FEDOROV (pron. FIÓDOROV), NICOLAJ FEDOROVIĆ. — B. in 1828, d. in 1903. A solitary Russian thinker who was little known during his lifetime. The 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. Of importance are the 25 years he spent in Moscow as an employee in the reading room of Count Rumjancev’s library (the Rumjancev Museum). There he gathered around himself a group of friends, a true club of scholars in the Moscow of that period. F. possessed very extensive knowledge in the most varied fields. He was in contact with Dostoevskij, Solov'ev, and Tolstoj, influencing, among others, the first two.
Almost all of F.’s works were published only after his death; from a literary standpoint, they are insignificant. His central idea, perhaps dependent on A. Comte’s « grand-être », was that of the « resurrection » of all ancestors, to be achieved through « the common work », 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, F. surpasses the dreams of the alchemists of the Middle Ages. His principal work is La filosofia dell'opera comune. In F. there are mingled utopian, naturalistic, and Pelagian ideas, which neither acknowledge death as a consequence of sin nor the necessity of redemption. Nevertheless, there are also profound reflections on the value of Holy Communion and the liturgy.
Chorbin 1928 ff. Studies: A. Ostromirov, N. F. Fedoroi i sovremenossi? (N. F. F. and the present age), Chorbin 1928; G. Florovskii, Puti rumbami kogutovalo (The ways of Russian theology), Paris 1937, pp. 322–30, 357. Bernardo Schulze