The Russian Jesuit Myth

In 1865, Iurii Samarin, a representative of the second generation of Slavophiles, wrote five open letters to the Jesuit father, Jean (Ivan) Martynov, a Russian convert to Catholicism. This series of letters, published first in Russian in the Slavophile journal Den´, then translated into French and published in Paris in 1867, formed the basis for the Russian Jesuit myth. Partly inspired by the French, and more generally European, Jesuit myth, it can be understood as a "message," a "language," a "narrative," a "legend," or even a "fiction that claimed to be true."¹ It was the Russian version of one of the three influential modern European myths of conspiracy that formed during the long 19th century: those of the Freemasons, the Jesuits, and the Jews.²

The Russian Jesuit myth, like its sources of inspiration, had the same kind of explanatory function, which could give meaning to both the past and the present; possessing the strength to mobilize, it was used as a "weapon of propaganda in political disputes."³ However, the political, ideological, cultural, and religious contexts for the formation of the Jesuit myth in France and Russia were different.

The French Jesuit myth arose in a postrevolutionary period at a time when "modern France itself was being born amid the beginnings of the industrial revolution."⁴ This was also an era marked by the rensewal of the Catholic Church and "the appearance of new literary forms" shaped by Romanticism, which was "more favorable to the Christian tradition and religious feelings than the Age of Enlightenment had been."⁵ Yet, at the same time, this period saw the emerging political fight for religious freedom and secularism (laïcité) and, not least, the formation of major political movements—liberalism, nationalism, socialism—that contained a large antireligious component.⁶

The Russian Jesuit myth, in contrast, acquired its final form in the writings of Samarin some decades later, after the Polish Uprising of 1863–64 and in the context of reforms in the Kingdom of Poland that were carried out by close friends and in part prepared by Samarin himself.

Although the two myths appeared in totally different circumstances, they were both based on the "fantasy of an all-powerful [Catholic] clerical power."⁷ In the Russian case, however, this myth not only crystallized the hatred many members of Russian high society felt at this time for the Society of Jesus, but it also fed, expressed, and strengthened the hatred of "Polish rebels" as Catholics. Consequently, the Russian Jesuit myth was part of an even more complex ideological triad of Latinism-Jesuitism-Polonism, a term used by imperial representatives in the Kingdom of Poland for Russian politics after the uprising of 1863–64.

An analysis of Samarin and Martynov's foundational texts reveals parallels with those of other "men of letters" (hommes de Lettres) of the 1840s–60s (Father Ivan Gagarin, Mikhail Katkov, Ivan Aksakov, Nikolai Strakhov) as well as the decisions and policies of imperial representatives (such as Nikolai Miliutin and Vladimir Cherkasskii) after the Polish Uprising. They also evoke legal and administrative decisions taken from the reign of Catherine II to that of Alexander I concerning the presence of the Society of Jesus on the territory of the Russian Empire from 1772 to 1820, and the issue of conversion to Catholicism among some of Russia's aristocracy, especially in the first half of the 19th century, under the direct or indirect influence of the Jesuit fathers.

By analyzing both political events and intellectual texts, we can better understand the content of the Russian Jesuit myth, its origins, the mechanisms of its construction, its Russian and non-Russian intellectual influences, and its specific features. Of particular significance is also how "men of letters" became "men of action": how, on the one hand, some thinkers sought to put their knowledge and expertise at the service of the imperial government to achieve the state's objectives (or indeed actively formulated those objectives), and how, on the other hand, that government, to some extent attentive to public opinion, agreed to "collaborate" with representatives of this "societyin-the-making."⁸ Not least...