Remembering, Removing, Remaking: Biblical Memory in Radishchev and Masonic Writings

• In Event: The Power of Memory in Late Eighteenth-Century Russian Literary Culture

Abstract

This paper revisits the question of Aleksandr Radishchev’s relationship with Freemasonry by comparing the image of Christ as (de)constructed across Radishchev’s works with Christological motifs in texts associated with Nikolai Novikov’s Masonic circle. Radishchev and the Masons both locate the voice of God in the inner person and therefore seem to erase Scriptural memory altogether. Yet, differences emerge in the ways each set of texts recalls and reimagines the Bible: whereas the Masons keep Scripture tangibly present in their rituals and encourage highly emotional readings that view individual experience in scriptural terms, Radishchev recycles biblical motifs and scriptural language as a literary toolkit employed in the service of an abstract philosophical project.

Author

• Kelsey Rubin-Detlev, U of Southern California