Graduation Year
2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
History
Major Professor
Kees Boterbloem, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Golfo Alexopoulos, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Victor Peppard, Ph.D.
Keywords
Authoritarianism, Enlightenment, Masonry, Mysticism, Social Media
Abstract
This thesis seeks to explore Russian Freemasonry in both the reign of Peter I and in theRussian Federation following the collapse of the Soviet Union, two periods where the relevant scholarship has largely fallen silent. The first chapter argues that early Masonic influences were both present at the court of Peter I and accepted by the Tsar. These intellectual trends, traceable in the libraries, social connections, and writings of individual Jacobites, would reemerge in the institutional Freemasonry in the reign of Catherine II. The printing and translation activities of Novikov and Lopukhin indicate a strong interest in these mystical ideas as well as a willingness to spread them among the Russian reading public. Thus, the esoteric ideas embraced by the Jacobites of the Petrine court reemerge in the nineteenth-century writings of Anna Labzina, whose entanglement with Freemasonry represented an intellectual adoption of the fraternity’s values even when she herself was barred from membership. The second chapter utilizes the extensive social media presence of the political technologist Andrey Bogdanov, the current Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia, as its primary source. Through a wide analysis of his travels, as well as a closer reading of his individual posts, it argues that Russian Freemasonry is used by Bogdanov to promote a pro-Kremlin worldview to an international audience while giving the Grand Master justification to increase his reach through global travel.
Scholar Commons Citation
Greene, James Patrick, "Bookends: Freemasonry in Russia, Past and Present" (2023). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/9872
