Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov was a
Russian Orthodox Christian philosopher,
who was part of the Russian cosmism
movement and a precursor of
transhumanism. Fyodorov advocated
radical life extension, physical
immortality and even resurrection of the
dead, using scientific methods.
Biography 
Fyodorov's parents were the Rurikid
knyaz Pavel Ivanovich Gagarin and
Elisaveta Ivanova, a woman of
lower-class nobility.
He studied at the Richelieu Lyceum in
Odessa. From 1854 to 1868, he served as
a teacher in various small Russian
towns. During 1878, he joined the
Rumyantsev Museum staff as a librarian.
Fyodorov opposed the idea of property of
books and ideas and never published
anything during his lifetime. His
selected articles were printed
posthumously with the title Philosophy
of the Common Task.
Philosophy 
Fyodorov was a futurist, who theorized
about the eventual perfection of the
human race and society, including
radical ideas like immortality, revival
of the dead, space and ocean
colonization. His writings greatly
influenced mystic Peter Uspensky. He
also had direct contact with early
rocket theorist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky,
who visited the library where he worked
over a 3-year period. He was also known
to Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
= Fyodorov and Tolstoy =
Leo Tolstoy was of the highest opinion
of Fyodorov. They were quite friendly,
and shared many ideas in the 1880s and
early 90s. But Fyodorov refused to see
Tolstoy again after 1892, because of
their ideological differences. That was
the time of some food shortages in
Russia because of poor harvest. Tolstoy
published in the London 'Daily
Telegraph' an article accusing the
Russian government of not doing enough
for the peasants, which displeased many
Russian conservatives.
While Fyodorov shared with Tolstoy many
religious ideas, he was also a
church-going Christian who cared very
much for the Orthodox ritual observance.
This was also a big stumbling block
between them.
= Humankind’s Common Cause =
Fedorov argued that evolutionary process
was directed towards increased
intelligence and its role in the
development of life. Humanity is the
culmination of evolution, as well as its
creator and director. Humans must
therefore direct evolution where their
reason and morality dictate. Fedorov
also argued that mortality is the most
obvious indicator of the still
imperfect, contradictory nature of
humanity and the underlying reason for
most evil and nihilism of humankind.
Fedorov stated that the struggle against
death can become the most natural cause
uniting all people of Earth, regardless
of their nationality, race, citizenship
or wealth.
Fedorov thought that death and
afterdeath existence should become the
subject of comprehensive scientific
inquiry, that achieving immortality and
revival is the greatest goal of science,
and that this knowledge must leave the
laboratories and become the common
property of all: "Everyone must be
learning and everything be the subject
of knowledge and action".
= Two reasons for death =
Human life, emphasized Fedorov, dies for
two reasons. First is internal: due to
the material organization of a human,
his or her functionality is incapable of
infinite self-renewal. To overcome this,
psychophysiological regulation of human
organisms is needed. The second reason
is the unpredictable nature of the
external environment; its destructive
character must be overcome with the
regulation of Nature. Regulation of
nature, “introducing will and reason
into nature” includes, according to
Fedorov, prevention of natural
disasters, control of Earth's climate,
fight against viruses and epidemics,
mastery of solar power, space
exploration and unlimited creative work
there.
= Immortality for all =
Achieving immortality and resurrection
of all people who ever lived are two
inseparable goals, according to Fedorov.
Immortality is impossible, both
ethically and physically, without
resurrection. We can’t allow our
ancestors, who gave us life and culture,
to remain buried, or our relatives and
friends to die. Achieving immortality
for individuals alive today and future
generations is only a partial victory
over death - only the first stage. The
complete victory will be achieved only
when everyone is resurrected and
transformed to enjoy immortal life.
= Restoring life and making it infinite
Fedorov tried to plan specific actions
for scientific research of the
possibility of restoring life and making
it infinite. His first project involved
collecting and synthesizing decayed
remains of dead based on "knowledge and
control over all atoms and molecules of
the world". This idea of Fedorov is
related to the modern practice of
cloning. The second method described by
Fedorov is genetic-hereditary. The
revival could be done successively in
the ancestral line: sons and daughters
restore their fathers and mothers, they
in turn restore their parents and so on.
This means restoring the ancestors using
the hereditary information that they
passed on to their children. Using this
genetic method it is only possible to
create a genetic twin of the dead
person. It is necessary to give back the
revived person his old mind, his
personality. Fedorov speculates about
the idea of “radial images” that may
contain the personalities of the people
and survive after death. Nevertheless,
Fedorov noted that even if a soul is
destroyed after death, humanity will
learn to restore it whole by mastering
the forces of decay and fragmentation.
= Transformation of past physical forms
The revival of people who lived during
the past is not a recreation of their
past physical form — it was imperfect,
parasitic, centered on mortal existence.
Fedorov's idea was to transform it into
self-creating, mind-controlled form,
capable of infinite renewal, which is
immortal. Those who haven’t died will go
through the same transformation. Humans
will have to become creators and
organizers of their organisms. In the
past the development of civilization
happened by increasing human power using
external tools and machines — the human
body remained imperfect.
= Transhumanism =
Fedorov stated that people needed to
reconcile the difference between the
power of technology and weakness of the
human physical form. The transition is
overdue from purely technical
development, a “prosthetic”
civilization, to organic progress, when
not just external tools, artificial
implements, but the organisms themselves
are improved, so that, for example, a
person can fly, see far and deep, travel
through space, live in any environment.
People must become capable of
“organodevelopment” that so far only
nature was capable of. Fedorov discussed
supremacy of mind, “giving, developing
organs for itself” and anticipated V.
Vernadsky’s idea of autotrophic humans.
He argues that a person must become an
autotrophic, self-feeding creature,
acquire a new mode of energy exchange
with the environment that will not end.
Fedorov repeatedly said that only
general scientific studies of aging,
death and postmortem studies can deliver
the means to overcome death and promote
indefinite healthy lifespan.
Fedorov's quotes 
Fedorov's criticism of philosophers:
How unnatural it is to ask, ‘Why does
that which exists, exist?' and yet how
completely natural it is to ask, ‘Why do
the living die?‘
Fedorov's vision of regulation of nature
and the "common task" that could unite
humankind: "Natural phenomena will
remain visions until they become the
product of the general will and activity
of all humans, acting as God's tools.
And notions will remain ghostly and
dream-like until they become projects,
blueprints for the works to be achieved
by the general human will and that of
God manifested in it."
"The value of a thought is determined by
the larger or smaller number of people
it concerns; the most general evil
affecting all – a crime, in fact – is
death, and therefore the supreme good,
the supreme task, is resuscitation."
"For man [sic] as the consciousness of
nature, the natural problem, the problem
of nature as a force which procreates
and kills, constitutes his natural task
because it solves the problem of hunger,
epidemics and sickness in general – that
is, of old age and death. Both believers
and unbelievers can unite in this
natural task, and by uniting and
carrying out the task they will attain
oneness of mind."
Popular culture 
The 2011 BBC documentary "Knocking on
Heaven's Door", about the Space Race in
the former Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics, suggests that, in many
people's eyes, Nikolai Fyodorov was the
true father of the Soviet space project
that put the first man in space.
Fedorov's thought is extensively though
indirectly referenced in the
well-regarded 2010 science fiction novel
The Quantum Thief; it is implied that
the founders of the post-human
collective of uploaded minds called the
Sobornost were inspired by Fedorov and
other thinkers associated with cosmism.
The 2013 novel Strange Bodies by Marcel
Theroux imagines Fedorov's ideas of the
Common Task being developed by Soviet
and post-Soviet research to implant a
mind into another body using an encoded
lexicon from the original mind and an
unspecified, but painful, Procedure.
See also 
Russian philosophy
Immortalism
Cryonics
Anthony Atala
Printable organs
Regenerative medicine
Russian Futurism
References 
Nikolai Berdyaev, The Religion of
Resusciative Resurrection. "The
Philosophy of the Common Task of N. F.
Fedorov.
Nader Elhefnawy, 'Nikolai Fedorov and
the Dawn of the Posthuman', in The
Future Fire 9.
Ludmila Koehler, N.F. Fedorov: the
Philosophy of Action Institute for the
Human Sciences, Pittsburgh, PA, USA,
1979. AlibrisID: 8714504160
History of Russian Philosophy «История
российской Философии» by N. O. Lossky.
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, London ASIN:
B000H45QTY International Universities
Press Inc NY, NY ISBN 978-0-8236-8074-0
sponsored by Saint Vladimir's Orthodox
Theological Seminary.
Ed Tandy, N.F. Fedorov, Russian
Come-Upist, Venturist Voice, Summer
1986.
G. M. Young, Nikolai F. Fedorov: An
Introduction Nordland Publishing Co.,
Belmont, MA, USA, 1979.
George M. Young, "The Russian Cosmists:
The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov
and hos Followers" Oxford University
Press, New York, 2012.
Taras Zakydalsky Ph.D. thesis, N. F.
Fyodorov's Philosophy of Physical
Resurrection Bryn Mawr, 1976, Ann Arbor,
MI, USA.
External links 
Museum-Library Nikolai Fyodorov
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov
Nikolai Fyodorov artistic portrait
Michael Hagemeister. "Fedorov, Nikolaj
Fedorovič". In Bautz, Traugott.
Biographisch-Bibliographisches
Kirchenlexikon 21. Nordhausen: Bautz.
cols. 381–386. ISBN 3-88309-110-3. 
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov
Nikolai Fyodorov artistic portrait
Michael Hagemeister. "Fedorov, Nikolaj
Fedorovič". In Bautz, Traugott.
Biographisch-Bibliographisches
Kirchenlexikon 21. Nordhausen: Bautz.
cols. 381–386. ISBN 3-88309-110-3. 
N.F. Fyodorov. The Philosophy of the
Common Task. The texts on English.
