Taking a broad view of the history of civilisation, we are concerned here with the great movement of the eighteenth century, the endeavours towards rebirth which affected all the nations of Europe, endeavours whose insignia were enlightenment and humanitarianism. This movement, the natural continuation of the humanist renaissance and the religious reformation, permeated Russia as well, and it was during the reign of Catherine II that French and German enlightenment became naturalised in Russia.
To Petrine New Russia, freemasonry was of especial importance as organiser of European civilisation and as zealous propagator of humanitarian ideals. From about 1731 onwards lodges were established in St. Petersburg, and subsequently in Moscow and the provinces. In 1747 they began to receive attention from the governmental police department, but they were tolerated and even favoured, and there was no mystery about their meetings. Novikov was a leading freemason, and in his Lexicon of Russian Authors we can study the history of the Russian enlightenment.[1]
Freemasonry and the freemasons, Novikov in especial, are of great importance in relation to the development of Russian civilization. The ideas of the enlightenment were deliberately and unceasingly propagated in the lodges. Participation in the ritual of the churches was natural to the Russians, and for those among them who had been spiritually estranged from the church by the study of Voltaire and other French philosophers the ritual of freemasonry provided a welcome substitute. We must remember that the Russian freemasons were not properly speaking freethinkers either in religion or philosophy. They inclined rather to regard Voltairism with horror, and in political views were conservative. Lopuhin, in especial, was not merely hostile to the revolution, but was opposed to the French and to French civilisation in general, and favoured the maintenance of serfdom.[2]
There was another direction in which the masonic lodges
- ↑ Novikov was imprisoned in 1792, and the lodges were threatened. Emperor Paul set Novikov at liberty. As crown prince he had been on intimate terms with the freemasons, and it is probable that Catherine looked askance at the friendship. Toleration was re-extended to freemasonry by Alexander I in the year 1805.
- ↑ Catherine sent Novikov to be examined by the archbishop of Moscow, who reported to the empress that it was his prayer that the Russian church and the world at large might contain such Christians.
