Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

In Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace the character Pierre Bezukhov joins the Russian Freemasons. Bezukhov is seeking in masonry a mystical connection that can reconcile two prevailing Russian currents of thought, that of the Westernisers and that of the Slavophiles. The character naively expects the secrets of the craft to deliver some manner of revelatory self-knowledge. This expectation inevitably leads to disillusion as Pierre finds something which simply reflects the structures of Russian society in which he is already an unwilling participant. “Under the Masonic aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in ordinary life.” Pierre’s disappointment is brought to mind by the Moscow Times’ article exploring freemasonry in Russia. During Soviet times freemasonry ceased to exist. It was one of the many independent organisations opposed by the Communist authorities. More recently Democratic Party presidential candidate Andrei Bogdanov provided a whiff ...

Although I suspect that my comment about Russia is the least read content on this blog, there is an election in just over two weeks time and I shall plough ahead posting about it whether youse are interested or not! In this spirit I thought I might highlight some of the main sources through which the election can be followed over the next few weeks (for those who are interested in keeping up with events). To begin with some background Rupert Wingfield Hayes has been compiling a series of articles over the past few weeks on the BBC’s website. The sequence follows the journalist on a trip along the Volga River where he tries to give a flavour of provincial European Russia as it prepares to go to the polls. The link is to his final instalment , but the previous articles are linked to the right of the page. Only Dmitri Medvedev has English language content on his official webpage which also provides links to speeches given by United Russia’s candidate. For the perpetually curious the...