What unites Soviet space program of the 60s and the late nineteenth-century Russian religious thought?

To get beyond the limits of space and time, to overcome mortality, and reach other planets—these were just some of the ambitions of thinkers known as the Russian Cosmists. It all began when Nikolai Fedorov, a nineteenth-century librarian and man of faith, dared to claim that space travel and resurrection were the pillars of the “common task”—a mission to unite the whole of humanity. But what does this have to do with the Soviet space program? What is the link between Cosmism and Space Engineering? How were religion and science reconciled in these projects? These are some of the questions that Marina Simakova will address in her lecture.

Marina Simakova is a theorist and researcher in the history of ideas based in St. Petersburg. Her research interests revolve around social and political thought of the first half of the 20th century. Currently, she works as an adjunct lecturer at the European University at St. Petersburg. Her critical essays and translations have been published in e-flux, Stasis, New Literary Observer, Translit, and other journals.