The ideas of Enlightenment began to actively spread in Russia with the rise to power of Catherine the Great
By Roxolana Zigon
In the Western Europe freemasonry originated at the turn of the XVII–XVIII centuries and it can be undoubtedly called as one of the important components of the Age of Enlightenment. In England after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 freemasonry has extended in the continent along with a wave of Jacobites. In the XVIII century freemasonry began to spread in Europe, where several Masonic systems were created. The members of lodges were the brightest figures of the Age of Enlightenment – Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Mozart, Washington, Franklin, Frederick II the Great. The last name entered into the rituals of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and at the same time became a distinguished example of the policy of enlightened absolutism.
At the end of the 18th century there were works published in Europe, attributing to the enlighteners the organization of the Masonic conspiracy and the Great French Revolution. A striking example of such kind of literature were the books of the French historian and Jesuit priest Abbé Augustin Barruel, ‘Volterians, or History of the Jacobins, revealing all the anti-Christian malicious intentions and mysteries of the Masonic lodges that have influenced all the European powers’ in 12 volumes and their abridged version – ‘Notes on the Jacobins, revealing all the anti-Christian malicious intentions and mysteries of the Masonic lodges that have influenced all the European powers’ in 6 volumes. They were published in France in 1797-1799 and in 1805-1809 were translated into Russian and published. A similar work – ‘Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried out in secret meetings of freemasons, Illuminati and Enlightenment Societies’ – was written in 1797 by the Englishman John Robinson.
Barruel wrote that in Europe since the middle of the XVIII century there was a secret society that aimed to destroy monarchies and Christian churches. The first two volumes of the work were devoted to the protection of the Christian Church against the wiles of the Freemasons. The author believed that the founders of the society were Voltaire, Diderot, d’Alembert and King Frederick II of Prussia. The quotations from Voltaire’s correspondence were cited as an illustration of his statements. The chapters of the volumes corresponded to the main (supposed) tasks of the freemasons: the extermination of the Jesuits, the extermination of all the monasteries, the distribution of malfeasant books, and evil deeds under the guise of tolerance of faiths.
The first step towards destruction of religion was considered by the author as the activities of the enlighteners and the publication of the encyclopedia. One of the methods of the monarchies decay was the creation of ‘Academies’, where the Masonic doctrine would be taught under the guise of science.
The fallacy of Barruel’s assertions is obvious. Masonic lodges – heirs of the medieval craftsmen – at a certain point borrowed components of the ideology of the enlighteners, but then one part of the Masonic system returned to the original ‘simplicity’ of the craftsmen’s rituals, while the other one not only rejected the ideology of the enlighteners but also began fighting against of it. Thus, in the XVIII century freemasonry has risen from promoting the ideas of the enlighteners and rationalists to an extreme conservatism.
The original ideology of Masonic organizations (lodges) was a synthesis of the guild traditions of the organized bodies of operative stonemasons with the ideas of European, primarily English, intellectuals of that era. These thinkers, including J. Locke, I. Newton, F. Bacon and others, considered it necessary to get rid of the scientific thought of the clerical dogma, reducing the influence of the church on secular life, emphasized the importance of personal freedom, human dignity, upbringing and education. Each Masonic lodge had its own rite and a clearly structured hierarchy. The ultimate goal of freemasonry was to create a society based on freedom, equality and fraternity without any national, racial and religious division. This goal could be achieved through the moral, intellectual and physical perfection of man.
Freemasonry penetrated into Russian society in the first half of the 18th century, becoming the main conductor of Enlightenment ideas. The representatives of the Russian nobility, as well as wide circles of intellectuals, political and public figures, were members of the Masonic Lodges. There can be noted such kind of renowned names as I.P. Yelagin, N.I. Novikov, D.I. Fonvizin and others.
The heyday of the Russian Freemasons’ activity falls on the second half of the XVIII century. The ideas of Enlightenment started its glorious dissemination in Russia with the rise of Catherine II. During her reign the internal and external life of society has changed dramatically. Freemasonry played a leading role in that process with its desire for a self-improvement, which, in turn, led to a strong criticism of the monarchy and the official churches.
At the same time, yet in the second half of the XVIII century among European Freemasons there have appeared a certain branch of thought that required their followers to be ideal Christians and monarch’s subjects. Such ideas were practiced in the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, as well as in the system of the Revised Scottish Rite. Simultaneously, the Order of the Illuminati was established in Bavaria, whose members called for the development of the ideas of the Enlighteners and its introduction to the society. Immediately between those lodges a desperate struggle has occurred that led to the liquidation of the Order of Illuminati. Already at the Wilhelmsbad Masonic Convention of 1782, the leaders of the European Freemasons realized the danger of the attempts to revive the Order of Templars and abandoned that idea.
In concurrence with this, the neo-Templars were active in Russia until the prohibition of Masonic lodges in 1822. Russian Masons worked in line with the European Masonic movement, and in some cases became ‘trend-setters’ themselves. In St. Petersburg there was born an idea of the ‘clerical’ coined by I.A. Starck (the main idea of this Masonic system insisted on the argument that the keepers of the secrets of the Templars could be only priests) and the system of P.I. Melissino. Both systems became widespread in Europe.
Catherine the Great was an admirer of the ideas of the Enlighteners. Her reign was the first major stage in the history of the Russian Freemasonry, although at the end of it some Freemasons were persecuted. The head of the first Russian Provincial Lodge was I.P. Yelagin, a confidant of the Empress. A member of one of his lodges was N.I. Novikov, whose biography reflected the quest of Freemasons of the Age of Enlightenment.
Ideas of educating an enlightened personality in Russian Freemasonry
Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov, a journalist, publisher, historian and Freemason, the brightest public figure of the XVIII century, according to the leading Russian Imperial historian Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky, a true enthusiast of the ‘Gutenberg printing press’, who taught Russia to read. Klyuchevsky characterizes the ‘adherent of the Russian Enlightenment’ with the following words: ‘He had two cherished subjects that made his mind focused on and devoted, in which he saw his duty, his vocation: it was a service to the homeland and the book as the means of serving the it… In the person of Novikov, a non-serving Russian nobleman, almost for the first time went out to serve his Fatherland with a pen and a book, as his ancestors used to step out with a horse and a sword’.
Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov was born on the 27 April 1744 in the village of Tikhvinskoye-Avdotyeno, Kolomensky (now Bronnitsky) district, Moscow province, into the family of a poor nobleman landlord. Novikov received his first educational experience from a village priest; later on, he continued his education at the Moscow University gymnasium, but in 1760 he was expelled ‘for laziness and failure to attend classes’. He did not know languages, for he had not been taught them. Novikov acquired all the knowledge that enabled him to later lead the Russian reading society much later, when he entered military service. As a reward for participation among other guardsmen in the palace coup d’état of 1762 Novikov received the rank of non-commissioned officer and, having been granted with more free time, began to read a lot and engaged himself in intensive process of self-education.
That was a period of time when Novikov has actively exposed himself on a public stage. In 1767 he was sent among other Guardsmen to work ‘on the written duty’ in the Commission of Deputies to draft a new statute.
In addition to keeping the written records of the meetings of the department ‘on the average kind of people’, Novikov kept a written record of the general meetings of the deputies and read them while representing reports to the Empress. It was at this time when Catherine II got acquainted with Novikov personally.
A year later Novikov was promoted to the ensign of the Izmailovsky Life Guard Regiment, but he did not wish to continue his service and retired with the military rank of lieutenant. The researchers of the history of Freemasonry in Russia note that Novikov was actively interested in publishing, established relations with the printing house of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and in 1769 became the publisher of the satirical journal Truten. At the same time Novikov decided to strengthen his activities as a journalist, having been convinced that it was the best way to ‘influence the mores’ of such an uncultured society yet.
Probably, the journal ‘Anything and Everything’ published by the Empress became an example for Novikov, who wanted to serve his Fatherland.
In 1772 Novikov became the publisher of the satirical journal Zhivopisets, and in 1774 – Koshelyek. The pages of Novikov’s journals covered such kind of social vices as a lack of culture, Francomania, embezzlement, lies, and injustice.
It should be noted that the XVIII century was a time of a deep transformation of the social, religious and philosophical foundation of the Russian society. The ‘Voltairianism’ that came from the West and introduced the Russian society to the works of Voltaire, Rousseau and other encyclopedists turned the philosophy of an overall liberation into libertinism. Deism was understood as the absence of God.
Religiously speaking, the Russian society experienced an uneasy time at that period of its history. The worldview ‘according to the customs of the ancestors’ was being rethought, and all the hopes were pinned on the transformation of the state.
At the beginning of the reign of Catherine the Great, the public interests dominated over all other interests, for the eminent thinkers of the era, such as Voltaire, carried a powerful but contradictory idea of Enlightenment: ‘God is needed only for the common good’.
Novikov, surrounded by Voltairians, was highly sensitive to the ideas of internal transformation of both man and society. He was not afraid of entering into polemic with the Empress herself: being a true liberal, he was extremely dissatisfied with serfdom. The title of the journal ‘Truten’ proclaimed that protest loudly. Thus, Novikov has placed on the cover page of the journal an epigraph from Sumarokov’s fable: ‘They work, and you reap the harvest of their labour’.
Novikov drew up a memorable picture of a nobleman torturing and robbing his serfs in ‘Prescription for Mr. Harebrained’. The diagnosis was the following: “Mr. Harebrained is sick with the opinion that peasants are not human beings, but just peasants”. And the prescription for this disease was very unusual: “Mr. Harebrained must examine the bones of the lords and peasants twice every day until he will find a distinction between lord and peasant”.
In addition to articles against the arbitrariness of landlords, Novikov also condemned the policy of ‘imaginary’ enlightenment, when many young men, resembling Mitrofanushka from Fonvizin’s ‘Nedorosl’, were forced to go abroad to study, from where they returned even more stupid and morally passive and ignorant. For example, here is one of the notes in the journal ‘Truten’: ‘The young Russian pig, who travelled abroad to enlighten his mind, the one whose travelling was aimed at achieving a grand benefit, returned already as a complete pig; those who want to watch can see him without money on many streets of this city’.
Undoubtedly, between Truten and Vsyakaya Vsyachina has arisen a literary battle, which later turned into a political struggle. Novikov’s journal was a kind of opposition, shamelessly attacking the propaganda machine of the government. But Catherine II was not reluctant to attack her enemy. Truten, unlike Vsyakaya Vsyachina, used satire, which was addressed to the different public figures, and angrily criticized the serfdom regime as well as the concrete representatives of the epoch, including Catherine II herself.
The Empress, of course, was horrified by such kind of free-thinking, and in reply has published in one of the following up reviews of the Vsyakaya Vsyachina: ‘1) Never call weakness as a vice. 2) Preserve humanity in all cases. 3) Do not think that perfect people can be found, and for that 4) Ask God to give us the spirit of meekness and leniency …
…P.S. tomorrow I want to propose a fifth rule that henceforth no one should reflect about something that he does not understand; and the sixth one, that no one should think that he alone can fix the whole world’.
The last rules can be called as a threat from the side of the government to Novikov himself and a hint that if Truten continues to write materials in its usual manner, the consequences would be highly unfavourable. That is, according to Catherine II, serfdom, arbitrariness of landlords, famine of peasants, – all these indications are just ‘weaknesses’, not ‘vices’, and, in no case, they can be condemned – it is better ‘to preserve humanity’. Novikov spoke out about this in Truten vehemently: ‘Mrs. Vsyakaya Vsyachina is angry with us and curses our moral reasoning with different words <…> “Vsekaya Vsechina” is so spoilt with praising that now she considers it as a crime if someone does not praise her’.
Her Imperial Highness could not tolerate such a reaction. Truten more than once was on the verge of closure, but was saved for another year, largely due to a partial giving away of some inches in the battlefield by Novikov. However, in the very same year 1770 Novikov’s journal was closed, as well as the publication of Vsyakaya Vsyachina. The edition size of the latter had fallen drastically by that time.
For Novikov and his co-thinkers the time of ‘searching’ new ways to serve the Motherland has come. The answer to the demands of his heart and mind was within Freemasonry.
Thus, in the late 1770s Novikov, having been disappointed in the possibilities of satirical journalism, moved to Moscow. Since that time, all his activities were guided by the Masonic ideology. O.G. Florovsky explains: ‘An internal discipline or asceticism … was the most important element in the general economy of Masonic action, – hewing a “raw stone” of the human heart, as it used to be said in those times. And within such an ‘ascesis’ a new type of man was about to be nurtured.’
While being immersed in the earthly concerns, the modern man is just a ‘raw stone’ that should be morally processed, and this is the work of the man himself. The Masonic ‘quest for the true light’ was understood as the path of moral perfection. ‘Knowledge of oneself’ became the goal of life. In Moscow Novikov found a circle of like-minded people, called ‘Moscow Rosencreutzers’. The fruits of the labours of this circle were so significant that it actually overshadowed all other Masonic systems and lodges. It is not surprising that any discussion of the Russian Freemasonry, as a rule, refers to Novikov and the ‘Moscow Rosencreutzers’.
In Novikov’s journals of this period (The Morning Light, The Evening Dawn) many articles are devoted to the pedagogical problems and the education of an enlightened incivility. Novikov was interested not only in ‘the reasons of expanding Arts and sciences’, but also in what kind of ‘effect the sciences may create on the heart and morals of the man’.
A surprisingly accurate remarks are expressed on the pages of The Morning Light: ‘The sciences, transferred to another place, are like a rapidly drying out flowers in the fields. They do not flourish in any other way than by the delicate care of the gardener, they do not get used to the new climate and do not adjust to the properties of that land. They are languishing comfortably, and a strong wind does not disturb them. The people are the first collectors of the fruits brought by science; however, they used to come very late to the noble ones. We should not think that they may suddenly blossom in any nation or that attracting scientists from the other states can be sufficient. They can decorate the royal house; but it is very rare that they can make the whole state as an enlightened one. Arts and sciences march so slowly that the state in which they begin to grow or which accepts them, is required to stay for a long time without any change in guidance. The longevity of the state gives the sciences a chance to come to perfection; with freedom they flourish’. (‘On the Main Reasons Relating to the Increase of Arts and Sciences’, ‘Moscow Monthly Edition’, April 1781).
‘By the orderly and diligent study of free sciences one acquires a certain good taste, i.e. a delicate, quick comprehending and faithful feeling of everything that is attributed in the spiritual works is right, beautiful, noble; and, on the other hand, of everything that is vicious, obnoxious, immature, unreasonable and unstructured. This delicate feeling, accompanied in the first case by a secret pleasure, and in the latter, by a secret indignation; such a good taste becomes so natural to us from its use that we follow it not only in our writings but also in our conversations and actions. Its effect extends not only on our way of thinking but also on the whole realm of our soul. It does not make us virtuous, but it gives our virtues a value and respect which they would be deprived of without it. Dedication to the sciences softens our morals and teaches us humanity. As the song of Ovide goes: spread the sciences, and you will see the truth of these words. (‘On the Effect of Sciences on the Heart and Manners of Man’, ‘Moscow Monthly Edition’, August 1781).
Thus, Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov, following the postulates of Publius Ovidius, spread the high spirit of Enlightenment, tirelessly asserting that good morals are the natural fruit of the sciences and Arts and that good morals should be nurtured from an early age.
It would be a great omission not to mention that Novikov was the publisher of the first Russian journal for young readers, Children’s Reading for Heart and Mind. He entrusted the young N. M. Karamzin to edit the journal. This journal remained the object of love and admiration of teenagers almost the entire first half of the XIX century.
The quintessence of the pedagogical ideas of the freemasons was the conviction that education should be based on the ‘Christian worldview’. In other words, the acquisition of knowledge cannot be an ultimate journey in itself but must contribute to the ‘organization of the soul’. By becoming more educated, a person must gain more moral power; this process represents an inseparable unity. These are the views that Novikov and his circle of co-thinkers tirelessly introduced to the Russian society of their epoch.
One of the most significant Novikov’s pedagogical work was a large article ‘On the Education and Instruction of the Children’, printed in the Additions to the Moscow Gazette of 1783. In this article he elaborates a detailed vision of his enlightenment credo. For Novikov, the main object of education ‘…is nothing else than to educate children to be prosperous people and useful citizens’. He endeavours to explain his own thoughts as precisely as possible: ‘The duty of the parents to educate their children as best as possible is based on their duties to their children, to the state and to themselves. It leads to the crucial goal of upbringing process that must include the fulfilment of the noble service. And as a result, all the positions of parents towards their children contain the idea of promoting the well-being of their children as much as possible, as well as to provide the state with the useful citizens, – it follows that the well-being of children and their benefit to the state are essential parts of the subject of upbringing’.
It should be noted that this passage gives a twofold impression. On the one hand, Novikov shows himself as a faithful follower of the Russian tzar Peter the Great precepts, which required from every Russian to be a useful citizen to the state. On the other hand, he persistently uses the word ‘service’ in a different, sometimes even in a specifically Masonic meaning, namely as a clear delineation of duties in a certain community (even family). For earlier it would have been simply ridiculous to speak of the ‘servicing position of parents’ in relation to the children. The so-called ‘Positions’ existed only within a state hierarchical pyramid. Novikov clearly distinguishes the aspects of his pedagogical system: ‘Education has three main pillars: a physical education that is concerned about healthy and sound body; a moral education, which is aimed at the education of the heart, that is, the education and guidance of the natural feeling and will of the children; and a reasonable education, which deals with the enlightenment or education of the mind’.
Without diminishing the first aspect (physical education), Novikov gives primacy to the second and third ones: ‘…most of all, education consists of upbringing the mind and heart of the child and, thus, to lead him to the best possible way towards virtues, religion and Christianity’. Without deviating one step from his enlightenment credo, he puts ‘education of the heart’ above ‘education of the mind’.
The ‘education of the heart’ means a wide openness to all the human manifestations. Novikov puts a special emphasis on this. He demands from educators: ‘Do your best in instilling in them (pupils – N.I. Novikov) a sincere love and favor to all people, without distinction of social status, religion, nation or outer state of happiness’. A special attention is paid here to the attitude to the lower-class people of their own country: ‘Do not let them talk about the commoners, the lower-class people, in a contemptuous manner’. In the footnotes Novikov explains: ‘For the profanum vulgus are not people of the lowest social level or condition, but those who are of the ignorant nature, whether they are nobles or beggars’. Under the conditions of serfdom in Russia, such kind of words sounded as highly relevant and progressive.
Novikov overviewed Christianity not as a blind adherence to the spiritual heritage of the past but as a roadmap of life for the modern man. That is why he wrote: ‘He who loves the Lord, who keeps His commandments; according to Jesus Christ, only faith is appropriate, through effective love <…> love without deeds is dead’. Consequently, the goal of educators’ efforts should be not only the free and noble-minded people but also active citizens.
Novikov himself was a living embodiment of his words; above all, he was a man of action. He saw his goal in the active creation of good.
Adhering to the Masonic phraseology, we can outline the main moral criteria of freemasons of the Enlightenment era in Russia.
‘The polishing of the raw stone’ means a continuous search for truth. That search should not stop for a single moment. A rising along the hierarchy of the Masonic degrees is the acquisition of the new facets of truth. A human life is an eternal spiritual wandering. Of course, only a few will find the truth – the most Enlightened ones- the most active. But a whole mankind must follow this path. Applied to the Russian soil, we can say that the freemasons transferred the official table of ranks to the realm of spirit. Their pedagogical theories were based on the above-mentioned initial moral and spiritual principles and criteria.
One of the most eminent Russian freemason and brilliant writer was M.M. Kheraskov. His contemporaries honoured him as the first poet of his time; the moral decoration of his character was no less attractive. According to the public opinion, he did not utter a single poisonous word to his neighbour during his entire life. During a long period of time Kheraskov was a curator of the Moscow University. He was the one who invited Novikov to Moscow and leased the university’s printing house to him. For many years Kheraskov was Novikov’s most active collaborator, working hand in hand with him on the implementation of numerous enterprises of the unwearied ‘adherents of the Russian enlightenment’.
The views of Novikov and Kheraskov were put into practice by the pedagogical experience of the Moscow University. The success was so impressive that Klyuchevsky called the ‘Novikov’s decade’ as one of the best epochs in the history. Novikov himself constantly repeated his favourite proverb: ‘A student without a book is like a soldier without a gun’. He considered his own publishing activity as ‘the creation of a Man’.
The pedagogical ideas of the Russian Freemasons gained a wide recognition among upper aristocratic and political circles quite rapidly. The matter was not limited only by the Moscow University. Despite a suspicious attitude towards freemasons, Catherine II did not hesitate to invite a prominent Freemason M.I. Muravyov-Apostol (father of Decembrist N.M. Muravyov-Apostol), who was a trustee of the Moscow University and taught moral philosophy, Russian literature, and Russian history to the royal offspring. M.I. Muravyov-Apostol was regarded by the contemporaries as the best Russian writer after Karamzin.
The Masonic milestone of Enlightenment and education of a free personality, laid by Novikov in the second half of the XVIII century, formed the basis of one of the most significant pedagogical experiments of the first half of the XIX century – the opening of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. It was conceived by Count M.M. Speransky as a privileged educational institution, a kind of cradle of the Russian intellectual elite.
Speransky, a freemason himself, was convinced (quite in the spirit of Novikov) that good laws ‘without good morals’ would ultimately be powerless. The reformer of the new time sought to develop the pedagogical experience accumulated by the ‘Moscow Rosenkreutzers’. The endeavour turned out to be highly successful. After all, the first graduating class of lyceum students was proud not only of A.S. Pushkin and A.M. Gorchakov, but also of the less colorful but significant names of I.I. Pushchin, V.K. Küchelbecker, A.A. Delvig, M.A. Korff.
It is not without reason that the attacks on the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, especially after the Decembrist revolt, contained the name of Novikov, who formed a ‘sect of Martinists’, which turned out to be, as F.V. Bulgarin wrote, the beginning of ‘liberalism and all free ideas’, constantly came up. According to his saying, the whole system of education in the lyceum was based ‘on Martinism’. The friendly unity of the lyceum students, the ‘lyceum union’, praised by Alexander Pushkin, and which became a phenomenon of the Russian culture, he, without any hesitation, compared with the Masonic lodge.
Undoubtedly, L.N. Tolstoy could not miss such a rich ideological heritage of Freemasonry in the construction of his school in Krasnaya Polyana as well. The experience of the state educational institutions embraced the writer’s mind with the gloomy thoughts. Sometimes those institutions used to give a way to the highly educated people, but still spiritually defective.
All this led Tolstoy to the conviction that a profound upbringing and education are not the same thing. The main thesis of Tolstoy as an educator sounded as the following: ‘Religion is the only legitimate and reasonable basis of the spiritual upbringing’. Obviously, he did not mean an official Orthodoxy (additionally to the previous stance he writes about the ugliness of seminaries and monastery schools), but a kind of natural religion, the only basis that may give a fruitful soil for the inner reorganization of the soul. A direct reference to the quests of the inexhaustible ‘adherents of the Enlightenment’ of the previous century, a direct spiritual heritage of Novikov, could be clearly traced here.
In the early 1820s Russian Freemasonry has exhausted its spiritual potential. The historical role had been played by its torch-bearer. The closure of the Masonic lodges in 1822 just confirmed the existing state of the things. But the works of Novikov and his inner circle were not lost in vain.
While relying on the assessments of the historians, we may notice that almost all of them expressed a consonant statement that the Masons drew up a direct line of succession to the so-called progressive intelligentsia of the XIX century and the early XX century.
The historian of Russian philosophy V.V. Zenkovsky noted: ‘There were formed all the main features of the future “progressive” intelligentsia in the Russian Freemasonry- there was the primacy of morality and consciousness of duty to serve society at the first place here, in general, that was a practical idealism”.
A fiery example of this service was given by Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov. He truly found himself only in Freemasonry, as well as the whole era that followed him. Freemasonry was banned, the leading men of the epoch were ostracized and subjected to all kinds of humiliation and deprivation, but the ideas of the Enlightenment continued to revive and ignite the minds of the new generations that discovered and continued to discover the moral grounds of Freemasonry and public service at the dawn of the XXI century.
