The Relationship Between Russian and French Freemasonry ( 1905 – 1945 )
risian GODF Lodge Agni in 1921 ; and Boris Savinkov ( 1879 – 1925 ), SR and former terrorist who became Minister of War in August 1917 , returned to the USSR in 1924 , and was executed by the Bolsheviks . Nevertheless , Kandaurov , who dominated the debate , pushed out those who opposed his plans , including the Ukrainian Markotun , and in 1921 the decision was finally made to create , first , a chapter in the AASR under the auspices of the SCDF and the GLDF , and then a Masonic lodge with the same name , Astrée . The chapter was constituted on April 15 and established on April 21 , with Kandaurov as the first Most Wise Athirsata , a post he held until 1942 . Astrée Lodge , which was given the number 500 , was established on January 14 , 1922 , by Maurice Monnier , Grand Master of the GLDF . It had seventeen members , including its first Worshipful Master , Maksheev ( Kandaurov ’ s first cousin ); Aleksandr Naumov , former Tsarist minister ; Nikolai Tchaikovsky , SR and president of the Arkhangelsk Governorate in 1918 ; Aleksei Putilov , an industrialist turned banker ; and Dimitri Navachine , a writer and later deputy director of the Soviet bank responsible for commercial relations between France and Russia . He was murdered in the Bois de Boulogne on January 23 , 1937 . It is still unknown whether the assassin , who was never caught , was operating on behalf of the Soviets or of La Cagoule , which thought , probably wrongly , that he was a Soviet agent .
The first initiates or affiliates of Astrée Lodge included Prince Vladimir Vyazemsky , owner of a racehorse
71 stables ; Prince Gagarin ; Prince Viktor Kocubey , who was initiated into L ’ Anglo-Saxon Lodge ; Savinkov , mentioned above ; and General Goleyevsky . According to Vyazemsky , the rate of initiations was so high that the initiates were unable to integrate with the other members and the lodge was unable to devote itself to other work . It had around a hundred members in 1923 , and a similar number in 1930 , despite various spin-offs and members leaving to join the GODF . As well as conducting initiations , its mission was to serve as a center of union for refugees , to reflect on future Russian institutions , and to train Brethren who would go on to form a liberal and spiritualist Masonry in Russia , in other words a Masonry that was totally different from the defunct GOPR .
The second lodge , Aurore Boréale no . 523 , opened in 1924 . Its Brothers were Orthodox Christians , many of them practicing , and its work was centered around Christian symbolism and esoterism . Its first Worshipful Master was General Polovtsov . In 1930 it had forty-nine members , including former officers of the Imperial Guard , under the gavel of Vyazemsky . The third lodge , Hermès , opened on December 15 , 1924 , and counted fifty-three Brethren in 1930 . Its members were senior executives and it was responsible for training new adepts . The fourth lodge was established on January 25 , 1925 , with the name La Toison d ’ Or . Its aim was to recruit and build a network of individuals from the Caucasus : Armenians , Azerbaijanis , Georgians , and other groups from the mountain re-