Russian Freemasonry 7

Russian Freemasonry 7

But to mention Freemasonry in the same context as "Russia" usually invokes

an immediate reaction of surprise as if our perceptions of the Craft and the

milieu of Russia are and always were antithetical.

 

We all have images invoked by the mentioning of that nation — salt mines,

the midnight knock on the door, bread queues and hunger, the KGB, the

Gulags, mind-numbing cold, missiles, the Berlin Wall, pathological sadness,

grey skies, grey cities, grey people, hostile, Enemies !

 

Yet, on reflection, I'm sure we all realised that the blanket term "Russia" we

once used to describe the burgeoning nation of the Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics with its 8,649,489 square miles and a population in excess of 250

million spread over fifteen constituent republics was more than these mental

images. Of course, that "Russia" no longest exists, though I am sure the term

will long continue to be used as a convenient tag for the Commonwealth of

Independent States. Yet the CIS is as far removed from our mental "Russia"

as the old Russian Empire and it is with that Empire that this paper is

primarily concerned.

 

In this paper, I would like to share with you some observations on the

founding of Freemasonry in the old Russian Empire and some of the

personalities involved.

 

There is an apocryphal story that the Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great,

acquired a knowledge of Freemasonry during a visit to England in 1698

from Sir Christopher Wren. And it is claimed that Peter participated in the

formation of a Masonic Lodge on his return to Russia in which he undertook

the role of Junior Warden — which would be typical of the unassuming Tsar

Peter.

 

In spite of the doubt that Peter's English mentor, Wren, actually was a

Freemason, the Russians claim Wren founded English Freemasonry. Robert

Gould argued that this legendary basis of Wren's Freemasonry could be

'blamed' on Dr. James Anderson's reference to Wren in his Constitutions of

1738 which are irreconcilable with those in his earlier publication of 1723.

A.G. Cross, on the other hand, claimed that much of the mythical character

of this story stems from Russian reliance on German source material rather

than English.

I used the word "apocryphal" when referring to Tsar Peter's Lodge. He is

attributed with forming a Lodge with the aid of two intimate friends, Lefort

of Geneva and Patrick Gordon, a Scottish Guard, in 1717. Unfortunately for

this story, both Lefort and Gordon died in 1699!

 

But, putting this account aside for the moment, there is better agreement that

Freemasonry in Russia began with the flamboyant Lord James Keith (1696 -

1758), a descendent from Scottish nobility, banished in 1715 for his support

of the Stuart Pretender. He served in the Spanish Army, before moving to

Russia in 1728 with the recommendation of Phillip V, and by the early

1740's was a leading Russian (sic) Army General. The Russian Empress

Anna appointed him as the military governor of the Ukraine. But,

importantly for our story, Keith was made Provincial Grand Master of

Russian Freemasonry in 1740 by the Grand Master of England who also

happened to be Keith's Cousin. Captain John Phillips had been appointed to

this office for Russia in 1731, but there is no evidence to suggest he ever

exercised it.

 

The minutes of the premier Grand Lodge of England for 24 June 1731

record:

 

"Then the Grand Master and his General Officers signed a Deputation for

our Rt. Worshipful Brother John Phillips Esqr. to be Grand Master of free

and accepted Masons within the Empires of Russia and Germany and

Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, and his health was drank

wishing Prosperity to the Craft in those parts" (Batham, Transactions, p. 34).

 

The 1738 edition of Anderson's Constitutions records Phillips' appointment

as being Provincial Grand Master for Russia only. But, as Cyril Batham

points out, the appointment of a Provincial Grand Master in those days did

not necessarily indicate the existence of a Provincial Grand Lodge, nor even

the existence of a single lodge within the Province, and, indeed, we have no

reason to believe that Phillips had any lodge operating in this gigantic

Province.

 

The later appointment of James Keith as Provincial Grand Master of Russian

Freemasonry, of course, was only two years after the general suppression of

the Craft by the Papal Bull of Pope Clement XIII. It is likely that Keith, as a

Jacobite, only paid lip service to the English jurisdiction during the one-year

Grand Mastership of his cousin and thereafter influenced Russian

Freemasonry towards Germany as the inspirational source for ritual.

 

One of the powerful influences on Russian Freemasonry was the Rite of

Strict Observance. This Rite was sponsored by Baron Karl Gotthelf von

Hund (1722-1776), Provincial Grand Master of the Craft in Germany. This

system, so-called because of its vows of unquestioned obedience to

(unknown) superiors, was based on the myth that Templar secrets had

survived the suppression of the Order in 1312 by fleeing to Scotland. It is

interesting to note that von Hund, a man of integrity, was convinced that the

unknown Grand Master was Charles Edward Stuart. In approximately 1744,

von Hund claimed he had been received into the Order of the Temple in

Paris in the presence of William, fourth and last Earl of Kilmarnock, who

was also Grand Master Mason of Scotland in 1742-1743. Earl Kilmarnock

was executed in 1746 for his support of Charles Edward Stuart (Smythe,

pp. 14- 15). So, with these various links to the Stuart cause, you may see the

attraction of this Rite to the Jacobean Keith. The Rite as such outlived von

Hund by about eighty years.

 

Another interesting sidelight here was that also in 1740, protocol forced

King George II to receive the exiled Keith as a diplomatic representative of

Russia.

 

Boris Telepneff describes Keith as "one of the most remarkable personalities

of his time".

 

In fact, his impact on Russian Freemasonry was such that a song in his

praise exists:

 

After him [Peter the Great] Keith, full of light, came to the Russians; and

exalted by zeal lit up the sacrifice. He erected the Temple of Wisdom,

corrected our thoughts and hearts and confirmed us in brotherhood. He was

an image of that dawn, the clear rise of which announces to the World the

arrival of the Lightseeking Queen [presumably Freemasonry].

 

Keith left Russia to take up service with Frederick the Great (King of Prussia

and another Freemason) in 1747. There is no evidence as to why Keith left

Russia, but it could have been occasioned by the Austro-French coalition

which saw Russia as one of the mainstays against Prussia and Great Britain.

Keith was killed in 1758 during the Seven Years' War but his groundwork

saw to it that Freemasonry continued to grow in Russia. In 1756 the first

Russian lodge to actually be consecrated with a name was formed in St.

Petersburg under the patronage of the Anglophile Count R.L. Vorontsov,

Worshipful Master of The Lodge of Silence. The members of Vorontsov's

Lodge included many men who later became famous, viz: Sumarkov

(author), Prince Scherbatov (Historian), Mamonov (Literary fame), Prince

Dashkov, Prince Golitzin, Prince Toubetzkoy and Prince Meschersky.

 

That same year (1756) came the first official police investigations of

Masonry carried out by the "Secret Chancellery of the Empire" who were

investigating the "Masonic Sect" to determine "its foundation, and who

constitutes its membership". This had been instigated when rumours began

circulating about Freemasonry's foreign and seditious plans.

 

It is necessary to give background here. Peter the Great had dragged a

feudal, agrarian Russia into the 18th century with education reforms, the

construction of a navy, a few wars to push things along and a shake up of the

bureaucracy based on a European model. This included advancement in the

civil service by examination and demonstrated ability rather than by

purchase or seniority. Russia's isolation and parochialism was hard to beat

and two factions arose. The Westernizers who argued Russia could learn

from the West. And, in a way they were correct. Russia was in a unique

position to abstract from the West all those ideas and processes that had

undergone centuries of trial and error, research and development in the

West, adopting the latest concepts after due trials and refinements that had

been test bedded in the West. In opposition were the Slavophiles who

counter claimed that they were doing very nicely until Peter messed it all up.

This Slavophile notion continued for centuries and, in fact, when Karl Marx

was contacted by the Russian dissidents in the late 19th century, their

argument (and poor old Karl tended to agree with them to keep them

happy... after all they seemed to have been the only ones to have read his

manifesto!).. the argument was that the innate, rural Muzhik of Russia — the

peasant serf and his accidentally socialist way of life in sharing everything

was the model from which Europe could learn, and not the other way

around! Mind you, anyone who associated with a Muzhik deserved

everything he got along with fleas, starvation and more terminal diseases

than you could shake a stick at.

This first investigation exonerated the Craft by finding that its membership

was defined as "nothing else but the key of friendship and of eternal

brotherhood", the reigning Tsar (Peter III who was later assassinated by his

wife Catherine the Great) appears to have joined the movement, and a

number of lodges were founded at places where the Tsar would reside — St.

Petersburg, Oranienbaum and so on. It may be imagined that the Emperor

did not like to travel to meetings and, considering the state of the Empire's

roads in the Spring thaw, who could blame him? Remember, this is

primarily an agrarian society.

 

But there was no real organisational structure to the lodges... that is until

Ivan Pertfil'evich Elagin [or "Yelaguin" according to Telepneff and Batham]

(1725 - 1793) appeared.

 

Elagin was an extraordinary bureaucrat, wielding considerable power during

the Reign of Catherine the Great who ruled Russia for 34 years — 1762-

1796. Catherine had a great deal of confidence in Elagin and sometimes

signed her letters "Mr Elagin's Chancellor". Elagin was also tutor to Grand

Duke Paul and one of the first Slavophiles.

 

Catherine found the English form of Russian Freemasonry quite acceptable

and complimentary to the dilettantish atmosphere of her court. However,

Elagin admitted that he had turned to Freemasonry in the 1750's out of

boredom, curiosity and vanity. He was also attracted by the secrecy of the

proceedings and by the hope of meeting high-ranking Russian courtiers and

statesmen. Elagin initially perceived no other purpose in Freemasonry than

providing a venue whereby discrete meetings could be arranged in order to