cosmists

Cosmists are thinkers associated with a loose Russian intellectual movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that sought to fuse science, philosophy, and spirituality in a program for humanity’s future in the cosmos. The most influential figure is Nikolai Fedorov (1829–1903), whose concept of the common task urged humanity to use future science to resurrect the dead and confer immortality through cooperative effort. His ideas helped frame a broader ambition that science should serve a transcendent, collective purpose beyond individual lifetimes.

A key line of cosmism was continued by scientists and philosophers such as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935), who framed space travel and the colonization of other worlds as a moral and practical destiny for humanity, and Vladimir Vernadsky (1863–1945), whose noosphere concept stressed the role of human cognition in shaping the biosphere and planetary evolution. Together, cosmists promoted the unity of science and ethics, the expansion of human presence into space, and the possibility that technological progress could overcome biological limits, including mortality and the boundaries of Earth.

Core themes include the belief in humanity’s cosmic destiny, the resurrection or immortality achieved through science, and the long-term shaping of civilization through interplanetary expansion. Cosmism is not a single doctrine but a spectrum of related ideas that influenced Russian space culture and later strands of transhumanist and noetic thought. Scholars view it as a formative, though contested, precursor to modern discussions about life extension, spacefaring civilization, and the ethical implications of advanced technology.