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2025. Vol.10. №2.

Fight against hunger in the philosophy of Russian cosmism: From Vasily Chekrygin to Vladimir Vernadsky

Jul 27 2025

Gacheva A.G. Fight against hunger in the philosophy of Russian cosmism: From Vasily Chekrygin to Vladimir Vernadsky // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №2. P. 37-62.

EDN: AFTTUR

Annotation

The article continues the discussion about the ways to fight against hunger suggested in the philosophy of Russian cosmism. Thus, the idea of overcoming hunger through the common cause is presented in the works of V. N. Chekrygin and his treatise On the Council of the Resurrection Museum. The author considers practical proposals of N. F. Fedorov and his followers — A. K. Gorsky, N. A. Setnitsky, V. N. Muravyov — related to the ideas of artificial rainmaking and of turning the army into a natural-science force, focusing on their place in the “economy of regulation” developed by Russian cosmism. The article presents the approaches of Gorsky, Setnitsky and Muravyov to the issues of labor and their visions of the culture of the future, emphasizing that, unlike A. M. Gorky’s and biocosmists’ Prometheistic interpretation of regulation, Gorsky, Setnitsky and Muravyov followed Fedorov in defining regulation as a personal religious duty to fulfill the commandment of “possessing land” and cultivating world to transform it into the Kingdom of God. The author considers the ideas of the natural-science branch of cosmism presented by N. A. Umov, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, V. I. Vernadsky and A. L. Chizhevsky, who defined the human mind as a key agent in world development and the creator of the noosphere, thus, interpreting hunger as a noospheric task.

Keywords

Philosophy of cosmism, problem of hunger, exploitation, regulation, science, economy, legacy of N. F. Fedorov, cosmists’ projects of the 1920s–1930s, A. K. Gorsky, N. A. Setnitsky, V.N. Muravyov, biocosmism, V.N. Chekrygin, treatise On the Council of the Resurrection Museum.

About the author

Anastasia G. Gacheva, DSc (Philology), Leading Researcher, A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of the Center for Cosmism Studies, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Chief Librarian, N. F. Fedorov Moscow Library No. 180. Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, Moscow, 121069.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

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Additional Info

2024. Vol.9. №3.

Labor worldview: From the philosopher’s archive

Oct 25 2024

N. A. Setnitsky. Labor worldview: From the philosopher’s archive // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №3. P. 127-148.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-3-127-148

Annotation

This publication consists of the archival articles and notes by Nikolai Aleksandrovich Setnitsky (1888–1937), philosopher, economist, statistician and one of the leading representatives of the noospheric, cosmic thought of the 1920s–1930s, which is associated with the preservation and creative development of N. F. Fedorov’s ideas. These works were written in 1923–1924, when Setnitsky lived and worked in Moscow; together with his like-minded friends A. K. Gorsky and V.N. Muravyov he studied the issues of labor and its scientific organization, relevant for the first post-revolutionary decade. Unlike theorists of the scientific-organization-of-labor approach, cosmists of Fedorov’s orientation interpreted labor as a world- and cosmos-organizing human activity in nature, which aims at overcoming chaos, death and decay, thus opposing entropy. Some works were intended for the journal October Thought with which Gorsky and Setnitsky collaborated in 1924. Setnitsky’s reflections on the purpose of labor were combined with reflections on the meaning of culture as a good cultivation and a creative transformation of the world. Articles about the labor worldview as requiring human activity in nature and in this sense opposing the passive-consumer attitude to land led to the issue central for Setnitsky — exploitation or regulation, which he considered in a special article. In the subtext of his articles for the Soviet audience, Setnitsky practically removed the religious-philosophical interpretation of the concepts of regulation, labor and culture, which he linked to the fulfillment of the commandment to “subdue the earth” and the eschatological re-creation of the world; however, some verbal and semantic patterns hinted at the original active-Christian direction of his thought. The published texts are part of Setnitsky’s Harbin archive in the Fedoroviana Pragensia collection of the Literary Archive of the Museum of National Literature (Czech Republic). F. 341. 

Keywords

Archival heritage of N. A. Setnitsky, cosmism of the 1920s–1930s, philosophy of labor, regulation, culture, fight against entropy, transformation of the world, projectivism.

About the authors

Nikolai A. Setnitsky
Publisher — Anastasia G. Gacheva, DSc (Philology), Leading Researcher, A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of the Center for Cosmism Studies, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Chief Librarian and Researcher, N. F. Fedorov Library No. 180 in the South-West Administrative District of Moscow. 25A, bld. 1, Povarskaya st., Moscow, 121069.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

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Hard copies of the journal can be purchased at the Delo e-store or by subscription in the "Press of Russia" Agency (subscription index - Т81017).

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Russian Peasant Studies

Peer-reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal in the field of theoretical and empirical peasant studies, rural sociology, economics and social geography. The journal publishes original works on the issues of socio-economic development of agricultural regions of Russia and the world, the history of the peasantry, including its formation and evolution, particularly from philosophical and cultural studies viewpoints. The journal aims at exploring the paths of Russian and international rural development and supporting cooperation of agrarian researchers representing different scientific disciplines. Read more>

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