The Institute for Freemasonry Study in the Eastern Europe (IFSEE) is the first organization of this kind in the post-Soviet territory.
We work in the format of public, non-government, non-profit organization and seek for uniting of scientists in the Eastern Europe, Europe, the US, the Grand Lodges of different jurisdictions, specialized mass-media for the common working in the sphere of the study and popularization of freemasonry, to create extensive collection of scientific, publicistic and informative resources on the freemasonry (in English, Ukrainian, Russian) that may give a strong impetus to the development of the freemasonry study in the post-Soviet territory and the Eastern Europe as a whole.
There was not such pilot projects in the post-Soviet territory, that is why lack of experience, informational, financial, and organizational support in the countries where freemasonry is not well known, creates some problems and simultaneously indicates to wide perspectives.
The durable absence of conditions for the legal existence of the Masonic lodges and caused by this the inclination of the latter to secret forms of activities, scarcity and inaccessibility of the proper sources, censorship-all of these has slowed down and almost made it impossiblethe scientific activity of their movement in Ukraine, that created prejudiced attitude to this historic phenomenon of many people including historians, politologists, lawyers, culture experts, and finally led to ideologization and politicization of this very theme. The School of Ukrainian Masonic study was not created yet. That is why scientists who have strong interest in this get some questions on socio-political and religoius issues, the answers can be given only by the future researches. But, it is necessary to note that that this situation is not only in Ukraine and in the whole Eastern Europe.
The lack of dictionaries, handbooks, encyclopedias, compiled documents, system and complex, active common work of Ukrainian, Russian, and other scientists acts as a brake on this initiative. The great problem is that there was no conference on masonry in post-Soviet territory and Ukraine as well.
In addition, the lack of particular masonic archives, funds, libraries, exhibitions on freemasonry, lectures creates stable stereotypes in the consciousness of the people.
Sure, immensity of the problem foresees titanic, long, hard work work on it, and the presence of strong partners as within the country and abroad.
For realization of full value researches on freemasonry it would be great to have a cooperation between Ukrainian and foreign scientists. Theeffectiveness of this has already been proved, regrettably not in Ukraine. The first steps were made by the Russian scientists. The creation of thoughtful scientific reconnoitre by the American scientist Douglas Smith on the history of the russian freemasonry of 18-th century was due to cooperation with such Russian scientists as Andriy Serkov, Oleg Solovyov, Olga Varyash.
We want to cooperate with high-ranking scientists, journalists, and freemasons of different degrees.
We propose strong partnership and cooperation which will give an opportunity to exchange with important information ( freemasonry in the Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine is not explored at all), to establish international connections, to provide people with the
information on history, philosophy of freemasonry, to create effective team for the common work-researches on freemasonry and its popularization.
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Sincerely yours, Rostislav Galelyuk
The Director of Institute for Freemasonry Study in the Eastern Europe (IFSEE)
