| "This
book is a significant contribution to the field. Other scholars have
decoded Masonic and other esoteric elements in Pushkin's writings,
but to the best of my knowledge, Leighton is the only one who has
revealed the esoteric dialogue between Pushkin and his contemporaries,
and traced the path by which particular esoteric elements entered
into Russian romantic literature. The chapters contain a wealth of
material on the writings of certain Decembrists and their context."—Bernice
Glazer Rosenthal, Fordham University
The European esoteric tradition was introduced into Russia in the
eighteenth century by Freemasons and continued in Russian romantic
literature of the early nineteenth century. This study, which conjoins
historiographical methods developed by modern scholars of esoterica
and formalist methods of textual analysis, reveals the role of that
tradition in Russian romantic literature. It deals extensively with
Decembrism, the political conspiracy so known after its culmination
in a failed attempt to overthrow the tsarist autocracy in December
1825. The Decembrist writers and other romantics influenced by Freemasonry,
including Kondraty Ryleyev, Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, and Alexander
Pushkin, were adept in the application of thaumaturgical skills
to literature. Thaumaturgy denotes the application of arcane skills,
some derived from the Cabala, to both the interpretation and creation
of encoded literary texts.
The Esoteric Tradition in Russian Romantic Literature, also
deals with the relationships between Russia's national poet and
those writers who made the first major attempt at a Russian revolution.
Viewing these relationships through the prism of occult imagery
used in various literary works, Leighton tells an engaging story
of political intrigue and communication by secret codes. |
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