Russian Freemasonry 6

Russian Freemasonry 6

Regiment, but also a Decembrist, who in 1826, together with his brother,

was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in Siberia.

In December 1 825 Vasili Lvovich Davidoff was arrested for his part in the

rise of the Decern- brists.

 

Also arrested were his friends Michael Orlov and Giuseppe (Ossip) Poggio.

In July 1826, some days after the execution of the most dangerous

Decembrists (Colonel Pestel, Riliev, Muraviev-Apostol and Kachovsky), he

and Prince Serge Volkonsky, Prince Evgeni Obolensky, Prince Serge

Troubetzkoy, the brothers Peter and Andre Borissov, Yakubovich and

Artamon Muraviev were bannished to Siberia. The gentlemen were to be

kept busy, but not so much that it would damage their health. Nicholas I

didn't need any martyrs.

 

But the food was bad and Prince Evgeni Petrovich Obolensky (1796-1865)

became scorbutic. On December 27, 1826 the chief guard of the political

prisoners in the state mines of Nershinsk wrote in his report, v Obviously

Troubetzkoy has a lung disease. He brings up blood.' The prison physician

Dr.

 

Vladimir wrote, v As the result of scurvy Obolensky suffers from severe

tootheaches.'

 

Single Decembrists often married local girls in their place of bannishment.

Married Decembrists were usually accompanied by their wives and children.

Prince Evgeni Obolensky, who once was a very popular guest in the

Petersburg salons, married Varvara Baranov (1821-1894), daughter of the

serf Samson Baranov, in Yalutorovsk, West-Siberia. Everybody opposed to

the marriage, even the civil servant who had to marry them, and even the

bride herself. v If Evgeni wishes me well, why doesn't he give me money, so

that I can marry someone of my own class?' she asked. But the marriage was

to be quite a success.

 

Besides showing the unlawfulness of Nicholas I's ascending the throne as

Tsar of all Russians, the Decembrists protested against other serious abuses

in Russian society, like serfdom. Alexander I had started to take the

abolishment of serfdom into consideration, and Nicholas I was more or less

forced to follow this policy, but since the rise of the Decembrists he didn't

trust the nobility anymore. The government conceived the idea to leave the

exploitation of the farmers to the landed gentry, only supervised by the

government. The act of 1842 said that the landowners had to determine the

duties of the farmers, but that's all what happened. In fact nothing changed.

Nicholas I hated consultations and mutual agreements, and soon he took

refuge with the autocratical system. They who advocated a more democratic

administration were considered traitors and were bannished to Siberia. The

freedom of the press was limited, the universities were placed under control

of the state, and the v Third Division' of the Imperial Chancellery, a special

unit of the political police, was founded. This unit could at all times make an

appeal to the also just founded Corps of Gendarmes.

Everyone in military or civilian service who was in the slightest way

suspected of political unreliability, was fired, which meant the end of their

careers. This way the quality of the civil servants and the military decreased

considerable, because everyone with deviant political views was arrested

immediately and bannished after imprisonment.

 

By the way he crushed the Decembrists' rise, Nicholas I showed that he was

as harsh as his father. His motto was, v Autocracy, Orthodoxy and

Nationalism.' Feodor Dostoevsky, one of the greatest writers Russia has ever

known, was bannished to Siberia in 1849, because he was a member of a

group which was interested in the backgrounds of French socialism.

Because Nicholas I granted him a reduction of his punishment - he wasn't a

real nobleman, so he probably could be trusted - Alexander Frolov was

released on December 14, 1835. However, he was not allowed to leave

Siberia. In the winter of 1846 he got married in Shusha, Siberia, to Yevdokia

Nikolaevna Makarova. She was a daughter of the Cossack ataman Nicholas

Makarov from Kaptirevo, 10 miles south of Shusha. They had 4 children:

Nicholas, Nadezhda, Peter and Fedia. In February 1855 Frolov was a free

man, as long as he didn't show his face in Moscow or St. Petersburg. The

Frolov family left for the Crimea, where Alexander started a sheep farm,

together with three serfs he had redeemed.

 

Just like his companions in misfortune Vasili Davidoff was bannished for

more than 30 years. 7 of his 13 children were born in Siberia. He died in

1854. Two years later Alexander II announced a general pardon, after which

Vasili's family could return to Kamenka, the family estate.

 

Prince Evgeni Obolensky and his Varvara became five children. Ivan (1850-

1880) became a physician and Peter (185 1-?) became a lawyer and District

Attorney in Kiev. Evgeni lived soberly, and the irony of fate wished that he

also died during the days in which Alexander II granted the bannished

Decembrists general pardon. His wife has never noticed his homesickness

and depressions; he didn't want to place that load on her shoulders. 

Nicholas I wanted to limit Western influences at the cost of everything. He

died in the Crimean War, on March 2, 1855. The official cause of death was

a cold and a nervous shock, but there were rumours that he had poisened

himself.

 

In April 1858 Nicholas Alexandrovich Frolov became a student in the

military academy of St. Petersburg, and his brother Peter followed his steps

some years later.

 

In 1884 Nicholas and Peter were both colonels. Alexander was proud of his

children. He died on 6 May 1885, a happy man. He was burried on the

Vaganskovskoe cemetery in Moscow, and the inscription on his tomb says,

'Decembrist. Alexander Philipovich FROLOV, 1804-1885.' His wife

Yevdokia died in 1901.

 

Nicholas' daughter Anna Nikolaevna Frolova married Captain Yuri Daniloff

in 1895. They had three children, Serge, Michael and Serjoia, and spent

much time at the Daniloff estate in the Ukrain. In 1904 Yuri Daniloff was

promoted Colonel, and in 1914 he was a General and Substitute Chief of

Staff of the Army, under General N.N. Yanushkevich.

 

In 1906 the freemasons in Moscow and St. Petersburg were organized once

more. About 15 prominent Russians, most of them members of the

Constitutional-Democrats Party (KaDets), became freemasons in France and

subsequently founded new lodges in Russia. In St. Petersburg the lodge

'North Star' was founded, and in Moscow the lodge 'Renewal', both with the

greatest caution.

 

The prominent members of the innovative urban intelligentsia entered these

and other lodges: representatives of the Duma, scientists, lawyers, writers

etcetera. But 3 years later the Russian secret police discovered their

activities, after which the brothers once more had to go underground.

During World War I the monitoring of freemasons became less strict. In

1917 there were about thirty lodges all over Russia.

 

 

 

Russian Freemasonry

 

by Wor. Bro. Dennis Stocks, Barron Barnett Lodge.

 

Pierre gradually began to recover himself and look about the room and at the

people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some twelve brethren

in garments like those he has already seen. Several of them Pierre had met in

St. Petersburg society. At the head of the table sat a young man he did not

know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his neck. On his right sat the

Italian abbi whom Peter had seen at Anna Pavlovna's two years before.

There were also present a very important dignitary, and a Swiss tutor who

used to be in the Kuragin family. All preserved a solemn silence, listening to

the words of the Worshipful Master, who held a gavel in his hand. Let into

the wall was a star-shaped light. On one side of the table was a small carpet

with curious figures worked upon it; on the other was something resembling

an altar on which lay the New Testament and a skull. Round the table stood

seven large candlesticks of ecclesiastical design. Two of the Brethren led

Pierre up to the Altar, placed his feet at right angles and bade him lie down,

saying he must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.

 

"He ought to receive the trowel first," whispered one of the brethren.

 

"Oh, quite, please!" said another.

 

Perplexed, Pierre peered about him with his short-sighted eyes, without

obeying, and suddenly doubts rose in his mind. "Where am I? What am I

doing? They are making fun of me, surely? Will the time come when I shall

be ashamed of all this?" But these doubts only lasted a moment. He looked

at the serious faces of those around him, thought of all he had just gone

through and realised that there was no stopping half way. He was aghast at

his hesitation, and trying to summon back his former feeling of devotion cast

himself down..." Tolstoy, WAR & PEACE.

 

Most of us have read or know about the Masonic sequences in Tolstoy's

WAR & PEACE {Part V, Chapters 3 & 4} published in 1868 and, perhaps,

although less well known, we have encountered THE POSSESSED by

Dostoevsky. Yet there are other authors such as V.I. Likin, N.M. Karamzin, M.M.

Kheraskov, V.I. Maikov, A.N. Radishchev, A.A. Rzhevskii, A.P.

Sumarokov and M.M. Shcherbatov who, in the final third of the eighteenth

century, were attracted to the Society of Freemasons, joined the fraternity and began to integrate Masonic principles into their writings.