Alexander Bogdanov
Born	August 22, 1873(1873-08-22) Hrodna, Russian Empire (today Belarus)
Died	April 7, 1928 (aged 54) Moscow, Russian SFSR

Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov Russian: Александр Александрович Богданов (born Alyaksandr Malinouski, Belarusian: Аляксандар Маліноўскі) August 22 (Old Style), 1873, Hrodna, Russia (today Belarus) - April 7, 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, economist, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity whose scientific interests ranged from the universal systems theory to the possibility of human rejuvenation through blood transfusion. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 234th day of the year (235th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1873 (MDCCCLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Hrodna City emblem Hrodna (Belarusian: ; Russian: ; Polish: ; Lithuanian: ; Yiddish: Grodne; German: ) is a city in Belarus. ... The subject of this article was previously also known as Russia. ... April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... State motto: Russian: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! Translation: Workers of the world, unite! Capital Moscow Official language Russian Established In the USSR:  - Since  - Until November 7, 1917 November 7, 1917 December 12, 1991 (dissolution) Area  - Total  - Water (%) Ranked 1st in the USSR 17,075,200 km² 13% Population  - Total   - Density Ranked 1st in the... is the 234th day of the year (235th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Old Style can refer to: Old Style and New Style dates, a shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar: in Britain in 1752, in Russia in 1918. ... 1873 (MDCCCLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Hrodna City emblem Hrodna (Belarusian: ; Russian: ; Polish: ; Lithuanian: ; Yiddish: Grodne; German: ) is a city in Belarus. ... April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Doctor. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Alan Greenspan, former chairman, United States Federal Reserve. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Revolutionary, when used as a noun, is a person who either advocates or actively engages in some kind of revolution. ... Systems theory is an interdisciplinary field of science. ... Rejuvenation is the procedure of reversing the aging process, thus regaining youth. ... Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood or blood-based products from one person into the circulatory system of another. ...

Biography

Prior to World War I

Ethnically Belarusian, Alyaksandr Malinouski was born into a rural teacher's family. While working on his medical degree at Moscow University, he was arrested for joining the "Narodnaya Volya" group. He was exiled to Tula, then continued his medical studies at the University of Kharkiv. There he became involved in revolutionary activities and published his "Brief course of economic science" in 1897. In 1899, he graduated as a medical doctor, and published his next work: "Basic elements of historic prospective on nature." Then he was arrested by the Tsar's police and spent six months in prison, then was exiled to Vologda. In his pursuit of social justice, he studied political philosophy and economics, took the pseudonym Bogdanov and joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903. Moscow State University campus M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Московский Государственный Университет име&#1085... , For other uses, see Tula (disambiguation). ... Map of Ukraine with Kharkiv highlighted. ... Year 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... St. ... For other uses, see Bolshevik (disambiguation). ... The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP (Росси́йская Социа́л-Демократи́ческая Рабо́ча&#1103... Year 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ...

For the next 6 years Bogdanov was a major figure among the Bolsheviks, second only to Vladimir Lenin in his influence. In 1904-1906, he published three volumes of the philosophic treatise Empiriomonism, in which he tried to merge Marxism with the philosophy of Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Ostwald, and Richard Avenarius. His work later affected a number of Marxist theoreticians, including Nikolai Bukharin ^[1]. Lenin redirects here. ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (see link for calendar). ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Ernst Mach Ernst Mach (February 18, 1838 – February 19, 1916) was an Austrian-Czech physicist and philosopher and is the namesake for the Mach number and the optical illusion known as Mach bands. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (commonly just Wilhelm Ostwald) (September 2, 1853 - April 4, 1932) was a German chemist. ... Richard Avenarius (1843 - 1896) was the formulator of the radical positivist doctrine of empirio-criticism. ... Nikolai Bukharin Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (Russian: ), (October 9 [O.S. September 27] 1888 â€“ March 15, 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and intellectual, and later a Soviet politician. ...

After the collapse of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Bogdanov led a group within the Bolsheviks ("ultimatists" and "otzovists" or "recallists"), who demanded a recall of Social Democratic deputies from the State Duma, and challenged Lenin for the leadership of the Bolshevik faction. With a majority of Bolshevik leaders either supporting Bogdanov or undecided by mid-1908 when the differences became irreconcilable, Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In 1909 he published a scathing book of criticism entitled Materialism and Empiriocriticism, assaulting Bogdanov's position and accusing him of philosophical idealism ^[2]. ‹ The template below (Expand) is being considered for deletion. ... Otzovists (or Recallists) were a group of radical Bolsheviks who demanded to cease all participation of the RSDLP in legal state establishments, in particular, to recall the RSDLP representatives from the State Duma, hence the name (to recall is otozvat in Russian). ... For other uses, see State Duma (disambiguation). ... Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... In philosophy, idealism is any theory positing the primacy of spirit, mind, or language over matter. ...

In June 1909, Bogdanov was defeated by Lenin at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris organized by the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine Proletary. He was expelled from the Bolshevik faction and joined his brother-in-law Anatoly Lunacharsky, Maxim Gorky and other "otzovists" on the island of Capri, where they started a school for Russian factory workers. In 1910, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky and their supporters moved the school to Bologna, where they continued teaching classes through 1911, while Lenin and his allies soon started a rival school outside of Paris. Bogdanov broke with the "otzovists" in 1911 and abandoned revolutionary activities. After six years of his political emigration in Europe, Bogdanov returned to Russia in 1914, following the amnesty. This article is about the capital of France. ... Proletary (The Proletarian) was an illegal Russian Bolshevik newspaper edited by Lenin; it was published from September 3, 1906 until December 11, 1909. ... Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1875 – Russian Soviet literary critic, Bolshevik revolutionary and Communist political figure. ... Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov (In Russian Алексей Максимович Пешков) (March 28 [O.S. March 16] 1868–June 18, 1936), better known as Maxim Gorky (Максим Горький), was a Soviet/Russian author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. ... For other uses, see Capri (disambiguation). ... Mikhail Nikolayevich Pokrovsky (August 29, 1868 - April 10, 1932) was a Bolshevik Russian historian, who was held in highest repute under Lenin and Stalin. ... For the food product, see Bologna sausage. ... Year 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Look up Amnesty in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Bogdanov's innovative work on comparative study of economic and military power of European nations, written in 1912-1913, was the first interdisciplinary work ever on systems analysis, which he later merged with tectonics. In his work Bogdanov introduced modern principles of systems theory and systems analysis. However, his works on systems analysis were not translated at the time of his life, and were not known outside Russia for many years. Systems analysis is the interdisciplinary branch of science, dealing with analysis of systems, often prior to their automation as computer systems, and the interactions within those systems. ... The tectonic plates of the world were mapped in the second half of the 20th century. ... Systems theory is an interdisciplinary field of science. ... Systems analysis is the interdisciplinary branch of science, dealing with analysis of systems, often prior to their automation as computer systems, and the interactions within those systems. ...

After World War I

Bogdanov served in World War I as a physician at a hospital and played no role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, Bogdanov refused multiple offers to rejoin the party and denounced the new regime as similar to Aleksey Arakcheyev's arbitrary and despotic rule in the early 1820s^[3]. From 1913 until 1922 he was immersed in the writing of a lengthy philosophical treatise, Tectology: Universal Organization Science which anticipated many basic ideas of systems analysis later explored by cybernetics. In 1918, Bogdanov became a professor of economics at the University of Moscow and director of the newly established Socialist Academy of Social Sciences. “The Great War ” redirects here. ... The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political and social upheavals in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist Provisional Government, resulting in the establishment of Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. ... Dawes portrait of Arkacheev from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. ... Year 1913 (MCMXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Tectology is a term coined by Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928), scientist, philosopher, economist, physician, novelist, poet, and Marxist revolutionary, unknown to almost everyone except for the experts in Russian science history. ... Systems analysis is the interdisciplinary branch of science, dealing with analysis of systems, often prior to their automation as computer systems, and the interactions within those systems. ... For other uses, see Cybernetics (disambiguation). ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Moscow State University campus M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (Московский Государственный Университет име&#1085...

In 1918-1920, Bogdanov was one of the founders and the leading theoretician of the proletarian art movement Proletkult. In his lectures and articles, he called for the total destruction of the "old bourgeois culture" in favour of a "pure proletarian culture" of the future. At first Proletkult, like other radical cultural movements of the era, received financial support from the Bolshevik government, but by 1919-1920 the Bolshevik leadership grew hostile and on December 1, 1920 Pravda published a decree denouncing Proletkult as a "petit bourgeois" organization operating outside of Soviet institutions and a haven for "socially alien elements". Later in the month the president of Proletkult was removed and Bogdanov lost his seat on its Central Committee. He withdrew from the organization completely in 1921-1922 ^[4]. Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Proletkult is an portmanteau of proletarskaya kultura (пролетарская культура), Russian for proletarian culture. It was a movement active in the Soviet Union in 1917/1925 to provide the foundations for a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 335th day of the year (336th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Pravda (disambiguation). ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In the summer of 1923, Bogdanov was arrested by the Soviet secret police on suspicion of having inspired the recently discovered secret oppositionist group Worker's Truth, interrogated and soon released ^[5]. Year 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 1924, Bogdanov started his blood transfusion experiments, apparently hoping to achieve eternal youth or at least partial rejuvenation. Lenin's sister Maria Ulianova was among many who volunteered to take part in Bogdanov's experiments. After undergoing 11 blood transfusions, he remarked with satisfaction on the improvement of his eyesight, suspension of balding, and other positive symptoms. The fellow revolutionary Leonid Krasin wrote to his wife that "Bogdanov seems to have become 7, no, 10 years younger after the operation". For the rap album, see 1924 (album). ... Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood or blood-based products from one person into the circulatory system of another. ... The elixir of life, also known as the elixir of immortality or Dancing Water and sometimes equated with the Philosophers stone, is a legendary potion, or drink, that grants the drinker eternal life or eternal youth. ... Rejuvenation is the procedure of reversing the aging process, thus regaining youth. ... Krasin Leonid Borisovich Krasin (Russian: , 1870 – 1926) was a Russian Bolshevik leader. ...

In 1925-1926, Bogdanov founded Institute for Haemotology and Blood Transfusions, which was later named after him. After Lenin's death, he was commissioned to study Lenin's brain and, if possible, to resuscitate his body^{[citation needed]}. In his letters to the Soviet leaders Joseph Stalin and Bukharin he dreamed of physically rejuvenating the Bolshevik party leadership^{[citation needed]}. Year 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The human brain In animals, the brain (enkephale) (Greek for in the skull), is the control center of the central nervous system, responsible for behavior. ... Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Georgian: , Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jughashvili; Russian: , Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) (December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] – March 5, 1953), better known by his adopted name, Joseph Stalin (alternatively transliterated Josef Stalin), was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unions Central Committee from...

In 1928 Bogdanov lost his life as a result of one of the experiments, when the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis was given to him in a transfusion. Some scholars (e.g. Loren Graham) have speculated that his death may have been a suicide, because Bogdanov wrote a highly nervous political letter shortly before his last experiment, while others attribute it to blood type incompatibility, which was poorly understood at the time ^[6]. Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Malaria is a vector-borne infectious disease caused by protozoan parasites. ... Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus or Tuberculosis) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria, mainly Mycobacterium tuberculosis. ...

Fiction

In 1908 Bogdanov published the novel Red Star (novel), a utopia set on Mars, in which he made some almost prophetic predictions about future scientific and social developments. His utopia also touched on feminist themes that would become more common later in the development of utopian science fiction, e.g. the two sexes becoming virtually identical in the future or women escaping "domestic slavery" (one reason for the physical changes) and being free to pursue relationships with the same freedom as men, without any extra stigma. Red Star is Alexander Bogdanov’s 1908 science fiction novel about a communist utopia on Mars. ... For other uses, see Utopia (disambiguation). ... Adjectives: Martian Atmosphere Surface pressure: 0. ... Feminists redirects here. ...

Other notable differences between the utopia of Red Star and present-day society include workers having total control over their working hours, as well as more subtle differences in social behavior such as conversations being patiently "set at the level of the person with whom they were speaking and with understanding for his personality although it might very much differ from their own." The novel also gave a detailed description of blood transfusion in the Martian society.

Red Star was one of the inspirations for Red Mars, an award-winning science fiction novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. Bogdanov is the surname of the character Arkady (perhaps the first name is a nod to the Russian science fiction writer Arkady Strugatsky, although this is not confirmed) who is also a fictional descendant of Alexander Bogdanov. The Mars trilogy is a series of three science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson, chronicling the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars. ... For the late American actress, see Kim Stanley. ... Boris and Arkady Strugatsky The two brothers Arkady (Арка́дий, August 28, 1925 – October 12, 1991) and Boris (Бори́с, born April 14, 1933) Strugatsky (Струга́цкий; alternate spelling: Strugatski) are Russian science fiction authors who collaborated on their fiction. ...

Tectology

Main article: Tectology

Bogdanov's original proposition - Tectology - consisted of unifying all social, biological and physical sciences, by considering them as systems of relationships, and by seeking the organizational principles that underly all systems. His work "Tektology: Universal Organization Science", finished by the early 1920s, anticipated many of the ideas that were popularized later by Norbert Wiener in Cybernetics and Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the General Systems Theory. There are suggestions that both Wiener and von Bertalanffy might have read the German translation of Tektology which was published in 1928. In Russia, Lenin (and later Stalin) considered Bogdanov's natural philosophy an ideological threat to the dialectic materialism and put tectology to sleep. The rediscovery of Bogdanov's tectology occurred only in 1970s. Tectology is a term coined by Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928), scientist, philosopher, economist, physician, novelist, poet, and Marxist revolutionary, unknown to almost everyone except for the experts in Russian science history. ... Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894, Columbia, Missouri – March 18, 1964, Stockholm Sweden) was an American theoretical and applied mathematician. ... Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (September 19, 1901, Vienna, Austria - June 12, 1972, New York, USA) was a biologist who was a founder of general systems theory--which he literally translated from the mathematization of Nicolai Hartmanns Ontology as stated by himself in his seminal work-- .An Austrian citizen, he...

See also

• Darwin award

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, a Darwin Award is a manifestation of Internet humor, a dubious/sarcastic/cynical honor awarded to those members of the species Homo sapiens who have improved the human gene pool by removing themselves from it in a spectacularly stupid manner. ...

References

• ^  See Stephen F. Cohen. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938, Oxford University Press, 1980 (first published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1973), ISBN 0-19-502697-7 p.15
• ^  See Alan Woods. Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution, Wellred Publications, 1999, ISBN 1-900007-05-3 Part Three: The Period of Reaction available online
• ^  See Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism, Pennsylvania State University, 2002, ISBN 0-271-02533-6 p.118.
• ^  See Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. op. cit., p.162.
• ^  See Boris Souvarine. Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism, New York, Alliance Group Corporation, Longmans, Green, and Co, 1939, ISBN 1-4191-1307-0 pp.346-347.
• ^  See Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, op. cit., pp.161-162.

Works

• Poznanie s Istoricheskoi Tochki Zreniya (Knowledge from a Historical Viewpoint), St. Petersburg, 1901.
• Empiriomonizm: Stat'i po Filosofii (Empiriomonism: Articles on Philosophy) in 3 volumes, Moscow, 1904-1906
• Filosofiya Zhivogo Opyta: Populiarnye Ocherki (Philosophy of Living Experience: Popular Essays), St. Petersburg, 1912
• Tektologiya: Vseobschaya Organizatsionnaya Nauka in 3 volumes, Berlin and Petrograd-Moscow, 1922.
  • English translation as Essays in Tektology: The General Science of Organization, trans. George Gorelik, Seaside, CA, Intersystems Publications, 1980.
• Red star : the first Bolshevik utopia, ed. Loren R. Graham and Richard Stites ; trans. Charles Rougle, Bloomington, IN, Indiana Univ. Press, 1984.

Further reading

• John Biggart, Georgii Gloveli, Avraham Yassour. Bogdanov and his Work. A guide to the published and unpublished works of Alexander A. Bogdanov (Malinovsky) 1873-1928, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1998, ISBN 1-85972-623-2
• John Biggart, Peter Dudley, Francis King, Aldershot, Ashgate (eds.), Alexander Bogdanov and the Origins of Systems Thinking in Russia, 1998, ISBN 1-85972-678-X
• Stuart Brown. Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers, London, Routledge, 2002 (first published in 1996), ISBN 0-415-06043-5
• Peter Dudley, Bogdanov's Tektology (1st Engl transl), Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull, Hull, UK, 1996
• Peter Dudley, Simona Pustylnik. Reading The Tektology: provisional findings, postulates and research directions, Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull, Hull, UK, 1995
• George Gorelick, Bogdanov's Tektology: Naure, Development and Influences, in: Studies in Soviet Thought (1983), Vol. 26, pp. 37-57.
• Simona Pustylnik, "Biological Ideas of Bogdanov's Tektology" presented at the Int'l Conf.: Origins of Organization Theory in Russia and the Soviet Union, University of East Anglia (Norwich), Jan. 8-11, 1995

The Venn Building The University of Hull, also known as Hull University, is an English university located in Hull (or Kingston upon Hull), a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire. ...

External links

• International Alexander Bogdanov Institute in Russia
• Red Hamlet