Working the Rough Stone: Freemasonry in Eighteenth Century Russia by Douglas s> Smith (review)

Abstract

i6o SEER, 79, I, 2001 for his usefulappendix of manuscriptsourcesfor the instructionsof the sejmiki between I773 and 1788. There is little doubt, however, that Lukowskisits squarelyin the pessimist camp. He is particularly good at exposing the enlightened cant of the partitionersfor the specious humbug it undoubtedlywas, yet the eye he turns on Polish politics is at times a triflejaundiced. It is true that examples of political stupidityor treacherousdouble-dealingarenot hardto come by, and that many Polesproved naive in the extreme, especiallyin theirdealingswith that arch-cynic Frederick II. It is also important to avoid the misty-eyed nostalgia with which so many have viewed the Four Year Sejm and the Constitution of 3 May. Nevertheless, if Lukowski'sshrewd and hard-headed judgements on Polish politics in the late eighteenth century are often wellfounded , his view of the Commonwealth is relentlesslynegative. As a state it was farmore than a 'failedexperiment'(p. I89), and for much of its existence it was farfrom 'ungovernable'(p. 8). Lukowskitakesno account of historians such as Jacek Staszewski and J6zef Gierowski, who have done much to reinterpret the eighteenth century. Gierowski's recent survey, translatecl rather unevenly into English by Henry Leeming (T-hePolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth intheXVIIIthcentury. From anarchy towell-organised state,Rozprawy WydzialuHistoryczno-Filozoficznego,og6lnego zbiorutom 82, PolskaAkademia Umiej?tnogci, Krak6w, I996), while by no means uncritical,provides a much more positive and optimistic assessment.There is no doubt, however, that Lukowski's arguments are well-considered and well-supported, and teachers will welcome the fact that their students can now read such widely differinginterpretationsfrom two distinguishedscholars. Department ofHistory ROBERT I. FROST King'sCollege London Smith, Douglas. Working theRoughStone- Freemasony in Eighteenth Century Russia.NorthernIllinoisUniversityPress,De Kalb, IL, I 99. x + 257 pp. Bibliography.Index. ?27.95. THE title of this book, 'Workingthe Rough Stone', on eighteenth century Russian freemasonry has been chosen in order to indicate the purpose attributed to the movement at the time, namely to refine and purify the thoughts and actions of those who became masons by means of a process of conscious moral self-improvement.The book is based on a Ph.D. thesiswhich has been considerablyexpanded and deepened. In his introductionthe author rightlystressesthe internationalsignificance of the many differingforms of masonry, a movement which, as far as Russia was concerned, was part and parcel of the westernization of society. After accepting cameralism and the Polizeistaat, followed by the Enlightenment from the West, Russian educated men (and it was primarily a movement reserved for men) sought a spiritualdimension of greater or lesser depth to anchor their strivingfor a moral content, a reform of heart and manners in their attitude to social issues, and in many cases for mystical experiences beyond thefrontiersof the RussianOrthodox Church.Belongingto a masonic REVIEWS i6i order was also a key to acceptance in the wider society of the Republic of LettersthroughoutEurope. The authorhas been able to make use of unpublishedmaterialproducedby the Russian scholar, A. I. Serkov, which has given considerable body to his book. He describeslife in the lodges in the context of the development of civil society, particularly striking in the last third of the century. He rightly challenges some of the assumptionsmade about the passivityof the Russian public but is himself perhaps too liable to accept au pied de la lettrethe fashionablejudgement of political sociologiststo the effectthat 'centralto the development of the "public"throughoutEuropewas the rise of the absolutist state'. England? The United Provinces? Maybe the 'public' would have emerged earlierin Russia if it had escaped the gripof absolutism. That there was a Russian public by the end of the eighteenth century is indisputable, and one might suggest that as elsewhere it developed step by stepwith the introductionof printingon a commercialscale.It isthiseducated public, both noble and non-noble, which was attracted to the masonic movement, and Smith gives a competent account of the numbers of lodges, the particulartype of freemasonrypractisedin them and their relationshipto the European-widemovement. Obviously farmore is known about the noble membersof the lodges who travelledwidely and were in intimatecontactwith leaders of the movement in differentcountries than about the more humble membersofthe merchantestate,andthe numerousmembersoftheembryonic non-noble intelligentsiaandthe craftsmenwho neverthelessplayeda considerable partin it. Smith also analysesthe attitudeof the Russian government to the masonic...