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.
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Shagaida N.I., Nikulin A.M. “All generations of my family... have been involved in global agrarian transformations” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №2. P. 121-153.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-2-121-153

Annotation

In the biographical interview, N.I. Shagaida, DSc (Economics), Head of the Center for Agro-Food Policy of the RANEPA, considers the historical roots of the development of the Soviet agrarian system on the examples of her life experience and her family generations involved in agricultural activities in different regions of the former USSR. The interview focuses on her reflections on the peculiarities of agrarian university and academic organizations and on the role of outstanding scientists as determining the results of research teams and the horizons of agrarian sciences. The article presents the milestones in N.I. Shagaida’s scientific research as coinciding with the key stages in restructuring and reforming the Soviet and post-Soviet agrarian system, especially with the social-economic experiments and transformations under the reform of the Soviet collective-farm and state-farm system in the Nizhny Novgorod Region and other regions of the Russian Federation in the 1990s, and with the creation of rural development institutions in Lodeynopolsky district of the Leningrad Region. N.I. Shagaida emphasizes that for the successful and sustainable agrarian transformations, science and government have to work systematically in pilot regional projects in order to take into account opinions, requests and estimates of the rural population and local rural leaders in the development and adaptation of the daily innovations under the necessary agrarian changes. Thus, the interview questions the strategic goals of the state in the regulation of land relations, food security, agricultural production and the Russian rural development in general.

Keywords

Family, school, science, USSR, perestroika, reform, agricultural enterprises, land, rural development.

About the authors

Natalia I. Shagaida, DSc (Economics), Head of the Center for Agro-Food Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Zaslavskaya T.I. “... I am pressed for time now” (Letters of Tatiana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya of 1972–1974) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №3. P. 78-139.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-3-78-139

Annotation

The letters of the academician Tatyana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya (1927–2013) describe her life in Novosibirsk and her work at the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (currently the IEOIP SB RAS). These letters present a chronicle of thoughts and feelings of T.I. Zaslavskaya about problems and conflicts in the Soviet science, about paradoxes of economics, culture, education, and everyday life of the Soviet society in the first half of the 1970s. In these letters, T.I. Zaslavskaya’s assessments and characteristics of her contemporaries—colleagues in science, politicians, figures of art and culture—are of particular interest. The letters also reveal the identity of their author—a strong and talented woman, hardworking and cheerful, curious and friendly, tender and vulnerable, keenly feeling injustice and rudeness, falsehood and stupidity. The addressee of these letters is a friend of T.I. Zaslavskaya—Yuri Efimovich Sokolovsky (1927–1984)—PhD (Pedagogy), Associate Professor of the Moscow State Institute of Culture, a Cultural Studies scholar, true expert in the historical-cultural heritage of Moscow, prominent researcher of the psychological-pedagogical issues of the artistic creativity and of the organization and development of rural and urban cultural-educational institutions. The letters were provided for publication in the Russian Peasant Studies by G.I. Reprintseva, the widow of Yu.E. Sokolovsky. The letters were edited and commented by G.I. Reprintseva and A.M. Nikulin.

Keywords

Zaslavskaya, Soviet society, science, sociology, economics, culture, Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Moscow, rural Russia

About the authors

Tatyana I. Zaslavskaya

Editors: Galina I. Reprintseva, PhD (Pedagogy); for more than 40 years, she was conducting research at the Russian Academy of Education, in particular in the Laboratory of SocialPedagogical Issues of Family Relations at the Institute of Social Pedagogy; for the achievements in the field of pedagogy, she was awarded the medal of K.D. Ushinsky.
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Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Head of the Chayanov Research Center, MSSES. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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