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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 August 2019
This article is about a cultural-philosophical movement called Russian cosmism (Russky kosmizm) and its current status in the Republic of Kalmykia, southwest Russia, home to Buddhist Kalmyks, a people of Oirat-Mongol origin. Emerging in Russia in the early twentieth century and suppressed during the Soviet period, this movement proliferated openly across Russia with the beginning of perestroika. Promulgated as an original product of the Russian mind, cosmism positions itself as a ‘science of the truth and soul searching’ and purports to address various issues, including—but not limited to—the spiritual, psychic, and paranormal anxieties that are on the rise in Russia. Although Russian cosmism is an all-encompassing movement combining various elements of theosophy, philosophy, poetry, theories of evolution and energy, astrology, cosmology, ecology, and even science fiction, this article focuses upon its more cosmic topics—that is, those that are related to outer space, cosmic energies, and alien visitations, as well as responses to these ideas in Kalmykia. The story of Russian cosmism is not just a story of this particular movement, but also that of science in Russia.
1 Filatov, V. P., ‘Ob idee al'ternativnoi nauki’, in Zabluzhdayushiysya Razum? Mnogoobrazie Vnenauchnogo Znaniya, Kasavin, I. Ti. (ed.), Moscow: Nauka, 1990, pp. 152–174Google Scholar.
2 In the Soviet Union, Marxism-Leninism was taught as a comprehensive ‘super doctrine’ comprising three main parts—philosophy, political economy, and the theory of scientific socialism. The engine of the philosophy consisted of two powerful theories of dialectical and historical materialism that were regarded as the foundation of the whole doctrine. They were conceived of as being applicable to all scholarly disciplines, from the humanities to the sciences. In this sense, Marxism-Leninism was perceived as a single ‘super-science’ that was capable of explaining the general laws of motion and development in nature, society, and human thought.
3 Young, G. M., The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and his Followers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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5 Kurakina, O. D., ‘Russky kosmizm i nookosmologichesky vzglyad v budushchee’, 2011, at: http://cosmizm.ru/c422o-d-kurakina-russkij-kosmizm-i-nookosmologicheskij-vzglyad-v-budushhee/, [accessed 12 April 2019].
6 Sazonova, E. V., ‘Mirovozrenie Russkogo kosmizma i global'nye problemy sovremennosti’, Voprosy Upravleniya, 4(16), 2015, pp. 49–55Google Scholar.
7 Russian cosmism is relatively unknown outside Russia. Except for a book and several articles by George M. Young and Michael Hagemeister, there is practically no other work produced by Western scholars. See, for example, Young, The Russian Cosmists, and Young, G. M., ‘Fedorov's transformations of the occult’, in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, Rosenthal (ed.); Hagemeister, ‘Russian Cosmism’. In Russia, by contrast, the movement has already produced a sizeable literature: Kurakina, O. D., Russky Kosmizm: K Problem Sinteza Nauki, Filosofii i Religii, Moskva: n.p., 1992Google Scholar; Dudenkov, V. N., Russky Kosmizm: Filosofiya Nadezhdy i Spaseniya, Saint-Petersburg: I. K. Sintez, 1992Google Scholar; Linnik, Yu. V., Russky Kosmizm i Russky Avangard, Petrozavodsk: Svyatoi Ostrov, 1995Google Scholar; Kaznacheev, V. P., Intellect Planety Kak Kosmichesky Fenomen, Novosibirsk: I. D. Altmilla Co. Ltd, 1997Google Scholar; Dmitriev, A. N., Ob Efirnoi Material'nosti, Tomsk: Znamya Mira, 1999Google Scholar; Pyurveev, J., Arhitektura Mirozdaniya, Moskva: Izd-vo PKTs Al'teks, 2006Google Scholar; and others. In addition, conferences and workshops are regularly organized to popularize its ideas. In Kalmykia there are several individuals who write on global cosmic topics, but the movement's status in the republic has not been described by anyone, not even Kalmyks themselves. The only article that touches upon this topic is by Caroline Humphrey, in which she discusses the ideology of Kalmykia's president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and the practices of some Kalmyk religious figures in the context of cosmology and Eurasianism. See Humphrey, C., ‘A politico-astral cosmology in contemporary Russia’, in Framing Cosmologies: The Anthropology of Worlds, Abramson, Allen and Holbraad, Martin (eds), Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014, pp. 223–243Google Scholar.
8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwO9msNvdjo, [accessed 12 April 2019].
9 Dorzhinov, A., V Gosti na Rodinu Predkov: Mif ili Real’nost’ [Visits to the Motherland of Ancestors: A Myth or Reality], Elista: Libon, 1993Google Scholar.
10 Ibid.
11 ‘Did the aliens visit us? It seems that thousands of people in Kalmykia witnessed UFOs’, Izvestiya Kalmykii (Kalmyk News), 7 June 1995.
12 Hagemeister, ‘Russian Cosmism’, pp. 185–186.
13 Hagemeister, ‘Russian Cosmism’, p. 187.
14 Young, ‘Fedorov's transformations of the occult’, pp. 171–183.
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21 Great poets, including Alexander Blok, Andrei Biely, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Esenin, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Andrei Platonov, Nikolai Zabolotsky, and Boris Pasternak, all exhibited, to one degree or another, cosmist concerns in their works. Young, The Russian Cosmists, pp. 214–215.
22 Glebov, S., ‘The Mongol-Bolshevik revolution: Eurasianist ideology in search for an ideal past’, Journal of Eurasian Studies, 2(2) 2011, pp. 103–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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29 Born in Kalmykia, Khara-Davan emigrated to Europe following the Bolshevik Revolution where he joined the Eurasianist movement. Along with other prominent Eurasianists, he popularized the idea that Chingis Khan was the first emperor of united Eurasia who succeeded in carrying out the historic task set by nature itself. In light of this interpretation, Russia-Eurasia, or the Soviet Union, was reconceived as an organic continuation of Chingis Khan's empire. In 1929 he crystallized his ideas in his book: Khara-Davan, E., Chingis-Khan Kak Polkovodets i Ego Nasledie: Kul’turno-Istorichesky Ocherk Mongol’skoi Imperii XII-XIV Veka [Chingis Khan as a Military Leader and His Heritage: The Cultural-Historical Outline of the Mongolian Empire in XII-XIV], Belgrade: published by the author, 1929Google Scholar.
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36 Formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (STI), this project envisaged advanced ground- and space-based systems to protect the United States. The STI led the Soviet Union to reallocate unsustainably high amounts of funding into the space and defence industries from the by-then faltering economy. Many commentators, including David Gergen, a former aide to Ronald Reagan, later claimed that the STI hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.
37 Stephens, ‘The occult in Russia today’.
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39 Personal communication, June 2017, Moscow.
40 Russian neo-paganism is a branch of contemporary Russian nationalism which glorifies the pre-Christian past and accuses Christianity of the brutal destruction of the legacy of the Great Ancestors. Advocates of Russian neo-paganism assert that Russia's misfortunes in the last millennium are the result of the betrayal of the ‘original’ pre-Christian Slavic treasury of ancestral wisdom. Influenced by Western New Age and ‘Vedic’ ideas, and anti-Semitism, this movement prophesises the coming of a Golden Age when humanity will be rescued from catastrophe and global Jewish dominance. Neo-paganism is also distinguished by its imperialistic goal of rescuing and restoring the ‘Russian empire’ which encompasses vast territories of Europe and Asia. Shnirelman, V. A., ‘Russian neo-pagan myths and anti-Semitism’, Acta (Analysis of current trends in anti-Semitism: A special research unit of SICSA, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem), no. 13, 1998Google Scholar.
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42 Izvestiya, 11 November 1995.
43 Baba Vanga (1911–1996) was a blind Bulgarian clairvoyant who firmly believed in aliens and who gained immense popularity in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. According to the Russian writer Svetlana Kudryavtseva, Vanga's guests included many prominent Russian politicians, including President Boris Yeltsin's press secretary, as well as aides to the leaders of various Russian political parties such as Zhirinovsky (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), Zyuganov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), and Yavlinsky (Yabloko Party). Kudryavtseva, S., Fenomen Yasnovideshchei Vangi: Proritsaniya, Predskazaniya, Zagovory, Moska: Izd-vo Ripol Klassik, 2009Google Scholar.
44 Moskovsky Komsomolets, 6 September 1995.
45 Ilyumzhinov personally reveres the number seven. In his book he writes: ‘Seven Buddhas, Seven Creators, Seven Spirits. 7 is the beginning of the world. Therefore, people of the first epoch of humanity revere 7’: Ilyumzhinov, K., Za Vlast’ Razuma na Velikoi Rusi: Ideologiya Razuma [For the Power of Universal Intellect in Greater Russia: The Ideology of Universal Intellect], Jangar: Elista, 1998, pp. 59–60Google Scholar.
46 Vzglyad, 4 August 2009.
47 Humphrey, ‘A politico-astral cosmology in contemporary Russia’, pp. 223–243.
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50 Ibid., pp. 35, 45, 55.