The Development of Russian Freemasonry
in the 18th and Early 19th Century

Scholarship on Freemasonry is far from scanty, though, like the movement itself, is diverse in content, focus, and history. Both the origins and development of Freemasonry in Russia are convoluted, at times overlapping with and branching into other schools of thought, with motivations range from spiritual hunger and the desires of an insecure nobility to backlashes against the Enlightenment and grand international conspiracies to undermine authority in Russia. The impact on Russian society can be considered almost as complex, affecting either directly or indirectly the social life, education, and politics of the time. This paper seeks to provide a general outline of the history of Russian Freemasonry in the second half of the 18th century through the beginning of the nineteenth century, discussing some of the major trends of the movement: the division between the rationalist and mystical Masons, leading eventually to the establishment of Rosicrucianism in the 1780s; the different reasons for the growth of both these masonic orders and their effects in society; and a brief overview of the renewed Masonic activity between 1803 and 1822, and the purported influence of Masonry on the Decembrists.

Russian Freemasonry was a Western import, with various aspects coming at various times from England, Scotland, France, Sweden, and Germany. Some have even suggested that a better label might be "Germanic Freemasonry in Russia" (Leighton, p.252). Its origins can be found in England, where the Grand Lodge of London was founded in 1717. During the 1720s and 1730s, Freemasonry spread throughout Western Europe and the American colonies. The first Russian lodges date to the 1730s and 1740s, at the beginning of Empress Elizabeth’s reign, although the members of these were mainly foreigners, particularly Britons and Frenchmen (Treadgold, 122). There is debate as to who should be considered the father of Freemasonry in Russia. In 1731, John Phillips was named Provincial Grand Master of Russia and Prussia by London, but seems to have been little more than a figurehead. General James Keith, who was in the Russian service between 1728-1749 was purported to have been master of a lodge in St. Petersburg in 1732-34. He was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Russia in 1740, and in general is considered to have introduced Freemasonry into the country. The movement only gained real notoriety in Russia with the appointment by London of the first native Provincial Grand Master, Ivan Perfilievich Elagin, in 1772. He had been a Mason in St. Petersburg since 1750, and was a proponent of the English system. In 1771, a rival system, the Berlin-based Zinnendorf rite, was introduced to the country by Baron P.B. Reichel. During the 1770s, Elagin’s system was preferred, but in 1776, there was an attempt to merge that lodge with the Zinnendorf lodge. This failed, and the latter subsequently grew in popularity. This preference for the more mystical "higher degree" Swedish system (essentially the same as the Zinnendorf system) blossomed in Moscow in the 1780s. In the late 1780s, Catherine the Great, who up until that time had tolerated the Masons, in general considering their rites to be innocuous nonsense, began to discourage all Masonic activity because she began to suspect that the Masons had links with the revolutionary movement in Western Europe. At any rate, Catherine ordered the secret supervision of the Masons in 1790, and even went so far as to close down one independent Masonic lodge. In 1792, Catherine arrested the prominent publisher and leader of mystical Masonry Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov and his colleagues, driving that system of Masonry underground.
Paul had been wooed by the Masons as grand Duke, and though he was initiated in 1776, by the time of his accession in 1796, he had lost interest in Freemasonry. In 1797, Paul moved against the masonic lodges in general, officially proscribing their activity in 1799 (Clarke, p.17).
With the accession of Alexander I, who began as a rationalist but was attracted by mysticism and pietism, there was a revival of Masonic activity, which was again “united” under the Swedish system. The Directorial Grand Lodge “Vladimir zur Ordnung”, was located in St. Petersburg, but was dissolved in 1815 as a result of growing disgruntlement by Masons with the proliferation of higher degrees and the control of this single lodge. Most lodges then reverted to the original English-based 3-degree system under the Grand Lodge “Astraea”, while those favoring the mystical systems again regrouped, forming the Provincial Grand Lodge. The two coexisted until 1822, when all secret societies were banned by Alexander I. After this time, individual Masons practiced their craft in secret, and secret lodges were known to have existed after Alexander’s death, though their impact is largely negligible.

One major point which must be made about Masonic lodges is that they exhibited considerable variety not only in Russia, but in general; the ideology, however, tended towards two main schools of thought. First, there were the “symbolic” masons, adherents to the three-degree English system on which Elagin’s lodge was based. These first three degrees were called “Symbolic” or “Craft” degrees because they used symbols from architecture and masonry. The degrees were also commonly called “Primitive” or “Scottish”, because of their supposed ancient Scottish origin, or “St. John Degrees”, after the patron saint of Freemasons (Leighton, p.248). These Masons concentrated on individual self-improvement and contemplation, using the rationalism and science of the Enlightenment. They were highly ritualistic and ceremonial, often called “knightly”. This was the main trend in the 1770s, and its popularity stems from the reasons for which men joined these lodges in the first place.
One oft-cited reason for the early surge in Masonic membership was that the actions of the tsar were naturally to be followed. Peter III was rumored to have been a Mason, and he evidently surrounded himself with a circle of Masons (Treadgold, p.123). The coup ending in the assassination of Peter hardly affected the Masons either, as the leader, Count Grigorii Orlov, was himself a Mason. Also, the ritual of the Masonic lodges appealed especially to the lower nobility, who craved the “codes of behavior” characteristic of aristocratic society. It follows logically that the knightly ceremony of the English-based lodges would attract these men. Many of these early lodges existed, like college fraternities, purely for social and entertainment reasons. With the liberation of the gentry in 1762, many members of the nobility, no longer required to serve the state, sought other institutions with which to occupy their time and provide for them a structure and system of obligations. This “service” gave the nobility a sense of solidarity, a bond of some sort with like-minded men, and some suggest that the adoption by many nobles of Freemasonry constituted a kind of transformation from service for the state into service for both the Russian people and humanity in general (Raeff, p.159).
This desire to help humanity stemmed from a spiritual craving which the Russian nobility collectively experienced. In trying to mimic all aspects of Western European culture, both the superficial dress and behavior, and also intellectual and spiritual life, they read the authors of the Enlightenment. Many Masons at this time were well-versed in the thinking of the philosophes, especially Voltaire, and during this period, there was considerable overlap of Freemasonry and the free thinking of Voltairianism, such that in the 1770s, the two were used synonymously. Reading liberal treatises on social organization, they turned these ideas toward the improvement of the individual (Treadgold, p.146). The Masons became aware of notions of individual worth and dignity, and the need for education and social reform. The Masonic lodges appealed to this increased focus on the individual personality, as the hierarchies in the lodges were based on individual merit. Freemasonry then could even be seen as a kind of moral and spiritual parallel to the Table of Ranks in the area of public service (Raeff, p.161). Joining the lodges to do good works was also a reaction against the shallow and materialistic lifestyle of the upper classes.
Developing at the same time as the previous system was the more mystical Zinnendorf system. During the late 1770s the general Masonic mood shifted from reason to this, so that by 1780, the rationalist Elagin lodge was passé. Moral and religious problems took precedence in the thought and writings of the Masons, and where “reason appeared inadequate, religious categories would tend to replace it” (McArthur, p.371). These Masons took their inspiration from the occult: alchemy, the Cabbala, and Egyptian lore. If the “quasi-rational” Elagin system modeled itself on the philosophes, this brand of Masonry attacked the same in a kind of backlash against the secularism and sometimes excessive rationalism of the Enlightenment. Unlike the other lodges, which were mainly preoccupied with self-perfection, secrecy, and ritual, these Masons, who came to be centered in Moscow, were outwardly oriented, engaged in public education and publishing. They “sought to restore a sense of solidarity, dedication, compassion, and spiritual comfort to the members of a society that felt overwhelmed” by currents of the Enlightenment (Raeff, p.160). Rationalism had undermined the faith and beliefs of the educated nobility, and this brought them to a kind of spiritual crisis which the Church was unable to deal with effectively. Thus many turned to the Masonic lodges in a quest for both a more personal and more “reasonable” relationship with God. The Mason felt he had a duty to himself to lead a “high-minded” life, and to better himself through education and study, as well as to exhibit temperance in all his actions “in accordance with his high status as a creature of a rational divine Being” (Raeff, p.162). He had a duty to treat his fellow man with dignity and respect. By effecting social action on behalf of the downtrodden, the Mason himself would develop into a more moral and worthy being; in order to perform social service well, the Mason had to be properly prepared spiritually. Thus the principles of Freemasonry sought to go beyond the Christian ideals of charity in order to forge a more perfect being.
The change in focus from reason to mysticism is usually dated to the publication in 1775 of Claude de Saint-Martin’s Des Erreurs et de la Vérité, which appeared in Russia in 1777. Its content was too sophisticated for members of the Elaginist lodges to understand, but was a landmark publication for the mystically-inclined, and greatly effected Nikolai Novikov. Novikov was instrumental in leading the mystical Freemasons to Moscow in 1779 and developing their aims both socially and spiritually. Novikov had been persuaded to join the Society of Freemasons under the Grand Lodge of St. Petersburg in 1775, stating that having reached a “parting of the ways between Voltairianism and religion, [he] had no bearings nor foundation on which [he] might build spiritual peace” (McArthur, p.364). However, the activities of the lodge, which typically devoted much attention to ritual and Masonic lore, left Novikov unfulfilled in his search for a rational yet spiritually uplifting philosophy. Hearing about the Berlin-based Zinnendorf system, he founded a new lodge with several friends in 1776, directed toward moral growth and self-knowledge. Novikov became keenly interested in finding the “true” Masonry, which to him meant a system “consonant with Christian teachings, which would lead us by the most direct path to spiritual self improvement through self-knowledge and education” (McArthur, p.365). He was advised that true Masons avoided not only intemperance, but also politics and proselytizing. In particular, any type of masonry with a political orientation was by definition false. Still in his quest for true Masonry, Novikov met with Prince Petr Ivanovich Repnin in 1776 or 1777, who reported that all types of foreign Masonry which he had seen were false.
In 1777, Novikov began publishing Utrennyi svet (Morning Light), a journal of Masonic content, the purpose of which was to “lead man to truth” through moral teachings, proofs of the immortality of the soul, and the study of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The importance of the last was often emphasized by Novikov and others. The Masons were fascinated by “the wisdom of the Ancients” which was encoded in hieroglyphs, and was necessary to attain perfection. According to these mystics, the first man was so pure as to be able to comprehend God and all of Nature directly. However, as he began to lose this ability, he recorded his knowledge in the form of hieroglyphics. The further man drifted from the truth, the more opaque the meaning of the symbols became, but by working out their meaning, the modern Masons could come to know and understand all once again. Proceeds from Utrennyi svet went to philanthropic activities supported by Novikov and fellow Masons, who, for example, had established the St. Alexander and St. Catherine schools in St. Petersburg, which saw to the education of poor and orphaned children. Novikov therefore combined his search for “true knowledge” with a desire “to be of service to [his] fatherland” through humanitarian activities made possible by his Masonic connections (McArthur, p.375).
In 1779, Novikov was drawn to Moscow, where through his Masonic connections with curator Michael Kherasov, he obtained a 10 year lease of the Moscow University printing press. While there, Novikov met the influential Transylvanian, Johann Georg Schwarz, a professor at the university who ultimately became Novikov’s mentor, though he initially distrusted Schwarz’s “Strict Observance” brand of Masonry. However, both men ended up in the “Harmony” lodge, founded by Prince Nikita N. Trubetskoy as a scientific and open-minded lodge in search of true Masonry. In 1781-1782, Shwarz visited Prussia, where he met with Duke Ferdinand Brunswick, the Provincial Grand Master of Strict Observance Freemasonry in Europe (of which Harmony was a part) in order to ask that Russia be recognized as an independent Masonic province, rather than being kept under the thumb of the Swedish. He returned to Russia with a promise that this would be done, but more importantly, he also brought with him the “true Masonry” which he said he had discovered while abroad. He had actually met secretly with Johann Christoph von Wöllner, a courtier of Prince Henry of Prussia, who was the head of a secret inner circle of Masons. Schwarz was promptly appointed Supreme Director of the Theoretical Degree in the Order of Golden Rose Cross-- the only one of those “in the entire Russian Empire and its territories” (Ryu, p.207), indicating that Schwarz must have had previous connections with the Rosicrucians, despite his claim ofaccidental discovery. Rosicrucianism was naively accepted by Novikov and Trubetskoy as the one true masonry, and became a highly secret practice operating under the façade of the still officially Strict Observance Harmony lodge. The “unknown superiors” of the Order, they were told, were the “true successors of Jesus Christ, wielding magical powers of clairvoyance” (Ryu, p.208). The highest Masonic degrees were merely stepping stones to the threshold to the nine degrees of the Rosicrucian temple, which was open to only the worthiest Masons. The moral cultivation and temperance called for by the Rosicrucian Order was seen as preparation for supreme bliss in this lifetime, and relied on occultism, alchemy, and magic. Unlike the humanitarian and philanthropic ideals of the other Masonic systems, the Rosicrusians’ main aim was for worthy individuals to attain true knowledge in strictest secrecy. Their only significant public activity, which was hardlyphilanthropic, was their attack against the Bavarian Illuminati in the mid-1780s. In 1783, the promise to make Russia an independent province indeed came through, and the members of the Harmony lodge quickly drew up an organizational hierarchy of the lodges in Russia. An interesting attribute of this is that Schwarz, who had only a nominal position in the national hierarchy, was in actuality the superior of most of the other officers as a Rosicrucian, and thusthey had to obey him. Thus, in secret, he really controlled all of the Russian masonic Province and answered only to his superior in Berlin.
In 1782, Novikov’s group had established the Friendly Society of Learning in Moscow, to cultivate the typical Masonic ideals in the public, and in the following year began printing manuals on freemasonry to be used as instruction for those in the Friendly Society. This was theRosicrucian’s point of contact with the people, and their outlet for disseminating their ideology. Underneath this level was a semi-secret Masonic level, which operated under the normal precepts. Finally, underneath this was the Rosicrucian Order, which secretly controlled everything and operated by the contribution of large sums of money and energy from its members. In 1784, the Typographical Society replaced the Society of Learning. Although Novikov administered this organization, at least partial control of it came from Berlin, which supplied lists of Rosicrucian books to be printed on subjects such as alchemy, the “inner church”, and “true christianity”. Through these societies and publications, the Rosicrucians left a large mark on the philosophy of many in Moscow at the time, and envisaged this as a way to create a society of true believers.
The goals of the Rosicrucians did not end there, however, as they tried to pursuade grand Duke Paul to enter their order. They considered him to be a future Master of the order, and devised ways to speed his accession as tsar (Treadgold, p.126). First they approached those close to him, but this was to no avail and only succeeded in drawing Catherine’s suspicions. In 1785, Catherine ordered Metropolitan Platon to investigate Novikov’s publications, but for the most part his report came back positive, considering only a handful of the books to be harmful. The intense secrecy of the Rosicrucians distinguished them from other branches of Masonry, and largely protected their actions from the government. When Swedish Masonry, for example, was suspected of trading the highest degrees for political support, Catherine was quick to suppress the movement. But the Rosicrucians were largely successful in getting prominent figures in Moscow to devote their lives and fortunes to their foreign superiors, even after had Catherine aabndoned her pro-Prussian policy in 1781. Through the late 1780s, however, Catherine’s suspicion of the Rosicrucians increased, and a series of measures severley limited their publishing activity. Finally, in 1792, Novikov was arrested and many of the Rosicrucians were exiled so that the group was essentially dissolved. The effects of the Order were far reaching and long-lasting; however, Schwarz’s ultimate intention was in establishing the secret hierarchy in Russia under the control of Berlin still remains unclear.

The new Masonic lodges which arose after Alexander’s accession displayed many of the atributes of the eighteenth-century lodges. After being allowed to re-open by Alexander in 1803, the movement again began to rapidly grow. The surviving documents of the period are split roughly equally between articles on occult subjects (alchemy, Cabbala, bibliomancy, etc), and extensive texts of rites and protocols, indicating that there was again the same division in focus between the rationalist lodges and the mystical ones. The latter works are principally drawn from the grand Lodge of Astraea in the Orient of Petersburg, under which 19th century Freemasonry was organized systematically (Leighton, p.246). Very little is known about the lodges outside this Grand Lodge.
There were two large groups at this time, buth following the Swedish system: the united lodges of Alexander, Elizaveta, and Peter; and the Directorial Lodge, which laid claim to the Provincial and National Lodge granted to Elagin by England. This lodge was more prestigious not only for this reason, but also because its Grand Master, I. V. Beber, had pursuaded Alexander to lift the ban on masonry. In 1810, these two large groups were united under the Grand Directorial Lodge of Vladimir to Order, and in the following years were joined by several other lodges of various European systems.
Althought these lodges were very popular, there was again discontentment on the part of members, who were concerned at the proliferation of higher degrees and a lack of standardization in the various rites and degrees. Younger masons in particular were opposed to the higher degrees and the increased mysticism which they brought. In 1814, as a resutl of this inner turmoil, the Grand Directorial Lodge was dissolved and was replaced in 1815 by the grand Provincial Lodge, which maintained the higher degrees, and the Grand Lodge of Astraea, which was by far more popular, organizing more lodges under its obedience than ever before (leighton, p.250).
After 1817, Astraea’s shift to the Ancient English system from the Swedish system, evidenced by the greater number of lodges opening in the former, became more intensive, highlighting the “tolerant character” of the lodge, as opposed to the moreauthoritarian Swedish system. The Grand Lodge was dominated by Germans, though there were a handful of Russians and other nationalities. Members came from the merchant classes as well as from the arts, and the nobility. These lodges seemed to have realized the Masonic ideals ofequality and brotherhood, as officers and honorary members were chosen not based on their social status, but on their accomplishments as Masons, although some lodges did attract members largely from one social class.
However, Freemasonry at this time still was not unified, despite the organization of the Grand Lodge, as evidenced by the plurality of nationalities and social classes, and tendencies for certain types of members to gravitate to certain lodges. Additionally, as the Swedish and English lodges continuedto diverge ideologically, there was again more internal difficulty. One lodge was even suspended for “disobedience” (Leighton, p.257). Again, the Masonic ideal of Tolerance was perhaps the only glue holding the various lodges under the single authority of Astraea. It strove to systematize the rites and organization of Masonry in Russia at the time.
Freemasonry has often been implicated in the Decembrist Rebellion in 1825. It is true that they took their Western ideology from many basic tenets of Freemasonry, for example, their aspirations of self-perfection (in this case transferred from the individual to the state); and their organization into political secret societies, many founded by ex-Masons from Astraea, owed a great deal to the earlier secret Masonic lodges. However, before 1822, when the lodge was forcibly dissolved, the activities of the members of lodges was purely Masonic, consistingmainly of ritual andphilanthropic activity. Just as many Decembrists had never been Masons, and as a general rule, the Masons shunned alll political activity. Thus, only indirectly, mainly in providing a framework in which rebellion could be fomented secretly, did Masonry contribute to this revolt.

References

Clarke, James F. 1979. Freemasonry in Russia. In L. Wieczynski (ed.), The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, 12.14-18.

Leighton, Lauren G. 1982. Freemasonry in Russia: the Grand Lodge of Astraea (1815-1822). Slavonic and East European Review 60(2).244-261.

McArthur, Gilbert H. 1980. Freemasonry and Enlightenment in Russia: the views of N. I. Novikov. Canadian-American Slavic Studies 14(3).361-375.

de Madariaga, Isabel. 1990. Catherine the Great: a short history. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Pypin, A. N. 1916. Russkoe Masonstvo: XVIII I pervaia chetvert’ XIX v. Petrograd: OGNI.

Raeff, Marc. 1966. Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Ryu, In-ho L. 1973. Moscow Freemasons and the Rosicrucian Order. In J.G. Garrard (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in Russia. Oxford: OUP.

Treadgold, Donald W. 1973. The West in Russia and China, Vol. 1. Cambridge: CUP.

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