Sergey LEBEDEV: Freemasons and their background on the pages of the magazine «Sea». Intro (Part 3).
See the previous PART 3
Sergey LEBEDEV
Freemasons and their background
on the pages of the magazine "Sea". 1901-1917.
Introduction. Part 3.
So, we are approaching to the problem of two ideological trends in the Russian freemasonry at the beginning of the XX century, i.e. to the so called its mystical and political directions. Beklemishev and his close friends undoubtedly belonged to the first trend that, however, did not exclude its contacts with political freemasons. Their organization, having passed all the stages of originating and reorganizations, by the beginning of 1910s started to expand quickly territorially and in number. N.N.Beklemishev, involved in the activity of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (IRTO), could not but feel some manifestations of the activity of the political freemasons who controlled some departments and local organizations of this society by the beginning of the February Revolution of 1917.
Here it’s not a place to find out, why employees of the Police department did not expose, and consequently, have not suppressed the political freemasonry. Masons were grouped in the “Grand Orient des Peuples de Russie” (“Grand Orient of the Peoples of Russia”) which has seized power in March 1917, after Nicholas II renunciation of the throne, and kept it up to the October revolution of 1917. But it is clear that the Imperial Russian Technical society was one of strongholds of the freemasonry which had the character of over-party and inter-party structure.
Freemasons - members of the IRTO were recollected by Ekaterina Dmitrievna Kuskova, who was one of the accepted members of the Masonic order that worked in Russia, and who was the wife of Sergey Nikolaevich Prokopovich - the future minister of the Provisional government of Russia in 1917. He has become an accepted freemason during his study in Bruxelles in 1898 and entered the Russian part of the brotherhood in 1908, after the establishing the freemasonic lodges on the territory of the Empire. Kuskova wrote:
«Such organizations as the Free Economic Society, the Technical Society, have been entirely grasped [by freemasons - S.L.]. It was the recipe of the Union of Liberation. Because its members even during the activity of the Union have strongly taken seat in the Free Economic society, among them Bogucharsky, Hizhnyakov (secretaries); S.N.[Prokopovich - S.L.] - the chairman of its economic section. The same was in the Technical Society: Lutugin, Bauman - were in the centre».
Thus, in fact we have two legal structures, and the editor of the «Sea» N.N.Beklemishev was a member of one of them…
And if there are some currents within a uniform stream they must get into a clash. Publications about freemasons on the pages of the magazine «Sea» to some extent reflected the struggle of mystical and political freemasons who actually were the products of the development of the national Russian thought, which was a part of the world one.
All kind of trumpery of the system disappears almost simultaneously with the change of the political organization of a society. Idols, hymns, symbols, color of flags and banners, configuration and arms drawing, military uniforms, forms of calling people each other are retiring. Recollecting the past we find out something that is familiar to our days, and if you deny something or accept something you should have some knowledge about the matter. The activity of freemasonic lodges has become a platitude today, despite the statements of some authors that there is no more freemasonry in Russia! Any categorical point of view always causes a question, and the answer leads to the examination of history of the question itself.
Unfortunately, those accusations of the «triumphing democracy» which one can hear, and its manifestations that we feel daily throughout last five years, have not yet led to any creative results. The unrest process is not finished yet, because the out-of-date postulates of ideology still cultivated by the state-hired historians, continue to brake sober minded researches on the past. All these educators, senior educators, senior lecturers, professors, candidates (masters), doctors, corresponding members and academicians, who are supervising the subordinated historians, continue to receive money for their ‘academic’ and ‘scientific’ ranks and posts from the means of tax bearers. Till August 1991 it was possible to hold the academic posts only under the decision of the communist party.
Doctor’s and master’s theses and diplomas of many Russian historians - members of the Communist party, noted by the obligatory stamp of Marxism-Leninism, - are still their capital, their owners receive the rent from this capital. The percents are withdrawn from our pockets. It was them who have braked our consciousness on the Decembrists, which had rustled one day in December, 1825, on the Petrovsky square in Petersburg, thanks to the illiterate soldiers, who had shouted toasts in honour of Konstantin “and his wife” - Constitution. Along with the nation-wide «Lenin’s cult», the historians of the communist party of the Soviet union have created the «Pushkin’s cult» - for the fans of the perfect, and a lot of other small cults…
The huge set of themes of the past was not studied by the “Soviet historical science”. Among them there was a theme of the Russian and the world freemasonry - one of the oldest forms of public that used to unite and is still uniting millions of people.
The attempts to raise a question about freemasonry and freemasons in the scientific literature caused the massacre campaigns in which the Academy of sciences of the USSR played the first fiddle, setting the fashion, and primarily its Department of History (academician I.I.Mintz, historian A.Y.Avreh, corresponding member of the Academy of sciences of the USSR P.V.Volobuev and many others) and also some professors and senior lecturers of some universities and higher educational institutions of the former Soviet Union took part in these campaigns.
However in the literature published in the territory of Russia today it is possible to find out a variety of sober views and sensible judgments concerning a freemasonic problem. Let's quote one place:
«Nobody denies today the fact of the existence of freemasonry in the pre-revolutionary Russia, and the focus of existing contradictions lies in the estimation of this phenomenon. Thereupon it is necessary to notice that the Masonic problem has not only political, but also a big scientific value. Thereby such an important and absolutely obscure for us problem as the problem of a secret power is put for discussion. There is an opinion still prevailing, as if historical personages playing on a political proscenium are those who have the real power in a society. Thus we absolutely forget thataccording to the theatrics laws even protagonists are guided by the ready made scenario, that, except the playing on a scene actors, except a script writer, there are still a producer and an owner of the theatre who can appear on the stage only in the case of success. Meanwhile it is in their hands that a repertoire choice, troupe selection, and director's fulfillment of an author's plan are concentrated.
One of the differences between a political scene and the theatrical one is that the names of the authors of political scenarios, political directors, producers and impresarios, as a rule, are not specified in posters and they don’t like to step on the stage even during the noise of applause. For this reason we usually do not know the real rulers of society and we do not understand the mechanism of the real power. The rising of the Masonic question is an attempt to glance inside the side scenes of the visible power. Even if we find no freemasons over there, or if it turns out that the freemasons themselves represent the same scenic troupe (though the first structure of troupe), which is acting for the selected public and is known only for the exclusive audience, - all the same the studying of the events that occurred in the pre-revolutionary Russia behind the side scenes of the visible power, behind the side scenes of political parties and revolutionary movement, has a principle value. And the studying of this historical layer is able to turn over many our present representations, and one can only welcome this studying. The problem is how to organize these researches to make them mostproductive.
The main problem posed before any researcher and which in this case has a special value, is the problem of sources».
That’s why the publications on freemasonry on the pages of the magazine «Sea» published and edited by N.N.Beklemishev, should be studied as one of the sources, which used to feed the information collection of the Police department, watching the security of the Empire by order of the Emperor Nicholas II.
The other question is how the political police used the revealed data with a view of political investigation. But it’s already the other theme, and the fact of the biography of employees of the special services dismissed at the end of February - the beginning of March, 1917.
Let's come back to the ‘Masonic publications’ of the magazine «Sea».
It was not an exotic and unsolved secret of the past, the aura of which surrounded the life of this order that forced the editorial board of the magazine to address to the theme of freemasons. It was not the circulation rising of the magazine or the attempt to impose mystical ideas to the reading public that have attracted the management of «Sea» to publish the materials on freemasonry. Authors and employees of the magazine «Sea» pursued quite practical objectives. As a rule, the editorial board mentioned these objectives at the end of each publication on freemasonry in special notes under the headline «Editorial body» («From editorial board»).
The attempt to connect a ‘Masonic question’ with the development of the national naval and merchant marine fleet was made in the Russian press for the first time. It was made by the magazine «Sea» proceeding from the state reasons!
Therefore the «Sea» was solving a number of problems by publishing the materials on the Masonic theme. First of all the task was to wake up the interest to the problem of freemasonry in readers (mainly they were naval officers and seamen of merchant fleet) since this question had been tyred out in an underground by censorship.
Secondly, the aim to present various estimations of the freemasonic brotherhood, - as well as different points on the history of its origins and development was pursued, to bring at times the opposite points of view on the activity of freemasonic lodges existing legally in many countries of the world.
Thirdly, to note the influence freemasonry on the course of political and, certainly, social development in the leading countries of Europe and Northern and the South America where the order was working openly, without being exposed to persecutions by the governments of these countries.
The publications on freemasons in the “Sea” carried different messages. “Masonic” publications comprised thematic articles claiming on analytics and dedicated to the history and the current state of the order of freemasons in Russia and abroad; comprised publications of hand-written sources, mainly from archives; reviews; fragments of the works of foreign authors translated from French, English and German; compilations and reprints of articles earlier appeared on the pages of some other editions; readers’ responses to the works of other authors; corrections; polemics; announcements of new articles release on freemasonry and also works by other authors in other editions; illustrations; editorial notes.
The editorial board of the “Sea” often expressed the editorial position to many materials in some kind of epilogues. As a rule, such messages («From editorial board») had no personal signatures. Undoubtedly the editor of the «Sea» N.N.Beklemishev was their author: «Hardly probable there exist the naive people now who do not understand the distinctions between appearance and the internal nature of freemasonry. Some thoughts on this matter will soon be published here», the board of the magazine «Sea» wrote in 1906 (№ 13-14).
One can also note that N.N.Beklemishev published his articles about freemasons outside of the magazine «Sea» which he edited. So he has printed his essay “Russia and Freemasonry” in the newspaper “Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti” (“The St.-Petersburg sheets»), where he has counted it necessary to legalize the order in the Russian empire. And then, after the revision of the text (a newspaper variant into the magazine version), Beklemishev’s essay about freemasons has also appeared in the «Sea».
‘Masonic’ publications in the «Sea» cover various problems, questions, stories.
The reader got acquainted with some pages of the history of several freemasonic systems (rites, rituals or obediences), with the history of some lodges, first of all connected with the sea; with the symbolics of the brotherhood, the ritual part of the masonic works; with the questions of the origins and development of the order; traditions of freemasons; with the publication of historical documents, songs, with symbolic drawings.
The editorial board tried to highlight the masonic theme against the background of the universal world progress and the domestic history of certain countries and nations; concerning some themes, such as, freemasonry and revolution, freemasonry and the ruling elite (politics, bank circles, national and security structures of power), freemasonry and the armed forces.
Based on the general aims of the edition - the publication of materials about the sea and about seamen first of all, - the magazine was connecting the Masonic theme with ocean open spaces and marine history. Thereupon the activity of the order in connection with history of the Russian navy got such a broad coverage on the pages of the magazine «Sea» for the first time, as well as the works of some marine lodges: «Neptune» (XVIII century), «Neptune» (XIX century), «Neptune to the Hope» (XIX century), with the data of their numerical structure, with the lists of the «brothers’» names - outstanding persons in the Russian navy.
Publications about freemasonry in the magazine «Sea» are the some kind of an indicator of the coverage of the topic in the popular scientific form and at the same time they are the indicator of those questions which excited various circles of the Russian society between two revolutions - 1905 and 1917. Т.O.Sokolovskaya indirectly indicates on the danger of a secret Masonic organization, her articles often concerned the activity of the secret Masonic structures, that worked «in silence», they often concerned the lodges of the «closed» type: «The life of the secret Masonic lodges is, of course, less known than the life of the lodges that worked with the consent of the government. But the secret lodges were arising and existed side by side with the obvious lodges and quite often evaded from the inclusion into the unions recognised by the Grand Lodges», Tira Sokolovskaya comes to a conclusion.
The magazine «Sea» was making an attempt to explain to the reader what really freemasonry was. The magazine was popularizing this phenomenon, expanding the usual frameworks of the historical picture of the past of the Russian public life, of the past and present of other peoples and nations. The «Sea», unlike right-wing editions, did not frighten the reader with «Masonic raving», reducing its own role to the ascertaining of the very fact of the existence of this social structure. The magazine was forcing the Russian public circles and the mighty of this world to look at freemasons differently, not in the way as it used to be. At the same time, the editorial board, along with the publication of the documentary sources, that were unknown before, printed some antimasonic maxims which were based upon the products of printing cookery of the well-known French «mystificateur» Leo Taxil (Jogand-Pages). That’s why today one can certainly deny or at least concern with suspicion to the data about freemasonry we can find in some publications of the magazine.
Selecting the “Masonic theme” on the pages of the «Sea» («Sea and its Life»), it is possible to draw a conclusion: the campaign with freemasons in this magazine, conducted throughout twelve years, was not casual. It reflected the interests of a certain group of persons standing closely to the permanent editor of the magazine - N.N.Beklemishev. The circle of the authors of the ‘Masonic works’ in the «Sea» was not wide - first of all Beklemishev and Т.O.Sokolovskaya were the authors.
Besides the publications in the magazine some separate editions about freemasonry were advertised on the magazine covers of the organ of the Navy Renovation League. Some of these works were issued for the first time on the pages of the magazine «Sea». For example, the editorial board was announcing and suggesting to buy some books, such as “Freemasonry as a tool of the English foreign policy” by N.L. (St.-Petersburg, 1905), “The importance of Freemasonry for the Navy” by N.B. (St.-Petersburg, 1909), “Russia and Freemasonry” by N.B. (St.-Petersburg, 1909).
By the time of the first «Masonic» publications in the magazine «Sea», namely in 1905, such outstanding researchers, historians of the Masonic order as Stepan Yeshevsky (1829-1865), Michael Longinov (1823-1875), Peter Pekarsky (1827-1872), Nikolai Tihonravov (1832-1893), Nikolai Schilder (1842-1902), - have passed away.
On November, 26th, 1904, on the eve of the events in St.-Petersburg on January, 9th,1905, a great Russian scientist Alexander Pypin (1833-1904), who practically had laid the foundation for the academic studies of the social movement history in Russia.
Academician Alexander Pypin considered freemasonry as a form of social organization available for many nations in Europe and America which have a universal character. Perfectly well knowing the history of studying of the question not only by the Russian science, but also having studied works of the most known researchers of freemasonry in Germany, France, England and other countries, having studied archival materials, discovering new hand-written sources in the archives, Alexander Pypin creates the complex of historical canvases related to the history of Russian freemasonry of the XVIII and XIX centuries. One can mention such works of his, which have become axiomatic, as «Historical Essays. Social movement in Russia under Alexander I» (the last edition of 1918, Petersburg), «Russian freemasonry of XVIII century and of the first quarter of XIX century» (Petersburg, 1916) «Religious movements under Alexander I» (Petersburg, 1916), «History of the Russian literature» (in 4 volumes, St.-Petersburg, 1911-1913) and a set of other articles and monographs. We can find an analysis of freemasonry in these works, which have given exact scientific frameworks and some kind of the system of co-ordinates within the theme « Freemasonry and the Russian society».
The researchers of the pre-revolutionary Russia, who followed him, were developing only separate questions of different historical epochs, without covering the entire problem.
Editions and reprints of the non-published works by A.N.Pypin, that have appeared after its death, were conducted by some young scientists such as G.V.Vernadsky, N.K.Piksanov, Y.L.Barskov. They ‘entered’ the Masonic theme after Pypin and they were able to get into his scientific laboratory. They have also accepted Pypin’s tonality and estimations of the freemasonic movement as a whole, as well as the personal characteristics of its representatives, characteristics of many problems and themes.
In the XX century beginning there was a fast change of historians. The new generation of researchers strenuously paid attention to the «internal» life of the society, and this fact influenced the quantity and the quality of the works about the Russian social life. Therefore the theme of freemasonry became one of questions which has been mentioned and highlighted by many historians, literary critics and archivists in their works. Here are some names: A.M.Vasyutinski, M.V.Dovnar-Zapolsky, N.K.Kulman, S.P.Melgunov, V.N.Pertsev, I.N.Rozanov, I.S.Ryabinin, A.V.Semeka, V.I.Semevski, N.P.Sydorov, Т.O.Sokolovskaya, E.I.Tarasov, V.N.Tukalevsky, I.M.Heraskov, E.S.Shumigorsky, P.E.Shegolev and others.
The academic trend in science continued to develop; it was giving some feed to the popular scientific literature. The reader was receiving positive, clearly verified knowledge about the order of freemasons, based on the facts. A lot of interesting documents about the history of freemasonic lodges were being published...
Alas, this process was interrupted by the October coup d'etat in 1917, it was blown off by the new cold winds.
The last issue of the magazine was released in 1917 already after Emperor Nicholas II renunciation of the throne. That last book contained an article written by Tirra Ottovna Sokolovskaya: «Has Peter the Great ever been a freemason?».
The «Sea» has never been published any more.
Sergey Lebedev
February, 1994.
St.-Petersburg.
April--May, 2013.
St.-Petersburg.
This work was executed by the members
of the independent research group «MUSEUM OF MERCY»
within our project «WHITE SPOT»:
40 Telmana street, app.348, St.-Petersburg, 193230, Russia,
phone numbers: 442-68-52; 8-952-210-75-34.
The author expresses special gratitude to the staff of the journal department of the former Imperial Public library in St.-Petersburg for the assistance and the rendered help in work.
The author expresses his deep gratitude to his mother Tatyana Sergeevna Lebedeva, and also to those who supported his endeavours on the freemasonry studying, namely to Nicholas Mazurenko, Tatyana Korneeva, Dmitry Daev, Vladimir Kozyrev, Alexey Kotsubinsky, Victor Brachev, Galina Volosova, Vladimir Gronsky, Natalia Dyachenko, Cyril Petrov, Lev Parason, Konstantin Petrov, Alexander Pshenichnikov, Vladimir Sokolov, Galina Solovjeva, Vitaly Startsev, Vadim Fedorov, Konstantin Hudolej, Vladlen Chertinov, Michael Shevchenko.
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