Dr Robert Collis

BA (Hons), MA (The University of Sussex)
PhD (The University of Turku, Finland)

Contact Details

Tel: +44 (0) 7814157182

Email: r.collis@sheffield.ac.uk

Biography

I grew up in Suffolk and went on to take a history degree at the University of Sussex. A deepening interest in Russian history and culture led me to study for an MA in Russian Studies at Sussex.

I began my PhD studies at The University of Sheffield in 2000, where I focussed on a semiotic study of Russian radicals in the nineteenth century.

After a year at Sheffield I decided to spend a year learning Russian in St. Petersburg in 2001. On my return to England I soon left again, this time moving to Finland, where I began PhD studies at the University of Turku. I completed my doctoral thesis in 2008 on a study of religion, science and esotericism at the Court of Peter the Great. I am currently a Leverhulme Research Fellow, undertaking a project on Western esotericism and the Russian aristocracy between 1689-1825.

When not researching weird and wonderful aspects of Russian history, I enjoy playing football, tennis and have recently taken up marathon running. I also enjoy strumming a guitar.

Research Interests

My main area of research concerns aspects of Western esotericism in Russian history. I am also interested in the history of fraternalism in Russia (especially in the eighteenth century).

Publications

Book:

• The Petrine Instauration: Religion, Esotericism and Science at the Court of Peter the Great, 1689-1725 (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

Edited Volume:

• Freemasonry and Fraternalism in Eighteenth-Century Russia, with Andreas Önnerfors (Sheffield: Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, 2009).

Selected Articles

• ‘The Petersburg Crucible: Alchemy and the Russian Nobility in Catherine the Great’s Russia’, Journal of Religion in Europe, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2012), (forthcoming).
• ‘Merkavah Mysticism and Visions of Power in Early Eighteenth-Century Russia: The New Year Panegyrics of Stefan Iavorskii, 1703-1706’, Russian Literature, special issue on Russian literature of the eighteenth century, guest edited by Joachim Klein (forthcoming in 2012).
• ‘Magic, Medicine and Authority in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Muscovy: Andreas Engelhardt (d. 1683) and the Role of the Western Physician at the Court of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, 1656-1666’ (forthcoming in 2012).
• ‘Andrei Vinius (1641-1716) and the Transmission of Western Esoteric Philosophy to Russia’, Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, Vol 12:2 (2012) (forthcoming).
• ‘Jolly Jades, Lewd Ladies and Moral Muses” Women and Clubs in Early Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol. 2 No. 2 (2011), (forthcoming).
• ‘Using the Stars: Astrology at the Court of Peter the Great’, in Nicholas Campion (ed.), Astrologies: Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Sophia Centre Conference 2010 (Lampeter: Sophia Centre Press, 2011). Forthcoming in 2011.
• ‘”Stars Rule Over People, but God Rules Over the Stars”: The Astrological Worldview of Boris Ivanovich Kurakin (1676-1727)’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteruopas, Band 59, forthcoming in 2011.
• ‘Maxim the Greek, Astrology and the Great Conjunction of 1524’, The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 88, Number 4 (Oct. 2010), pp. 602-23.
• 'Chivalric Muses: The Role and Influence of Protectresses in Eighteenth-Century Jacobite Fraternities', in Maire Cross (ed.) Gender and Fraternal Orders in Europe from 1200 Until the Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), pp. 102-32.
• ‘Jacobite Networks, Freemasonry and Fraternal Sociability and their Influence in Russia, 1714-1740’, Politica Hermetica, Vol. 24 (2010), pp. 89-99.
• ‘Mag elizavetinskoi epokhi: astrologicheskaia kar’era Elizeusa Bomeliusa v Anglii v 1560-kh godakh’, Britanskie issledovaniia, Vypusk III (2010), pp. 154-77.
• ‘Hewing the Rough Stone: Masonic Influence in Peter the Great’s Russia, 1689-1725’, in Andreas Önnerfors & Robert Collis (eds.) Freemasonry and Fraternalism in Eastern Europe: Sheffield Lectures on the History of Freemasonry and Fraternalism, No. 2 (Sheffield: The Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, 2009), pp. 33-61.
• ‘Freemasonry and the Occult at the Court of Peter the Great,’ Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, Vol. VI, No.1, 2006, pp. 1-26.
• ‘Alchemical Interest at the Petrine Court,’ Esoterica, Vol VII, (2005) Online peer-reviewed journal hosted by Michigan State University. Go to www.esoteric.msu.edu.
• ‘Peter the Great and the Petersburg Myth: Notions of Babylon and New Jerusalem,’ Faravid, 28 (2004), pp. 41-72.

Teaching

• RUS 110: Russian Society in the Twentieth Century
• RUS120: Introduction to Russian Culture
• RUS337/385/386: Project in Russian/Czech/Polish