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Petar J. Petrovic's [slow] Gait towards the Prep Room"

Documented Tale

of

Petar J. Petrovic's Gait towards the Prep Room

Researched and compiled by

Karl Hameder

"There are legal standards, but there are also human standards" used to reiterate an old colleague when he was to "explain" why a lazy kid of a prominent citizen should be granted a chance to avoid their make-up exam. Although the ways of the Lord are incomprehensible to most of us, mere mortals, this attitude can sometimes prove correct. However, leaving the decisive majority in the state of non-seeing, non-hearing and non-speaking, now in the 21st century, when the general state of mind of the human society has made another step off its primeval basis and started building a new cognitive world is neither nice nor worthy of further endeavour. Anyway, this is not a story from the 21st century, nor even from the 20th century — intended digression has just become progression — a kind of warning that such " indecisiveness" that the story is trying to tell us about should not happen now since the world is different, more info-mature than a century and a half ago.

What is generally true for all times and epochs is common agreement on what the human and humane qualities of an individual are, on who is a good man, and who is not, without meticulous philosophizing on the elements forming such opinion. Freemasons, and there should be no exception, are both good and of good reputation. If there is disagreement, whiteballs and blackballs are to resolve it to the satisfaction of all, especially to the very Institution of Freemasonry. That it is not easy and that doubts may outlive their time is the intended message of this story.

The hero of this narrative is a man of the most common Serbian name Petar Petrovic, born on the distant 29 March 1854 in Kragujevac, being a naturalized citizen of Belgrade during the brewing of this story and the court locksmith and mechanic as well as supplier of the Serbian army in the 1880s.

It seems that the same Petar Petrovic, in addition to his decent, regular job, also got into wholesale dealings at the time of the unfortunate (like all the others of the kind) Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885, where he appears as a supplier of 250 tons of flour to the Serbian army. We do not have hard evidence on many of his other activities, so those will not be mentioned with the exception of one more, just lightly, because this said delivery job became a representative in terms of the subject of this story. So, facts prove that Peter J. Petrovic supplied flour for the purposes of mobilization, which he purchased from the company Concordia:

Half of the flour in 70-kg sacks was sold to the HQ of the Danube Division for 41,291 Serbian dinars thus raking in a hefty amount. The flour was duly received and recorded in accordance with the contract signed a few days earlier, on 28 October 1885. Since the state budget was quite exhausted Commander D. Stefanovic ordered that the debt had to be paid in zapisnici i.e. vouchers, void of interest, on the day of 05 January 1886 — later postponed to the end of the week i.e. January 08. However, payment in cash was made suddenly on 25 November 1885.

In the same period, in addition to this case, Peter J. Petrovic was accused of a fishy business with ammunition, which he also supplied to the Serbian army. The ammunition allegedly turned out to be "bad."

However, that lacked ground as well; at least this is what corresponding written documents say. Here is a translation into the German language of a letter dated 02 March 1891. On the back of the letter is the certification seal of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate in Belgrade dated 17 November 1891 in which the claim of poor quality of the ammunition is denied:

The bustling capitalistic world of Europe in the second half of the 19th century aiming at a number of benefits for its production and life and forging plans for the permanent exploitation of countries under imminently former Turkish interests, sending its experts to the Balkans, primarily to Belgrade, under the pretext of aid for the development of infrastructure, was preparing the foundation for the conversion of the Balkan countries, which the "great European nations" have always considered inferior, into dominions of industrialized Europe. Attracted by such plans, Belgrade of the 1880s was the meeting place of mainly Austro-Hungarian, but also French, German and Italian engineers, businessmen, bankers, representatives of insurance companies, financial experts, land (railway) and water transport companies.

Thriving in such an environment, trading in goods of key importance for the events of the second half of the ninth decade of the 19th century, seeing that his membership in the Masonic world, as he believed it, may through potential contacts improve his work as well as his social status Petar Petrovic submitted his application for membership in Lodge Arpad, Or. Szeged on 12 November 1888.

Why that Lodge? Here is the explanation. In German, Mr. Petrovic states that his folks are actually immigrants from Hungary. His parents moved to Kragujevac where he was born and where he probably attended school, a total of 6 (4 + 2) classes of a secondary school, the contemporary lower and higher Gymnasium.

At the end of 1888 there is plenty of Masonic commotion in Belgrade. Austria-Hungary showed great care about attracting prominent citizens of Belgrade, candidates for membership in the Masonic Union under its umbrella. Since Freemasonry was still out of favour in the Austrian part of the Empire and the Symbolic Grand Lodge of Hungary, amalgamated with the Great Orient of the country only 2 years before, was busily working on expansion of its sphere of influence, the Hungarians were planning to open lodges under their own jurisdiction in Belgrade and Zemlin. The job was supposed to be carried out by Lodge Arpad of Szeged, the most populous Hungarian lodge at the time, as well as by the Budapest Lodge Demokratia.

On 18 December 1888, the Worshipful Master of Lodge Arpad, Pál Nyilassy writes to Alfons Brun in Zemlin inquiring about candidates for membership in Lodge Stella Orientalis, Or. Zemlin (Zemun), which is to be formed after about a year and a half later and in which Brun is to be elected Worshipful Master. Alfons Brun sends a three-page report to Nyilassy indicating possible members and explaining the choice. In addition to 1/ Alois Vanvory?, 2/ Anthony Buner ?, 3/ Stefan Liszay 4/ Vasa Radulovic, 5/ Andra Jankovic, 6/ Alois Haverer?, 7/ Alexander Engel, 8/ Julius Horvath, 9/ Josef Fuchs, the tenth on the list is Pera Petrovic selected on the grounds of his kinship (brother) to the former Minister of finance as well as his "moral qualities" and "extensive connections that may be of great help to the Lodge." However, Petar Petrovic, as well as candidates 1/, 2/, 3/ and 6/ never turn up. On 19 January 1890 Lodge Stella Orientalis, Or. Zemlin became operational but Petar Petrovic's name did not appear in any further Lodge document.

We have to mention the Belgrade Lodge Pobratim, founded pretty hastily, due probably to a/m reasons as well as the fact that Pobratim was about to become a Scottish Rite Lodge, which is of little importance for this story. According to a document, namely the list of founders of Lodge Pobratim made on 07 December 1890, it turns out that six founding members of the Lodge were initiated and passed to both the second and third degrees on the same day, namely 05 October 1890 (Georg Weifert, Sreta Stojkovic, Tihomir Markovic, Andra Djordjevic, Demeter Biba and Stevan Mokranjac). The remaining two members (Branko Boskovic and Milorad Terzibasic) went through the same procedure on 29 November of the same year, all in the Budapest Lodge Demokratia. This will play an important role in Petar Petrovic's Masonic "Golgotha."

Although Masonic lodges had already sprouted up in Zemun and Belgrade Petar J. Petrovic's 1888 application still stood still. Based on the letters and documents available some serious disagreement emerged within the two a/m Lodges about the validity of Petrovic's personality and business. While some swore that he was a good and honorable man (Ferencz Kovacs, head of the Belgrade Customs, Moshin Beck, the owner of a shipping company, both members of Stella Orientalis, and 30° degree Djoka Milovanovic of Pobratim, a mason since 1877) others (Georg Weifert of Pobratim, Julius Stielly of Stella Orientalis and many others from these two lodges) vehemently opposed admission. There must have been substantial misunderstanding within the aforementioned Lodges because on 27 February 1891 several telegrams with diametrically opposing contents were sent from Belgrade to the Secretary of Lodge Arpad, Prof. Macskassy. On the said day at 12:06 Julius Stielly's telegram calls Petrovic "a sinful man," at 12:26 Milovanovic sends a telegram in German supporting admission: "aufnahme unbedingt verschieben brief folgt," and at 4:45 comes Weifert's nay: "his admission will be at the expense of our matter."

What is the epilogue of this three-year-long story on Petar J. Petrovic's admission to membership in Freemasonry? After almost three years of loitering in the "Preparation Room" Petrovic was initiated in Lodge Arpad, Orient Szeged; what happened with him later, we do not know.

I came across the documents supporting this story by chance. To my great regret, I am not in possession of any further documents which could shed more light on the details of this story and provide further conclusions. I guess it is good this way since this is what stories are for - to encourage further discussion and research. If I were a historian, I certainly would not put an end here, but I am a former teacher, who serves exactly that purpose — to unlock [the door] and leave it ajar.