Two Symbols. Two Concepts of Progress and N. F. Fedorov’s Diagnosis of the Crisis of the Modern

Abstract

N. F. Fedorov is the author of an extraordinary project, the so-called “the common task”, which combines a rural and anti-progressive vision of society with technological utopia. In this paper I will consider his concept of the development of civilizations in terms of its two determinants: the diagnosis of the crisis and the idea of progress. At the beginning I will present the symptoms of the crisis and the reasons which, according to Fedorov, underlie it. I will then contrast two ideas of progress. First of them can be described as the primacy of the new over the old. It is represented by the World Expo event, and leads to the foundation of the civilization of death. The second must be regarded as a maturing of culture and awakening of an awareness of the common debt of humanity to its ances-tors. It is symbolically depicted by the old Russian tradition of raising a church over a day by a local society in case of natural disasters.