FEDOROV (pron. Fiódorov), NICOLAJ FEDO- ROVIČ. — Born in 1828, died in 1903. A solitary Russian thinker, little known during his lifetime. Illegitimate son of a Prince Gagarin, he studied in Tambov and Odessa. Between 1854 and 1868 he taught history and geography in various Russian cities. Important are the 23 years he spent in Moscow as an employee in the reading room of the Rumyantsev Museum (Rumyantsev Library). There he gathered around himself a group of friends, a veritable learned club in Moscow at the time. F. had a very broad knowledge of the most varied subjects. He was in contact with Dostoevsky, Solovyov, and Tolstoy, exerting an influence, among others, on the first two.
Almost all of F.’s works were published only after his death; they are insignificant from a literary standpoint. His central idea, perhaps dependent on A. Comte’s Grand-Être, was that of the “resurrection” of all ancestors, to be achieved through a “common task,” that is, by employing all natural and supernatural means (such as, for example, the liturgy). With his confidence in the development of the natural sciences, he surpassed the dreams of medieval alchemists. His principal work is *The Philosophy of the Common Task*. In F. there are mingled utopian, naturalistic, and Pelagian ideas, which do not admit death as a consequence of sin, nor the necessity of redemption. Nevertheless, there are profound reflections on the value of Holy Communion and the liturgy.