“MARO Gvidu Kion Firme Al Dezira Fino!”

Abstract The Amaravella collective, also known as the Cosmists, belongs to the period of the Russian avant-garde. There were seven members: Petr Fateev (1891–1971), Aleksandr Baranov (1901–1974), Vera Pshesetskaia (1879–1945/46), Sergei Shigolev (1895–1942), Boris Smirnoff-Rusetsky (1905–1993), Victor Chernovolenko (1900–1972), and Vladimir Yatskevich (?–late 1930s). Until now, very little was known about the work of Yatskevich. The article looks at the Petr Fateev archive in Moscow, which contains some 750 items, the majority by Fateev, and hundreds of drawings by Yatskevich; they show that he was a central member of the group, and that a reassessment needs to be made. The paper looks at the occult background of cosmism, the influence of Nikolai and Elena Roerich, the philosophy of Nikolai Fedorov, and the science of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. An examination of Yatskevich’s hitherto unknown Maro album, posits the theory that it is a visual and textual manifesto of Amaravella. A critical look at the cosmist landscapes by Fateev, shows how the cosmists’ spiritual quest elided into space flight, how Amaravella was intended to be the guide on that journey.