Alexander Lyusy. Masonic order

Masonic order
A.L. Nikitin. Mystics, Rosicrucians and Templars in Soviet Russia: Research and materials. - M.: Agraf, 2000
O.F. Soloviev. Freemasonry: Dictionary-reference book. - M.: Agraf, 2001

Alexander Lyusy

Publication date: December 27, 2000

And of all the political movements, the phenomena that became the subject of research in both books turned out to be most closely related to anarchism. This applies both to the first anarchists Proudhon and Bakunin, and to the founders of the Kropotkin Museum in Moscow in the 1920s (in the latter case, the sharp criticism of the Moscow anarchists by the Parisians for mystical bias contributed to their arrest). This is where the similarities between the books end.

Andrei Nikitin first of all separates the Rosicrucians from the Freemasons (whose followers the Freemasons tried to show themselves to be) and the Templars, who were especially sympathetic to him. He was lucky enough to catch some of them or their loved ones alive. Freemasonry, as interpreted by Nikitin, is an organization that is too formalized in its desire to directly communicate with a certain Absolute, which it is embarrassed to call simply God. The true medieval Rosicrucians were primarily practical scientists and experimenters who tried to create a “unified science” by combining the knowledge of naturalists and magicians. The Order of the Templars ("templars") was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem by nine French knights with the goal of protecting pilgrims to the Holy Land from robbers, observing chastity, obedience and poverty.

The situation in which, under the conditions of Soviet Russia, a semi-underground revival of the knightly ideals of the past turned out to be possible can be compared with the Decembrist period. The young idealists who went through the revolution and war could not find any other use for their intellectual and spiritual impulses (the surrounding reality was repulsive, contact with the Orthodox Church was also impossible). But, as always, secret societies, such as the Order of Light, which became the focus of mystical anarchism, led by Apollo Karelin and Alexei Solonovich, served the secret police as a means of identifying people with views not sanctioned by the official ideology. As a result, the persecution of the Templars in the 14th century in France was repeated in the USSR, which gives Nikitin grounds for a rather amusing epistemological conclusion: “We, Russians of the late 20th century, who know the mechanics of the Stalinist processes of the 30s, which caused surprise and confusion among the Europeans who came to the conclusion that “it means that everything was so if the accused voluntarily confirmed the monstrous charges brought against them,” it is much easier to understand the “evidence” obtained by the investigators of the inquisitorial tribunals of the Middle Ages than for Western historians of the past and present centuries.” .

Whatever the “ease” may be, Nikitin is, of course, the discoverer of the Soviet Templars. His book is based primarily on material from the KGB archives, which were indeed quite easy to access at the turn of the 80s and 90s, which the author took advantage of. The book includes a number of Templar legends of that time, reminiscent of the stories of Borges in their space-time movements (and in investigative cases, they received characteristics like “occult-pornographic poem in prose”).

O. Solovyov’s book is a dictionary, but an unusual one, providing not for sequential, but for selective reading according to interests. The actual dictionary part occupies a little more than a hundred pages, and the majority consists of educational articles about the forerunners of the Freemasons (not only the above orders), which for some reason includes a centuries-old discussion about the possible nationality of Jesus Christ, about Masonic ritual and history, and especially about the involvement of the Freemasons to a variety of revolutions up to and including the Young Turk. As for today, it is reported that the strength of the recently created Grand Lodge of Russia is about 200 people, and the Masonic provinces of Moldova and Ukraine were headed by the rector of the Odessa Medical University, Zaporozhan; in general, Freemasonry is now experiencing its own revolution, moving away from purely internal problems and being puzzled by the questions: “What is the current meaning of brotherhood? What will we take with us into the 21st century?”

Still, the most interesting, although not exhaustive, is the vocabulary part, which brings unexpected discoveries. Thus, more than once I had to look into one of the main bestsellers of scientific and philosophical literature - “Order from Chaos” (1984) by the Belgian Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine (co-authored with Isabella Stengers), which tells about the new discovery of time. It turns out that the title of the book completely coincides with the motto of ” “an ancient... Scottish rite, conventionally calling on brothers to work tirelessly, following the example of the Great Architect of the Universe, to build a symbolic Temple by improving human relations .