The emergence of Freemasonry in Russia in the middle of the 18th century

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The lodges, which consisted of Germans, French, and British, worked according to different rituals, and the few Russians who were initiated into them found themselves involved in different Masonic systems. Russian nobles joined Masonic lodges abroad, as, for example, Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, who was admitted to the Berlin Lodge of Three Globes on March 16, 1761.

And Count Alexander Sergeevich Stroganov - a famous collector, president of the Academy of Arts and director of the Public Library, one of the first members of the Council of State - held a very high position in French Freemasonry. In 1771, he became the founder of the Les Amis Reunis (“United Friends”) lodge in Paris and remained in it until 1788, and in Russia until his death in September 1811.

In the second half of the 18th century, when Russian Freemasonry proper began to spread more and more in society, the lodges began to unite in various unions. One of the largest was the strict observation alliance led by the Grand Lodge of Sweden. In February 1788, the Chapter of the Phoenix, the highest secret government, began its work in St. Petersburg, and in May 1779 the Grand National Lodge was opened as a clear rule for all the lodges of the Swedish system in Russia. All actions of the Chapter of the Phoenix, according to the terms of the agreement, were subordinated to the Swedish Masonic authorities and personally to the great provincial master. In 1780 the union consisted of 21 lodges.

Moscow Freemasons preferred to receive acts of strict observation from Berlin, and in 1779, under a patent issued by the Grand Master of the Three Globes Lodge, Duke Ferdinand of Braunschweig, the Scottish Mother Lodge of the Three Banners was established. And at the end of 1781, the Laton Nikolai Novikov's box received the same status.

But much more important were the acts of the ritual of the Order of the Gold-Rose Cross (Rosicrucians), which began to form in this lodge in 1766, received from the local master of the Three Globes Lodge Welner. This event divided the entire structure of Russian Masonic organizations into two currents virtually independent of each other: traditional Freemasonry and Freemasonry of the Rosicrucian circle. Among the leaders of the Rosicrucian Order in Russia were Nikolai Novikov and Ivan Lopukhin.

Catherine II, who at first ridiculed the Freemasons, over time began to show dissatisfaction with the subordination of her subjects to foreign rulers and the active social activities of free masons. The union of Swedish lodges was the first to suffer in 1780 - for being too close to their leaders in Stockholm. Then began obstructions to Novikov's activities and the closure of obvious Rosicrucian lodges. Soon, under the influence of the events of the French Revolution, the majority of Russian free masons also stopped gathering.

Masonic activity revived only after the accession of Alexander I. On June 10, 1802, the actual chamberlain Alexander Zherebtsov in St. Petersburg, according to the French acts he received in Paris, opened the box of the United Friends, which in the early years was secretly gathered in the dungeon of the Maltese church. The old lodges were also resumed, one of which, the Charity to the Pelican, reopened in 1805 under the name of Alexander of the Charity to the crowned Pelican under the leadership of Ivan Beber.

But the government's mistrust of secret societies persisted, and during the war with France in 1805-1807, a Russian translation of Augustin Barruel's book Notes on the Jacobins, revealing all Christian malice and the mysteries of Masonic lodges that had an impact on all European powers, began to be published. It is curious that from the beginning of 1806, Maxim Nevzorov, a freemason and Rosicrucian of the Novikov circle, became the director of the printing house of Moscow University, in which the book was printed.

The book's fate turned out to be ambiguous: in the political struggle of the 19th century, it became not only a warning about the dangers of secret societies, but also a textbook of conspiracy. The great destructive power that Barruel attributed to the Illuminati seemed unusually attractive to many revolutionary organizations of the new era and, in particular, contributed to the attractiveness in their eyes of Masonic symbols and paraphernalia. Mikhail Orlov, one of the founders of the secret organization Union of Russian Knights and a member of the Union of Prosperity, had a copy of Barruel's Notes, and was read by many of his acquaintances.

With the change in the political situation after the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit in 1807 and the meeting of the emperors in Erfurt in 1808, a rapid growth of Freemasonry, especially "French", began in Russia, and in 1809 Zherebtsov founded the second lodge - Palestine. The expansion of the order was facilitated by the fact that Napoleon, at the request of Alexander I, sent to the country a large number of specialists (engineers, doctors of medicine, etc.), many of whom were free masons.

By 1810, the lodge of the United Friends had its own special premises, its own well-organized orchestra of the brothers of harmony, and even a printed collection of songs with notes "Hymns and Cantatas for the Lodge of the United Friends in the East of St. Petersburg". The music was written by Adrien Boaldier and Caterino Cavos, lyrics by Honore Joseph Dalmas and Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, the poet's uncle. The works in the box were conducted in French, but there were also Russian versions of the songs:

A direct Mason knows wisdom.

He loves God and the King, Calm in the storm, Love of pure sorrow.

He is a true hero in battle, And in the world he is the most gentle friend;

He stretches out his hands to the poor, He is a knight, he is a direct Mason!

The speeches delivered in meetings by all members of the lodge, except for the managing master, were subject to prior censorship, for which special brothers were appointed. A police minister's 1810 report states that the lodge of the United Friends had 50 full members and 29 honorary members (532 currently known). In the same place it is written: “In this box there should be five kinds of meetings: 1) foster; 2) family, or economic for internal orders; 3) educational; 4) festive; 5) sad. In praise of these brothers, I must say that they do many good deeds, visit prisons, help the poor, and so on."

In June 1810, the lodge of the United Friends achieved significant success. Alexander Balashov, the Petersburg military governor-general, and the emperor's uncle Prince Alexander of Württemberg, the Belarusian governor-general, who were invited by the "French brothers" to head the lodges in Russia, are invited to its meetings. Balashov presented this plan to the emperor, and in the same year the government created a special committee to consider Masonic acts, one of whose members was Mikhail Speransky. Emperor Alexander I even promised him to sign a decree on the subordination of all other workshops of free masons to his "Polar Star" bed, but the situation soon changed dramatically.

After the Erfurt rapprochement between Alexander I and Napoleon from the end of 1810 - the beginning of 1811, the question of the forthcoming Franco-Russian war arose on the agenda. On the other hand, in December 1810, an alliance between Russia and Sweden began to take shape, where, after the revolution of 1809, the Riksdag elected Duke Karl Södermanland as king under the name of Charles XIII - the head of the Swedish Masons and the head of the Russian brothers of the Swedish system in the 18th century. And in August 1810, through the efforts of the Masons, Marshal of France Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who did not like Napoleon, was elected Crown Prince of Sweden, who became the de facto head of state. As a result, the Russian government staked on rapprochement with the "Swedish brothers", while the "French" were in disgrace.

In 1811, permission to continue work was given to the Swedish union of the Grand Director Lodge of Vladimir to Order, the French lodges were forced to join it, and from that time Freemasonry was under the control of the Ministry of Police.

Even before World War II, future Decembrists joined the box of the United Friends: Pavel Pestel, Sergei Volkonsky, Pavel Lopukhin and others. In 1812, the lodge initiated the organization of camp lodges, which increased its popularity among the young military.

In the post-war period, when, according to the statesman and freemason Sergei Lansky, "outward piety became fashionable, and the silent tolerance of the government of the Masonic lodges and the disposition of … Emperor Alexander to some mystical writers gave rise to thinking that he belongs to a brotherhood," Freemasonry changed significantly … The Lodge of the United Friends has become an amorphous organization, a gathering and festivities for predominantly military guards youth. Lavish banquets gradually supplanted Masonic works proper. The United Friends finally lost their greatness after the transition in the winter of 1816/1817 to the new Union of Astrea, as the lodge split.

Disagreements between the St. Petersburg lodges began in 1814 over the principles of the order: many free masons were dissatisfied with the Swedish system based on the principle of autocracy, appointment and irremovability of the authorities and the unquestioning subordination of junior lodges and junior members to elders. They were not satisfied with the unaccountability of the activities of the leadership of the order, including the expenditure of funds. A compromise could not be reached, and on August 30, 1815, the Astrea Lodge was established, the main differences of which were the election of officials of the order and the equality of various Masonic rites.

The adherents of the old system, after much hesitation, established the Grand Provincial Lodge in November 1816, but they remained in the minority. Internal squabbles did not contribute to the popularity of Freemasonry, in the meantime, the government's attitude towards freemasons changed: reformist sentiments in many lodges and secret societies of the future Decembrists began to diverge more and more from the mood of the emperor.

After 1820, Freemasonry gradually turns from a liberal trend into a closed society. The variety of approaches and searches is no longer a characteristic feature of Freemasonry, and after its prohibition in 1822, only a small circle of true adherents of the values of "royal art" continued to gather secretly throughout the reign of Nicholas I.

Russian laws banning the activities of secret societies were, however, of a dual nature: they did not prohibit participation in foreign secret societies and Masonic lodges. And Russian subjects continued to participate in meetings of lodges abroad until the early 1840s. Once again, interest in the Order of Freemasons arose among political émigrés in the 1870s and 1880s, and it was the Russian Freemasons of the French lodges who revived the Masonic Order in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.