How a Soviet cosmic dream is becoming a modern reality

Cheating death and raising the dead. Creating life. Freeing the spirit. Colonising space. These projects, of which some have been achieved and some will soon, have a shared Russian history, belonging to a movement known as cosmism – a mixture of scientific research, metaphysics and mysticism.

More than 100 years ago, key Russian thinkers and anarchists alike wanted to resurrect the dead and send them into space. Since then, cosmists have prepared to colonise the planets, to save a world that would become overpopulated after death had been vanquished.

Cosmism was the model behind the Soviet Union. Yet, it is still ever-present, and cosmism is responsible for a number of Russian policies. Decades ago, it also found itself a second home: Silicon Valley. A principal source of inspiration for Californian transhumanists, Soviet cosmism founded the core dreams of contemporary society – immortality and colonisation of space. The cosmists have written our future, and we’re now living it.

Michel Eltchaninoff
Michel Eltchaninoff is Editor-in-Chief of Philosophie magazine, and a specialist in the history of Russian thought. He is the author of Inside the Mind of Vladimir Putin (Hurst, 2018), winner of the Prix de La Revue des Deux Mondes.