historical background is, then, one of the most important and interesting questions arising in the study of modernity. his is how we understand here the question of the trajectories of modernity. he Russian trajectory doesn’t start with any popular movement, revolution, religious war or great scientiic discovery. Russian society experienced neither humanistic Renaissance nor religious Reformation. Although some might rightly argue that the seventeenth century ‘old-believers’ religious movement does possess elements reminiscent of the European Reformation, it certainly lacked the transformative potential of Lutheranism or Calvinism. In a way modernity in Russia was introduced by a number of monarchs, the most important of whom was undoubtedly Peter the Great (1672-1725). As a consequence, the Russian society of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century was split in two: a modernized culture of the nobility (and of the intelligentsia later in the nineteenth century), and a rather traditional Orthodox society of the peasantry (or ‘the people’). his split became an essential feature of Russian society and the main question of all Russian philosophy and sociology of the nineteenth century. In diferent times the split was conceptualized diferently: as the East-West contradiction, as the people (narod)–intelligentsia opposition, as the Orthodoxy–rational science divide, and so on. he famous Russian Husserlian philosopher, Gustav Shpet (1879-1937), described this problem of Russia as the main problem of Russian philosophy: ‘the ‘people’, and the ‘intelligentsia’ as the creative spokesman of the people, are related to one another both philosophically and culturally. Russian philosophy approaches its problem of Russia as the problem of the relations of the abovementioned terms, sometimes from the side of ‘the people’, sometimes from the side of the ‘intelligentsia’, but always solves the only problem, the problem of the relation itself. he diference and even opposition of the answers—sub specie of the people and sub specie of the intelligentsia—deines the peculiar dialectics of Russian philosophy…’ (Shpet 2008, p. 76). Westernizers of the nineteenth century wanted to bring Russia closer to the ‘civilized’ world through its Europeanization, while Slavophiles insisted on the originality of the Russian route in modernity. A kind of very imperfect synthesis had been reached in a number of revolutionary movements of the second half of the nineteenth century. For many of them Russia was a weak, agrarian, under-modernized country, but exactly because of this it was thought to be able to become the irst socialist country. It was a patriarchal peasants’ community, which, according to these philosophers, was able to become the seed from which the new socialist society would grow. Starting probably with Herzen (see for example Herzen 1948), the paradoxical idea of Russia as an un-modernized, weak country, which however, was able to become the leader Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 169 of humankind, became archetypical for Russian thought. Leninists’ vision of Russia as the ‘weak link of imperialism’ (Lenin 1969, p. 424; Stalin 1947, p. 97) came also, certainly, from the same roots. Whereas Russian social activists of the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century sought revolutionary transformation of society, the intellectuals tried to solve Russia’s problems by means of sophisticated metaphysics. For these philosophers the main problem of Russian society was not so much social (the ‘people’–’intelligentsia’ divide), but philosophical, and took the form of the opposition between Orthodoxy and rational science. hus, in a letter to the editor of the Journal Voprosy Philosohii I Psychologii, Prof. N.Y. Grot, Vladimir Soloviev, the most famous Russian philosopher of the time, described his own early philosophical development as an attempt to reconcile the ‘existence of plesiosaurs’ with ‘the true worship of God’ (Soloviev 1914, p. 270; also see Lukyanov 1916, pp. 117-120). heologically speaking, this was a question of creating a new Christian apologetics, of the possibility of uniting western science and Russian Orthodoxy, and thus, to reconcile in the ‘philosophy of all-unity’ (as Soloviev called his theory) the ‘people’ with the ‘intelligentsia’ and the West with the East. Similarly to the social question, which could be answered either from the side of the ‘people’ or from the side of the ‘intelligentsia’, the apologetic issue could be solved either sub specie of Orthodoxy or sub specie of science. What almost all philosophers of this time sought, however, was a reconciliation of science and religion. hus, all Russian philosophy and social theory, not to speak of the great literature of the nineteenth century was, in a way, a search for a genuinely Russian route into modernity. he main task was to unite and to reconcile the ‘people’ and the ‘intelligentsia’, East and West, Orthodoxy and rational science. It is against this background that Russian society formed its interpretations of the double imaginary signiication of modernity. It is not too surprising, then, that in the majority of these interpretations mastery and control took precedence over autonomy and freedom. Mastery and Autonomy in Niko1lay Fedorov’s Philosophy of the Common Task Nikolay Fedorov (1829-1903) was arguably one of the most original Russian philosophers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, who, in spite of his unwillingness to publish his works, had a great impact upon Russian and Soviet culture of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries. Among those who were inluenced by his views we can count Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Solovyev, Mayakovski, Khlebnikov, Stravinsky, Platonov, Pasternak etc.; his ideas became the basis for a number of ideological movements, such as Eurasianism (Evraziystvo), cosmism, immortalism, hyperboreanism, etc. his surprising success of Fedorov’s strange ideas is partly explained by the fact that he 170 Maxim Khomyakov managed to give an answer to the question of Russia in a distinctly modern and, at the same time, a peculiarly Russian way. According to George M. Young’s characterisation, ‘Fedorov … was simultaneously a futuristic visionary of unsurpassed boldness and an archconservative spokesman for ideas usually branded reactionary, a man with a twenty-irst century mind and a medieval heart’ (Young 2012, p. 10). It is not surprising, then, that he produced a theory that seemed to be able to transcend all contradictions of the present world, and to lead humankind toward a better future. Mikhael Hagemeister described Russian cosmism, a movement, the ideas of which stem from Fedorov’s views, as ‘based on a holistic and anthropocentric view of the universe which presupposes a theologically determined—and thus meaningful—evolution; its adherents strive to redeine the role of humankind in a universe that lacks a divine plan for salvation, thus acknowledging the threat of self-destruction.… [H]uman beings appear destined to become a decisive factor in cosmic evolution… By failing to act, or failing to act correctly, humankind dooms the world to catastrophe’ (Hagemeister 1997, pp. 185-186). In other words, Russian cosmism gives all priority to the imaginary of active mastering of the world up to the point of dissolution of the principle of autonomy in the totality of collective actions. Quite in accordance with this characteristic, Fedorov himself calls his theory ‘a philosophy of the common task’ and prefers to name it a ‘project’. His purpose is not to explain the nature of things, but to really transform the world. As he puts it, the main question of philosophy is not why existing things exist, but why ‘living beings sufer and die’ (Fedorov 1906, p. 296). Now, any ‘project’ has three main elements: (1) a description of the state of afairs (the-world-as-it-is), (2) a description of the desired condition (theworld-as-it-ought-to-be), and (3) a description of the way from the irst to the second, from the reality to the ideal. And Fedorov, trying to ofer a new projectivist philosophy, does organize it in this three-fold way. ‘Science should not be the knowledge of the causes without the knowledge of the goal, should not be the knowledge of the primary causes without the knowledge of the inal causes (that is knowledge for the sake of knowledge, knowledge without action)…’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 66). he state of afairs is described as the slavery of humanity, as its absolute dependence upon the blind forces of nature. his dependence is evident, for example, in various natural disasters, such as periodic famines, the last of which in the Russia of Fedorov’s time happened in 1891 (Fedorov 1982, p. 58). he main evidence of this dependence, however, is death itself as the inescapable destiny of all living beings. his is the vicious blind circle of birth and death, which, according to Fedorov, makes the current condition of humanity intolerable. Nature, then, is the irst and the main enemy of humanity, which, however, can become a friend. It is Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 171 a power as long as we are powerless… his power is blind as long as we are unreasonable, as long as we do not represent its reason…. Nature is for us a temporary enemy, but eternal friend, since there is no eternal enmity, the elimination of the temporary one is our task… (Fedorov 1982, p. 521). Interestingly, Fedorov describes this condition in terms of the progress, thus, thinking of the progress itself as of the blind force of the nature to be eliminated through the joint eforts of humankind. In biology progress consists ‘in the devourment of the elder by the younger’, in sociology it is the ‘attainment of the largest possible measure of freedom … (and not participation of each person in the common task)’. In short, ‘while stagnation is death, and regress is not a paradise either, progress is the true Hell, and a truly Divine, a truly Human task consists in the salvation of the victims of progress, in guiding them from Hell’ (Fedorov 1982, pp. 77-78). As far as internal human nature is concerned, it is imperfect and blind partly because humans are born as animals. Birth is, thus, the other side of death and should be eliminated together with death and the condition of progress. Only God, being causa sui, is immortal. hat is why, according to Fedorov, the main path for humanity to God-like immortality is literal selfcreation from dead matter. Human society is no exception, since it is also dominated by the inimical blind forces of nature. his domination is evident in what Fedorov calls the un-brotherhood (nebratstvo) and discord (rozn’) of contemporary society. Since ‘history as a fact’ is a permanent bellum omnium contra omnes, a ‘mutual extermination’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 202), ‘there would be no meaning in the history of humankind as long as history … is not our action, is not a product of our joint reason and will, as long as it is an unconscious and involuntary phenomenon’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 197). here are a number of the immediate causes for this sad condition of human society. he most important one is a split between the intelligentsia and the people, or, in Fedorov’s terms, the learned and unlearned ones. Fedorov thinks of this split also as of the division of reason and action (or feeling). External discord (the split between the people and the intelligentsia), according to him (Fedorov 1982, p. 67), is the main cause of the internal division (the schism of reason and action). Given what has been said above on the peculiarities of Russian society and philosophy, it is not surprising at all that Fedorov interprets the split between intelligentsia and ordinary ‘unlearned’ people as the main cause of almost all social evils. Blind natural force, which lies behind all these divisions in society, is a force of Darwinian natural selection. It is its domination over human society that leads to permanent war, social contradictions, divisions and stratiications. he second cause of the condition of un-brotherhood in society is sexuality, the force of birth, which, according to Fedorov’s logic, is also the force of death. Sexuality for Fedorov is the main driver of modern industry, which 172 Maxim Khomyakov produces things enhancing the attractiveness of the opposite sex. In the rather politically incorrect language of his time, Fedorov charges modern capitalism with serving ‘women’s caprices’. Modern industrial society is a ‘women’s kingdom’ and a ‘kingdom of progress’, where ‘children dominate fathers’ (Fedorov 1982, pp. 443-47). he two blind forces (‘natural selection’ and ‘sexual attraction’), according to Fedorov, inluence all spheres of human activity. hus, for example, art for Fedorov, instead of performing its function of real transformation of the world, became either ‘frightening’ (serving natural selection) or ‘attracting’ (serving sexuality). hus, human art turned into the vain creation of hollow images, while it must become a real theurgic force of world transformation. ‘To give a frightening or attractive appearance to objects is the expression of secular art ... Frightening art became characteristic of the dominant class, and attracting art was made into the sign of the ‘weak’ sex’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 562). he main evidence and result of this slavery of humanity, of the domination of blind natural forces, is death, an inescapable condition of human existence in the world. ‘Death is a result of dependence upon the blind force of nature, which acts both outside and inside us and which is not managed by us. As for us, we recognize this force and submit to it’ (Fedorov 1982, pp. 350-351). hus, for Fedorov the-world-as-it-is is characterized by the domination of the blind forces of nature. It pertains to the external world, to internal human nature and to the current condition of society. his world, being an ‘existing Hell’, must be transformed by the joint eforts of all human beings. Now, in order to complete his ‘philosophy of common task’, Fedorov had to picture also the-world-as-it-ought-to-be, the world-in-project, the Paradise humankind must aspire to. his ideal world is pictured in Christianity. Fedorov considered himself an Orthodox thinker and thought that his theory fulilled the promises and followed the aspirations of Orthodoxy, despite the deeply promethean spirit of this theory. He didn’t want to build the new world without God; on the contrary, he thought that God himself wanted humankind to fulil the ‘common task’. Fedorov interprets almost all the contents of Christianity in this new, ‘projectivist’ way, as a call for humankind to join together in the task of ‘regulating nature’. As one of his disciples explains: Propagation of life, immortality and resurrection is the essence of the Saviour’s teaching. He calls His Heavenly Father “God of Fathers”, that is of the dead, but at the same time also ‘not the God of the dead, but of the living’ (Mark 12:26-27), that is, of those who are going to return to life, of those who will resuscitate; since “God has not created death”… and desires “all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4) (Kozhevnikov 1908, p. 273). Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 173 Contemporary Christianity, however, is too contaminated with paganism, the main evidence of which is its ‘passive’ character. Even Russian Orthodoxy, the closest to the true Christian religion, according to Fedorov, transformed commandments into dogmata, and created rites out of tasks. he right interpretation of Christianity, then, is to re-interpret all dogmata as commandments, and all rites as tasks. For Fedorov all of them point toward one single project—the project of the ‘regulation of nature’ and of the resurrection of the dead. For example, the Eucharist being interpreted today as the way to (spiritual) immortality is a clear call for such a project. Fedorov thinks that the Eucharist (liturgy) has still not eliminated death, because it is not inished yet, since the Eucharist is as united and ecumenical as the Church is united and ecumenical. Liturgy is a united, universal, but still uninished task, the task of the universal resurrection (Fedorov 1982, p. 257). In Fedorov’s exegesis, thus, all Christian dogmata, starting from the Holy Trinity, are calls (‘commandments’) for the project of resurrection: ‘in contradiction to Mohammedanism we can say: ‘here is no God except the Triune One, and the resurrection is His commandment’’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 162). As far as the rites (the Sacraments) are concerned, they must go out of the cathedral and become ‘extra-temple ones’. In Fedorov’s writings the opposition of the ‘intra-temple’ (khramovoye) and ‘extra-temple’ (vnekhramovoye) corresponds to the opposition of ‘passive’ and ‘active’ or of ‘seeming’ and ‘real’. hus, in the Sacraments today the resurrection is only limited to appearances (seeming), passive and done by the priests in the temple, but it must be real, active and done by all people in the universe as God’s true cathedral. Religion is a task of the resurrection, but in incomplete form, in the form of the Sacrament. Without awareness … we participate in the task of the resurrection … through participation in the liturgy…. But, participating in the task of the resurrection in this way, we turned it into the rite only. And as long as there is no extra-temple liturgy … resurrection remains a rite only’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 131). In future, however, ‘…the Eucharist will not be conined by the limits of the temple, but will be the action, managing forces of nature…’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 256). ‘Passive’ and ‘active’ are also interpreted by Fedorov as ‘Ptolemaic’ and ‘Copernican’. he Temple or Cathedral is an image of Ptolemaic Cosmos with the Earth and humankind in its centre. he Copernican temple, however, is the universe, where the Earth will be made the centre by the joint eforts of a united humankind by means of the total ‘regulation of nature’. Building such a temple is a task of ‘Copernican’ art, coinciding with science. In this Copernican architecture ‘planets and … suns with their earths … will be managed 174 Maxim Khomyakov by the resurrected generations’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 525). In the ‘common task’ of resurrection all sciences are united in astronomy, all rites—in Eucharist, and all arts—in architecture. Since Fedorov’s Copernican architecture consists in regulating the universe and building the Temple from the material of all stars and planets, it also coincides with science (astronomy) and the rites (Eucharist). In the task of resurrection, thus, we have the unity of science, art and religion. hat is why in Fedorov’s theory science does not make any sense without art or religion. Or, as George M. Young explains it: the scientiic projects cannot be understood in isolation from the religious, political, sociological, artistic, and economic projects. In contrast to some of his followers, Fedorov repeatedly emphasizes that technological advance, if pursued independently from advances in morality, the arts, government, and spirituality, and if pursued for its own sake or for purposes other than the resurrection of the ancestors, could end only in disaster. And further, also in contrast to some of the other Cosmist thinkers, he believed that spiritual development alone, without scientiic technology, could also lead only to a dead end (2012, p. 50). Interestingly, in Fedorov’s theory science and art also provide us with clear indications about the ‘project’. Fedorov sees these indications in the upright (vertical) position of the human being, which, according to evolutionary science, was crucial for the emergence of human reason. Fedorov interprets this as, irstly, the irst un-natural thing and, therefore, as the irst true work of art. Secondly, he sees the upright position as the irst indication of the rebellion of the human being against death, which is symbolized by the horizontal position of the dead body. hirdly, for Fedorov, the upright position is also an act of God’s creation. He speaks of it as of ‘theo-anthropo-urgical art’, the ‘creation of human beings by God through human beings’. he upright position in this sense was also the irst act of human freedom: the human being is not a product of nature only, she is a work or creation of art. he last act of God’s creation was the irst act of human art, because the purpose of human being is—to be free, and, therefore, self-made (samosozdannym), since only the self-made being can be free (Fedorov 1982, p. 561). he ‘commandment’ of the ‘upright position’, then, reveals the necessity to re-create everything anew, which comes to us from nature and compels us to turn all natural phenomena into works of human art. ‘he task of human being consists in changing everything natural, gratuitous (darovoye) into the product of labour, of work (trudovoye)’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 359). Only in this way will blind natural forces become reasonable and instead of generating death and discord, will contribute to obtaining the eternal permanence of humankind in close unity with God and the Cosmos. Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 175 Now, the picture of ‘the-world-as-it-ought-to-be’ or ‘the world-in-theproject’ is quite clear: this is the world, guided or ‘regulated’ by a united humankind. Humanity must fully dominate nature; it should regulate the movements of not only all stars and planets in outer space, but also of all the smallest particles of the matter. Such humans are not mortal anymore; they have inally defeated their main enemy and become immortal and omnipotent. ‘he common task’, however, consists not only in achieving immortality for one generation. For Fedorov this would have been appallingly immoral. Humankind, in Fedorov’s project, is united across generations, all to be resurrected by fellow humans, or, rather, by the sons and daughters of the dead. Universal resurrection is a full victory over space and time. he transfer ‘from the earth to heaven’ is a victory … over space (or successive omnipresence). he transfer from death to life or simultaneous coexistence of the whole series of times (generations), coexistence of succession, is a triumph over time (Fedorov 1982, p. 572). Now, if such is the ideal, how might it be realized? Since blind forces of nature bring death not because they are evil in themselves, but exactly because they are blind, humanity’s path to salvation is, for Fedorov, in regulating those forces. hus, irst, sexuality should be reversed and directed to the dead parents; it must become, so to speak, the main resurrecting force. Or as Fedorov himself puts it, ‘resurrection is replacement of the lust of birth with conscious re-creation’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 81). he point is that only through resurrection of our parents can we obtain freedom and fulil our moral obligations. ‘We have nothing of our own, created by us; all we have is gratuitous or rather what we owe; our life is not ours, it is separable, alienable, mortal; we obtained our life from our fathers, who owe it to their parents etc.; birth is transferring the debt, not paying it …. he unpaid debt is punished with slavery, death. Paid debt is returning the life to one’s parents, that is, the debt to one’s creditors, and through it returning freedom to itself ’ (Fedorov 1982, pp. 162-163). Here the meaning of self-creation becomes much clearer. Human beings are born, and therefore mortal. hey will become causas sui only if they give birth to their own parents, thus, creating themselves through them. Marriage as a unity of man and woman becomes collaboration of the son and daughter in the task of returning life to the parents. he society of the sons and daughters, then, is a true family co-extensive with humankind as a whole. his family is characterized by the ‘positive chastity’, which as selfcreation from dead matter Fedorov opposes to ‘negative chastity’ as abstinence from birth and, therefore, ‘suicide for humankind’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 404). he ideal of such a family is the Holy Trinity, in which, according to Fedorov, the Holy Spirit symbolizes the daughter (Fedorov 1982, p. 140). his society 176 Maxim Khomyakov is characterized by ‘multi-unity’, which, according to Fedorov, is ‘unity without merging’ and ‘diference without discord’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 133). Such a society has one purpose, one task, which is really common and this task transcends all private particularity of interests and desires. his truly totalitarian society of brothers and sisters eliminates discord and, thus, stops permanent war. Together with the force of sexual attraction, the force of natural selection loses its grip on human beings. Similarly to sexuality, however, this force should not be eliminated, but rather re-directed against the common enemy of humankind. Armies, then, must be converted into troops, ighting nature. Fedorov sees great symbolic meaning in the experiences of inluencing the weather (producing rain, irst of all) by means of artillery and explosives. Today everything serves war, there is no discovery which was not dealt with by the military for making use of it in war… If we could oblige armies to use everything that is now used for war for managing the forces of nature, military science (voennoye delo) itself would become the common task (obsheye delo) of all humankind (Fedorov 1982, p. 58). In short, what we today would call sublimation of sexual energies and conversion of military technologies are the main means of the transformation of the world-as-it-is to the world-as-it-ought-to-be. his society is, of course, a matter of the very distant future. Fedorov describes it in daring and fantastic language, but rejects going into details about its possibility. Earth and then other planets, being created from cosmic dust, will create under the management of the reasonable beings from the same cosmic dust conductors of the force from the sun… hrough these conductors … Earth and other planets … will accelerate or decelerate the movement of the whole system. he assemblage of worlds, inspired by the resurrected generations in their close brotherly union, will itself be the instrument of their predecessors, the fathers (Fedorov 1982, p. 527). his humankind, being itself God-like, is united both with the cosmos and with God. As one western commentator has noted of Fedorov’s theory: ‘immortality would be the result of man’s omnipresence (nonlimitation in space), omnipotence (nonlimitation in action), ubiquity (nonlimitation in motion), eternity (nonlimitation in time) and omniscience (nonlimitation in knowledge)’ (Lukashevich 1977, p. 298). However unrealistic this might seem, Fedorov emphasized the moral, religious, scientiic etc. necessity of starting work on this project, without relecting deeply on its plausibility. ‘While the irst resurrected human being will be, probably, resurrected immediately after death … he will be followed by Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 177 those, who were less subject to decay, but every new experience in this work will make easier future steps’ (Fedorov 1982, p. 421). United humankind will manage every atom and every planet in the universe, thus performing the task of ‘gathering’ elements of the dead parents’ bodies. In this, Fedorov demonstrates almost religious optimism about human reason and its potential, far transcending the boldest dreams of the Enlightenment philosophers. Fedorov: Towards Russian Modernity of the Twentieth Century? Fedorov’s philosophy is, undoubtedly, one of the brightest, most bizarre and most peculiarly Russian theories to emerge between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. It has a number of very distinct features that helped it to attract a number of adherents in twentieth century Russia. First of all, this philosophy unites science and religion in a very peculiar way, thus reconciling Soloviev’s plesiosaurs with God’s worship. Fedorov emphasizes this unity in almost all questions of importance. For him, the ‘common task’ is ‘positivism in the sphere of inal causes’. One can call teaching on the resurrection a kind of positivism, but positivism in relation to action, since, according to the teaching on the resurrection, there can be no substitution of mythical knowledge with positive knowledge, but a substitution of mythical, ictitious action with positive, that is real, action … Resurrection as action is positivism in the sphere of inal causes (Fedorov 1982, p. 85). However oxymoronic this idea might seem, Fedorov managed to create an ideology, which became quite popular both among Orthodox Christian thinkers and among communists of the 1920s. In Fedorov’s theory science and Orthodoxy are at times kept separate (with science providing tools for the attainment of religious goals), but at times they are fused in the most uncritical way, so that science is treated religiously and vice versa. his peculiar fusion of religion and science can also be easily discovered in the Russian communism of the twentieth century (see for example Berdyaev 1955). Secondly, Fedorov, interpreting the separation of the ‘learned’ from the ‘unlearned’ as the main cause of the ‘un-brotherhood’ and ‘discord’ of society, gives his own answer to the Russian question on the re-uniication of the ‘intelligentsia’ and the ‘people’. his answer is reuniication in action, practical uniication. he goal of universal salvation for Fedorov is so powerful that it is able to heal this wound of Russian modernity. Obviously, the communists acted in a similar fashion: the eminence of their goal helped them to mobilize diferent groups in the society. hirdly, and relatedly, in the divide between the Slavophiles and Westernizers, Fedorov occupies the middle ground. He describes Russia in distinctly 178 Maxim Khomyakov messianic terms, but values Western science and technology greatly. Importantly also, his Russian messianism is not exclusivist or chauvinistic: he thinks that Russia would be the irst to take up the task, which must be, however, a common task for the whole of humankind. As George M. Young comments: Fedorov and the Cosmists eventually ofer a synthesis of Westernizer and Slavophile positions, welcoming Western scientiic and technological advances, but turning them toward Slavophile goals of communal wholeness, unifying activity, and spiritual consensus—all contained in the well-known Slavophile concept of sobornost (Young 2012, p. 23). Naturally again, this reminds us of Lenin’s peculiarly messianic theory of Russia as a ‘weak link’ in the chain of imperialism, which therefore would lead humankind into the future paradise of communism. Fourthly, Fedorov’s ‘project’ is certainly a deeply totalitarian one. Everything and everybody must conform to the project and the holy goal of resurrecting the parents and regulating nature. No exception is granted and no other goal is considered worthy. As Michael Hagemeister noted about the Cosmists: the image of humanity spreading its ‘noocratic’1 rule over the universe, whence it can fulil the ‘universal cosmic plan’ of turning itself into an almighty immortal organism, thus attaining the status of God, is an image that quickly reveals its unmistakably totalitarian character. Even Fedorov’s world-delivering common task was totalitarian: no one had the right to be excluded or forgotten, no one could withdraw from the magniicent project (Hagemeister 1997, pp. 201-202). Finally, in Fedorov’s project we discover that peculiar interpretation of the double imaginary signiication of modernity, which we, again, can easily ind in Russian communism. his interpretation is heavily concentrated on absolute mastery, on control and regulation, re-interpreting thus autonomy through this mastery, not vice versa. For Fedorov, total regulation of nature is a pre-requisite for obtaining true autonomy. Only those who work for the common task can be called free and autonomous, while all others are just slaves of blind nature. Fedorov, thus, values only positive freedom, and not negative liberal freedom. his interpretation of freedom is also partly inspired by Fedorov’s traditionalist collectivism. As his faithful follower, N.P. Peterson, testiied: I heard from N.F. that the so-called great principles of the great French Revolution—freedom, equality, and brotherhood—are the product of extremely shallow thought, or even of thoughtlessness, since brotherhood cannot result from freedom to fulil one’s whims or from the envious desire for equality; only brotherhood leads to freedom, for brothers who love one another will not Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 179 envy one brother who is elevated above others… For that reason, we must seek brotherhood irst, and not put it in the tail, after freedom and equality (Peterson 1912, p. 88-89). he image of the human race mastering both outer and inner worlds, both external space and internal nature, both planets and society, turned out to be very relevant for twentieth century Russia. In its attempts to overcome the fateful split between the intelligentsia and the people, Russian society of this time came to value control more than individual freedom from interference. It is not surprising, then, that Fedorov’s ideas found really wide reception and inluenced not only such strange communist projects as preserving Lenin’s body in his mausoleum or the project of turning back the Northern rivers’ streams, of which some Soviet oicials and scientists dreamed for more than 20 years, but also the plot of Dostoyevskiy’s famous Brothers Karamazov novel, futurist poetry of Mayakovskiy and Khlebnikov, as well as the quite successful Soviet space exploration projects. Mastering nature as a way of attaining real freedom became for some time the idee ixe of new Russian culture. his image was so attractive that some quite original thinkers rejected their previous liberalism and for a short period of time became ardent supporters of the Soviet modernization of Russian life. Valerian Muraviev, another of Fedorov’s followers, interpreted the entire development of human civilization as ‘mastering time’ (ovladeniye vremenem). He described history as a ight between the blind force of time and the creative force of life. One should stop hoping for a ready eternity and start making time. Everything indicates that the epoch of such a human victory is approaching. Blind, unreasonable time squirms and trembles in the convulsions of its premortal murders. And a new reasonable time, time full of perfection, a product of the future all-world culture, is coming after it (Muraviev 1998, p. 230). It is not surprising, then, that this son of a Moscow public prosecutor, a liberal, once sentenced by the new communist government to death, wrote in a letter to another of Fedorov’s followers, N.A. Setnitskiy: he new culture comes to us through the Revolution and not in any other way, and the Soviet government, even if it treats us severely, is doing great and necessary work—the work of the transformation of humankind, the transformation we really seek… You remember our talks and the paradoxical conclusion we reached, that the Revolution for us is not revolutionary enough, it is too limited by social tasks, whereas we would like a world cosmic Revolution (Muraviev 1988, p. 8). Stalin’s Big Terror put an end to these dreams, which, however, still kept inluencing the trajectory of Russian modernity throughout the twentieth century. 180 Maxim Khomyakov References Arnason, JP 1989, ‘he Imaginary Constitution of Society’, in Giovanni Busino et al. (eds), Autonomie et autotrasformation de la sociètè. La philosophie militante de Cornelius Castoriadis, Genève: Librairie Droz, pp. 323-37. Berdyaev, NA 1955, Istoki I smysl russkogo communisma, YMCA-press, Paris. Carleheden, M 2010, ‘he Imaginary Signiication of Modernity: A Re-Examination’, in Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social heory, no. 21, pp. 51-70. Castoriadis, C 1997, World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. Fedorov, NF 1906, Philosophia obshego dela, t.1 (Verniy). Fedorov, NF 1982, Sochineniya, Mysl, Moscow. Fukuyama, F 1992, he End of History and the Last Man, Free Press, New York. Gillespie, MA 2008, he heological Origins of Modernity, he University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London. Hagemeister, M 1997, ‘Russian Cosmism in the 1920s and today’, in BG Rosenthal (ed.), he Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, Cornell University Press, New York, pp. 185—202. Hezen, A 1948, ‘Russkiy narod I sotsialism. Pismo k Z. Mishle’, in Izbranniye philosophskiye proizvedeniya, OGIZ, Moscow, pp. 134-166. Kozhevnikov, VA 1908, ‘Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov. Opyt izlozheniya ego ucheniya po izdannym I neizdannym proizvedeniyam, perepiske I lichnym besedam. Chast 1’, Moskovskogo Imperatorskogo Universiteta, Moskva. Lenin, V 1969, ‘Imperialism kak vysshaya stadiya kapitalisma’, in Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy, 5 izd., T. 27, izdatelstvo politicheskoy literatury, Moscow, pp. 299-426. Lukashevich, S 1977, N.F. Fedorov (1828–1903). A study in Russian Eupsychian and Utopian hought, Associated University Presses, Newark, London. Lukyanov, S 1916, O Vl. S. Solovieve v ego molodiye gody, kn. I, Senatskaya tip, Petrograd. Muraviev, V 1998, Ovladeniye Vremenem, ROSSPEN, Moskva. Peterson, NP 1912, N.F. Fedorov I ego knoga ‘Filospia obschego del v protivopolochnost ucheniyu L&N& Tolstogo ‘o neprotivlenii’ I drugim ideyam nashego vremeni, Tipograia Semirechenskogo obl.pravleniya, Verny. Shet, G 2008, ‘Ocherk razvitiya russkoi philosophii.I’, ROSSPEN, Moscow. Soloviev, V 1914, ‘Pismo k redaktoru ‘Voprosov Philosophii I Psichologii’ N.Y. Grotu (1890)’, in Sobraniye Sochineniy Vladimira Sergeevicha Solovieva, vtoroye inzdaniye, t. 6, tovarishestvo ‘Prosvesheniye’, Saint-Petersburg, pp. 269-274. Stalin, I 1947, ‘Ob osnovakh leninizma’ in Sochineniya, t.6, OGIZ, Moscow. Wagner, P 2008, Modernity as Experience and Interpretation: A New Sociology of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. Young, GM 2012, he Russian Cosmists: he Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers, Oxford University Press, New York. Mastering Nature: a Russian Route into Modernity? 181 Author Biography Maxim Khomyakov is a professor and a vice-president of Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia. Since 2015 he is also a director of the centre for BRICS studies at the same university. In 2002 -2013 he organized a number of transnational research and teaching projects in political philosophy and religious studies. He lectures on medieval philosophy, Russian philosophy and contemporary political philosophy. His research interests include theories of modernity, theories of toleration, contemporary political philosophy and Russian philosophy of nineteenth century. Recent publications include: ‘Toleration and Respect: Historical Instances and Current Problems’ (2013) in European Journal of Political heory,‘Modernost: put k otkrytosti budushego’ (2009) in Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology, and ‘Hierarchy and order’ (2004) in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Address: Ural Federal University, 620002, 19 Mira St. Ekaterinburg, Russia. Email: [email protected] Notes 1 Noocratic is a kind of technical neologism. In contrast to Nomocratic from the Greek: Nomos (Law) + Cratos (Power), Noocratic is from the Greek Nous (Mind) + Cratos. his implies the power of the mind, the power of science.