Saint Petersburg: MP Asterion Publ., 2012, 616 p. (in Russian)

Russian Rosicrucianism in the last third of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries, which was an esoteric community based partly on alchemical and partly Masonic traditions, has always attracted the attention of both foreign and domestic historians. Especially interest in this phenomenon increased in the late XX-early XXI centuries. As a consequence, many scientific, semi-scientific and pseudoscientific works are devoted to Russian Rosicrucianism today.

A special place in this historiographic stream is occupied by the book of Doctor of Historical Sciences Yu. E. Kondakov " The Order of the Golden and Pink Cross in Russia. Theoretical Degree of Solomon Sciences", which, according to the author himself, is "the first comprehensive study devoted to the activities of the Order of the Golden and Pink Cross in Russia" and a thematic continuation of his previous works - "Liberal and conservative trends in religious movements in Russia in the first quarter of the XIX century" and "Rosicrucians, Martinists and" inner Christians"in Russia at the end of the XVIII - first quarter

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XIX century"2. This time, Kondakov, "relying on published works and archival materials," decided to "highlight the history of the establishment of the Order of the Golden and Pink Cross in Russia, ""analyze its administrative and" ritual "structure," and "trace how the order structures developed in Russia during the XVIII-XIX centuries," as well as "to reveal the composition of the Order and its relations with Masonic lodges of other systems, spiritual and secular authorities " (p. 15).

The book consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, and an appendix, and is a work of more than solid volume (616 pages). In this regard, as a general comment, I would like to say first of all that this work could be completely freed from some of the arguments and materials that are unnecessary, from our point of view, as well as from the annoying repetitions that occur in it. Thus, the chapters on the history of Rosicrucianism in Russia seem overloaded and difficult to read, in which the author pays too much attention to quoting well-known, published sources, but at the same time says almost nothing about the social and educational activities of the Rosicrucians, without describing which it is impossible to imagine the true scale of their influence on the socio-political and cultural life of Russian society and understand the reasons for the negative attitude of the state authorities towards them. In addition, in a scientific publication, personal and subject indexes, as well as a bibliography on the research topic, would be useful.

The first chapter of the book is devoted to "general questions of the structure and teaching of the Order of the Golden and Rose Cross". It begins with a historiographical sketch, which, unfortunately, is characterized by incompleteness, extreme fragmentation and lack of logical consistency in the presentation of the material. For some unknown reason, Kondakov missed out on a number of important scientific papers, which undoubtedly impoverished his research. For example, he ignored Yu. M. Lotman's articles about A. M. Kutuzov with the publication of his letters to I. P. Turgenev3; N. D. Kochet-

2. Kondakov Yu. E. Liberal and conservative trends in religious movements in Russia in the first quarter of the XIX century. St. Petersburg, 2005; Kondakov Yu. E.Rozenkreuzery, martinisty i "vnutrennye khristiane" v Rossii kontsa XVIII - pervoi kvartii XIX veka [Rosicrucians, Martinists and "inner Christians" in Russia at the end of the XVIII-first quarter of the XIX century]. St. Petersburg, 2011.

3. Lotman Yu. M. "Sochuvstvennik" A. N. Radishchev A.M. Kutuzov i ego

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Kova on the ideological and literary positions of Freemasons and N. M. Karamzin, the attitude of Catherine II to Freemasons 4; V. A. Zapadov on the government persecution of N. I. Novikov 5; Yu. V. Stennik on the attitude of Freemasonry to Orthodoxy 6; as well as publications of archival materials containing important documents, including on the topics considered by Kondakov. At the same time, among the huge number of researchers of Russian Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism considered in the historiographical part of the monograph, only a few (for example, Renko D. Gefart, V. S. Brachev and Yu.L. Khalturin) received a positive assessment. To most of his predecessors, Kondakov makes extremely harsh and not always fair claims and deliberately highlights the mistakes, misunderstandings and inaccuracies they made. So, in his opinion, the fundamental work of M. N. Longinov is just "an excellent guide for a superficial acquaintance with the history of Russian Freemasonry"; V. N. Tukalevsky, who proposed an original typology of trends in Russian Rosicrucianism, turns out that "he did not introduce anything new to the subject under study, based on the works of his predecessors"; and the beautiful book of Russian Freemasonry is a very interesting one. In terms of research, the work of Ya. L. Barskov is "superficial and tendentious".

As a result, instead of chronologically and logically consistent presentation of related historiographical facts, consideration of the movement of scientific thought from the point of view of changing concepts, views, ideas, and identifying the main trends in the development of the problem under study, Kondakov simply limited himself to listing who and how many times domestic and foreign researchers made mistakes and inaccuracies. Please note:-

letters to I. P. Turgenev//Scientific notes of the University of Tartu. 1963. Issue 139-pp. 293-294.

4. Kochetkova N. D. Ideino-literaturnye pozitsii masonov 80 - 90-kh gg. XVIII v. I N. M. Karamzin [Ideological and literary positions of Masons in the 80s-90s of the 18th century and N. M. Karamzin]. The Epoch of Classicism, Moscow, L., 1964. pp. 176-196; Kochetkova N. D. Catherine II and the Masons//International Conference "Catherine the Great: The Epoch of Russian History": Abstracts. Saint Petersburg, August 26 - 29, 1996 / Editors-in-chief T. V. Artemyeva, M. I. Mikeshin. St. Petersburg: SPbNC Publ., 1996, pp. 142-144-

5. Zapadov V. A. On the history of government prosecution of N. I. Novikov. Collection 11. N. I. Novikov and the social and literary movement of his time, L., 1976, pp. 37-48.

6. Stennik Yu. V. Pravoslavie i masonstvo v Rossii XVIII veka (k postanovke problemy) [Orthodoxy and Freemasonry in Russia of the XVIII century (to the problem statement)]. 1995. N 1. pp. 76-92.

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This approach makes it possible to raise the question of the scientific correctness of the author of the reviewed book, who, in fact, claims not only to be global (or complex), but also to be exceptional in his research.

At the same time, the new work of Y. E. Kondakov is based on an extensive source base consisting of official Rosicrucian documents, sources of personal origin, Masonic Rosicrucian literature, and so on. Numerous unpublished materials are extremely interesting and informative, and the author has worked through a huge number of collections in the archives of Moscow and St. Petersburg in search of them. Without any exaggeration, he has studied a lot of archival documents, some of which are being introduced into scientific use for the first time. Researchers will undoubtedly be grateful to Kondakov for analyzing and extensively quoting one of the most important documents of the Order "Strong Exhortation"; for P. I. Schwartz's report on the conflict between N. I. Novikov and I. A. Pozdeyev (pp. 322-324); for publishing the "Theoretical Degree" with a valuable and informative introductory article (pp. 551-615). although, unfortunately, no comments.

It is all the more offensive that Kondakov, by a strange oversight, ignores not only certain important sources, including those published and put into scientific circulation, but also entire archival collections - for example, N. N. Nikolev in the Manuscripts Department of the Russian National Library. Such a selective approach is hardly scientific. In addition, without any justification, he refers to the sources on the history of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism documents that have nothing to do with this history - for example, the materials of the archive file No. 2483 in the RGIA fund No. 1374 entitled "Execution of the decree on the closure of several guild communities (clubs)" (p.67). At the same time, the correct name of this case is "Correspondence with the governors on the execution of the Highest order regarding the closure of petty - bourgeois guild meetings (clubs)."

Further, in the section "The history and teachings of the Order of the Golden and Pink Cross", Kondakov, by his own admission, gave "a far from complete overview of the history and teachings of the Order of the Golden and Pink Cross", believing that this will be enough "to understand the main material of the book" (p.128). This, however, is impossible to agree with-

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Instead of reconstructing the teachings of the Rosicrucians, who offered an original alchemical interpretation of the Christian faith, Kondakov gives the reader a simple selection of quotations from the so-called "dogmatic works of the Rosicrucians" ("Strong Exhortation", "Pastoral Epistle", etc.), from the reading of which a very superficial and, in the end, simply incorrect idea of the meaning of the Christian faith is formed. the Rosicrucian doctrine.

But the paragraphs "Rosicrucian charter" and "Administration of the Order of the Golden and Rose Cross" make an undoubted and indisputable contribution to the study of Russian Rosicrucianism as a "system of higher degrees". The author describes in detail, relying on sources, the Rosicrucian works in each degree of initiation and for the first time completely reconstructs the "rigid vertical" structure of the Order's management.

In his book, Kondakov pays special attention to the history of the Order of the Golden and Pink Cross in Russia in the XVIII-XIX centuries. At the same time, he demonstrates incredible courage, revising most traditional points of view and creating numerous, but sometimes simply fantastic historical hypotheses, the evidence base of which, despite the use of an impressive amount of published and archival materials, does not stand up to criticism.

Thus, Kondakov's statement that "researchers usually did not connect the foundation of the Harmony Lodge "with the Wilhelmsbad Convention" for the reason that these events were separated by two years" should be considered excessively bold and unfounded (pp. 217-218). However, N. P. Kiselyov also pointed out that the Harmony Lodge "had an official goal - to enlist the patronage of Duke Ferdinand and prepare the ground for the recognition of Russia as an independent province of the Masonic order; unofficial and most important - the search for 'true Freemasonry'".

Kondakov's statements concerning the history of Rosicrucianism in Russia, namely, that A. A. Lenivtsev, who left the Rosicrucian Order at the beginning of the 19th century, continued to "introduce the order's teaching in the entourage of Alexander I" (p. 317), seem to be insufficiently reasoned and, most likely, erroneous - because at that time he was guided by the mysticism of the Russian Orthodox Church.- apocalyptic teaching of the New Israel Society, co.-

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The Toroe was a peculiar mixture of Swedenborgianism, Catholicism, and the occult sciences, to which were added the veneration of the Virgin Mary as the fourth hypostasis of God and the Athanasian creed, and individual members studied and practiced Renaissance alchemy, Alexandrian theurgy, Hermeticism, numerology, and the spiritual and mystical interpretation of dreams. "the conflict among the Rosicrucians arose over the rights to open lodges of the theoretical degree" (p. 340) - because according to sources, including those cited by the author himself, at this stage the conflict most likely concerned the rights to manage St. John's lodges; that " the letter of January 20, 1802 suggests that N. I. Novikov was forced to accept the authority of I. A. Pozdeyev" (p. 342), because in this letter we are not talking about the appointment of P. G. Belyaev as the chief supervisor of the Theoretical Degree in St. Petersburg, but about the new head of the service A. F. Labzin; that " Masonic institutions of A. F. Labzin (lodges of the Dying Sphinx, Bethlehem, and the Theoretical Degree) were "completely dependent on N. I. Novikov" (p. 401), because at that time A. F. Labzin was acting independently, as evidenced, for example, by his correspondence with D. P. Runich.

Sometimes the author's desire to revise the concepts of his predecessors and, in the end, impress the reader with original ideas plays a cruel joke with him. Thus, Kondakov's statement that N. N. Trubetskoy handed over the post of general director to I. A. Pozdeev in the early 1790s seems to us to be excessively bold, and most importantly, unproven and unjustified (pp. 321-322). The author does not provide the necessary documentary evidence in this case, limiting himself to conjectural reconstructions based on very tendentiously selected facts. An attempt to "unambiguously prove" your thesis with the help of a very witty, but completely unscientific " attribution of the term... "the master" (which, according to Kondakov, is exactly what the Rosicrucians - N. I. Novikov, M. Yu. Vielgorsky, S. S. Lanskoy - called I. A. Pozdeyev) looks strange at best.

Continuing in the same vein, I could point out a large number of other shortcomings of the reviewed work and give

7. Harrison, J. F. C. (1979) The Second Coming. Popular Millenarianism 1780 - 1850, p. 70. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

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it has even more negative ratings. However, in order not to appear biased, I note that in the historical part of his book, Kondakov gave a reasoned explanation of the silanum of 1784, which, in his opinion, was connected "with the refusal of the Rosicrucians to comply with the decisions of the Wilhelmsbad Convention" and work according to the acts of the "corrected Scottish rite". Accordingly, Kondakov makes a well-founded conclusion that "silanum's time was set aside for drafting and introducing new acts" (p. 241). In addition, Kondakov argued that the leader of Kutuzov's alchemical work was not Baron Schroeder, but one of the oldest members of the order, Francis du Boeck (pp. 260-262).

Concluding this review, I would like to draw attention to the fact that in general, after reading the book by Yu. E. Kondakov, a very stable impression is created that this is not at all an "exhaustive study" of Russian Rosicrucianism, which "sums up many years of studying esoteric Freemasonry", or even a scientific monograph, but at best materials for such research which, I hope, will soon appear in our historical science.

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