A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia. The Masonic Circle of N.I.Novikov

A premise The Russian Enlightenment shows peculiar features, which prevent the application of the interpretative framework commonly used for the history of occidental thought. In fact in Russia the establishment of a new vision of the world and the consequent clash between old and new values took place at first in a religious environment. The basic achievement of the culture of the Enlightenment, the consciousness of one’s own inward and outward freedom, in Russia was firstly the consciousness of one’s own freedom in relationship to God and the Church, and only secondly it became the longing for political and social independence. This is the reason why Freemasonry, and particularly Rosicrucianism - due to its stronger mystical-religious character, had a fundamental role in Russia: it provided the Russian consciousness with new philosophical and religious ground to support the liberation from the bonds of the ecclesiastic cultural tradition. My thesis: The history of the Novikov Circle (1782-1792) reveal an amazing number of aspects which can only be explained if we consider the premise above. Novikov and his co-workers are commonly considered among the primary representatives of the Russian Enlightenment. But a closer analysis reveals concrete links and ideal affinities that connect this organisation to the sources and the programme of cultural reformation of Rosicrucian origin. Features of the Novikov Circle: • The group reads, translates and diffuses the classical works of the hermetic tradition, of the seventeenth century mysticism and of contemporary German theosophy. • They proclaim the “rebirth” of man and the establishment of an “inward Church” as the necessary bases for founding God’s Kingdom on earth. It is typical of Rosicrucianism, in fact, to profess a sort of superior religiousness, which does not know confessional distinctions. Political and ideological reasons have led the “official” Churches to lose this religiousness; the consequent separation between faith and politics (as well as science) has been the source of acts of violence and persecutions. Retrieving that religiousness can lead to building a society where equality and justice are accomplished according to the Gospel. • The group believes that religious tolerance is essential to accomplish “authentic Christianity”: this is free from any dogmas and combines the best parts of all the religious traditions of the past, each considered a different manifestation of a unique Truth. • They promote a project of re-educating the Russian clergy and starting a cultural reformation of the Orthodox Church; the clergy and the renewed Church should eventually lead the process of unification of all the believers and all religious faiths. • The principles of their society are: democratic participation, elective offices, free expression of thought, absolute parity of the members’ rights and duties. • The association’s democratic structure finds an original connection with the mystical-religious content of the ideals supported; their deep religiousness is accompanied by an amazing social and political activism; the contemplative and introspective elements of their doctrine are followed by pragmatism and skill in their cultural and social initiatives. • At first sight, this society appears absolutely innocuous; even better, the Russian masons constantly and sincerely proclaim their loyalty to the Throne and the Church. In spite of this, they are accused of betraying the Throne and the Church and even conspiring against them. • Their opponents interpret their efforts to diffuse culture as a patent menace to the stability of the institutions, in particular clerical institutions. A conclusion: The defenders of the Anciene Régime were not wrong. In fact the democratic behaviour, the critical attitude, the practice of participation, the freedom of thought, the tolerance for the diversity, the search for a direct communication with the divinity, in short all the attitudes and behaviours first practised inside the eighteenth century Rosicrucian lodges constituted a cultural experience which spread throughout the society of men. Novikov’s imprisonment in 1792 and the war against the Rosicrucian literature were due to concrete reasons: they were attempts to thwart a culture, based on the independence of thought, that was taking root inside the very establishment, representing a menace to its stability.