Russian Cosmism bookcover

Russian Cosmism

Boris Groys 

(Edited by)
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Description

Crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, written before and during the Bolshevik Revolution by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism.

Cosmism emerged in Russia before the October Revolution and developed through the 1920s and 1930s; like Marxism and the European avant-garde, two other movements that shared this intellectual moment, Russian Cosmism rejected the contemplative for the transformative, aiming to create not merely new art or philosophy but a new world. Cosmism went the furthest in its visions of transformation, calling for the end of death, the resuscitation of the dead, and free movement in cosmic space. This volume collects crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism.

Cosmism was developed by the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov in the late nineteenth century; he believed that humans had an ethical obligation not only to care for the sick but to cure death using science and technology; outer space was the territory of both immortal life and infinite resources. After the revolution, a new generation pursued Fedorov's vision. Cosmist ideas inspired visual artists, poets, filmmakers, theater directors, novelists (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky read Fedorov's writings), architects, and composers, and influenced Soviet politics and technology. In the 1930s, Stalin quashed Cosmism, jailing or executing many members of the movement. Today, when the philosophical imagination has again become entangled with scientific and technological imagination, the works of the Russian Cosmists seem newly relevant.

Contributors
Alexander Bogdanov, Alexander Chizhevsky, Nikolai Fedorov, Boris Groys, Valerian Muravyev, Alexander Svyatogor, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Anton Vidokle, Brian Kuan Wood

A copublication with e-flux, New York

Product Details

PublisherThe MIT Press
Publish DateFebruary 16, 2018
Pages264
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconHardback
EAN/UPC9780262037433
Dimensions9.3 X 6.2 X 0.9 inches | 1.0 pounds

Reviews

Russian Cosmism is revelatory and necessary for its ability to make fantasy and genre writing militant; to help us seize back crazed utopic ideas from fascists and Silicon Valley; and, ultimately, to help us expand the zone of unsurrender.—Los Angeles Review of Books

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