Russian cosmism

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The cover of the book "The Will of the Universe. Intellect Unknown. Mind and Passions" by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 1928

Russian cosmism was a cosmocentric philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia in the early 20th century. It entails a broad theory of natural philosophy combining elements of religion and ethics, a history and philosophy of the origin, evolution and future existence of the cosmos and humankind. It combines elements from both Eastern and Western philosophic traditions as well as from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Many ideas of the Russian cosmists were later developed by those in the transhumanist movement.

[edit] Representatives

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857—1935) was the first pioneer of theoretical space exploration and cosmonautics. In 1903, he published Исследование мировых пространств реактивными приборами (The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reactive Devices [Rockets]), the first serious scientific work on space travel. Tsiolkovsky believed that colonizing space would lead to the perfection of the human race, with immortality and a carefree existence. He also developed ideas of the "animated atom" (panpsychism), and "radiant mankind".

Other Ukrainian-Russian cosmists included Vladimir Vernadsky (1863—1945), who developed the notion of noosphere, and Alexander Chizhevsky (1897—1964), pioneer of Heliobiology. A minor planet 3113 Chizhevskij discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978 is named after the him. ^[1]