Allegiance and treason in a friendly circle: the 1790s

This article concerns the sentimental cult of friendship in the eighteenth century. It investigates how the ethical norms underpinning the cult were put into practice by Rosicrucian freemasons in Moscow in the early 1790s and analyzes their divided loyalties. Treatises of the 18th century claimed that friends should display unlimited allegiance toward one another in the event of misfortune, but the same treatises also claimed that allegiance to state and religion was paramount. A person who broke faith with either institution did not deserve personal loyalty. Russia’s Rosicrucian freemasons, N. I. Novikov, N. N. Trubetskoi, I. V. Lopukhin, I. P. Turgenev and A. M. Kutuzov, had two opportunities to reflect on the dilemmas of loyalty: once in 1790, when Kutuzov’s close friend, A. N. Radishchev was arrested on charges of treason, and again in 1792, as it became clear that they themselves would be arrested. In both cases, it transpired that their primary loyalties lay with the state.