Enlightenment or Counter-Enlightenment in Russia? Enlightenment or Counter-Enlightenment in Russia? Century

Abstract

The article explores the themes of Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment through the lens of Freemasonry, and, more specifically, Freemasons in Russia who wrote history. It tests the approaches of Masonic history writers against Berlin’s definitions of the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. Whilst a definitive break between the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment seems attractive, the article advances a more nuanced picture of the plurality of religious and secular discourse in Russia. Instead of opposing the Enlightenment, many late eighteenth-century Masonic writers of history provided their own, alternative interpretative models of history as a way out of the perceived crisis between the mind and the soul.