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Abstract:

The article examines the main projections of Russian Voltairianism and Russian Freemasonry in the era of Empress Catherine II on the material of both fiction and ego texst of the second half of the 18^th century, including epistolaries. The article is focused on the problem of the interaction of Voltarianism and Freemasonry as the dominant noble subcultures of the Enlightenment era with the supreme power, the embodiment of which was Catherine II, and an analysis of the reason for this. The author considers the main cultural world images of the Voltarianism in their evolution from the 1760s to the 1790s, answering the question why Catherine II, who initially saw in Voltaire the embodiment of the very idea of the Enlightenment grew cold both towards him and his work with the beginning of the French Revolution. The paper gives an answer to the question why Empress Catherine II felt distrust and hostility towards “freemasons”, which was reflected both in her work (from anti-Masonic treatises to comedies), and in her domestic policy, which did not stop at direct repressions against Russian Martinists, followers of L.-K. de Saint-Martin. The article specifically addresses the question of the Masonic strategy of counteracting government repressions on the example of I.V. Lopukhin’s Masonic life-creation.

Кeywords: Catherine II, the Enlightenment, cultural world images, Voltarianism, Freemasonry, I.V. Lopukhin.