by DONALD NICHOLL , Reader in History, University of Keele
Nikolai Fyodorov , an unknown saintly Russian scholar (died 1903), appears in Dr ZMvago and was revered by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Solovyov. Of his book The Philosophy of the Common Task, it has been said that ' throughout all world philosophy there is no project so mysterious and audacious.' Mr Nicholl thinks him a great unrecognised prophet,