On February 15, 1862, Savva Morozov, one of the richest Russian entrepreneurs of his time and a well-known philanthropist, was born in Moscow.

Despite conservative views in the economy, he was a supporter of social change and financed the Russian revolutionary movement. 

Graduate of Cambridge

Savva Morozov came from a wealthy Old Believer merchant family.

His grandfather, also called Savva, was a serf, but made capital on the trade in silk products, bought himself free and created his own commercial empire.

One of the sons of Savva Morozov Sr., Timofey, transformed his father's trading house into the Nikolskaya Manufactory Partnership, which became the largest textile company and one of the most successful commercial enterprises in the Russian Empire.

According to historians, in the house of Timofey Morozov, Old Believer traditions intertwined with new trends.

With his children were tutors-foreigners.

The heirs of Morozov themselves studied European languages ​​and got acquainted with works of foreign literature from an early age.

Savva received his secondary education at a privileged educational institution - the Moscow 4th gymnasium, where he, being outside the family, broke away from patriarchal values.

From an early age, Timofey Morozov instilled in his children a love for the theater.

They even put on amateur performances with friends at home.

After high school, Savva Morozov graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, and then studied chemistry at Cambridge, while getting acquainted with the organization of textile production in the UK.

Returning to Russia, Savva married, and under scandalous circumstances.

He fell in love with his cousin's wife, Zinaida, and she responded to his feelings by deciding to divorce her husband.

For his wife, Savva Morozov built a neo-Gothic estate in Moscow designed by architect Fyodor Shekhtel. 

In 1888, Timofei Morozov became very ill.

A year later, he died, making his wife Maria his main heiress, who inherited her husband's estate and almost half of the shares of the Nikolskaya manufactory.

The management of the family business became collegial, but Savva Morozov was considered its manager.

According to Sergey Vivatenko, lecturer at the St. Petersburg State Institute of Cinema and Television, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Savva Morozov turned out to be a leader who kept pace with the times and successfully developed the work of his ancestors.

In his work, he began to use the methods of statistics and elements of scientific forecasting.

  • Savva Morozov

  • © Wikimedia Commons

“He bought the best machine tools in England, so his enterprises were the richest.

He built factories in almost every provincial city, trying to destroy competitors through the decentralization of his enterprises, and ultimately turned out to be one of the most successful Russian entrepreneurs of his time, ”Vivatenko emphasized in a conversation with RT.

In addition to the family textile business, which consisted of three factories and a number of auxiliary industries, Morozov was engaged in the development of the chemical industry in Russia.

He became the owner of three plants in the Perm province, where he launched the production of acetic acid, wood and methyl alcohol, acetone, denatured alcohol, charcoal and acetic acid salt.

Among the merchants, Morozov enjoyed prestige.

He became chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Committee, a member of the Moscow branch of the Council of Trade and Manufactories, and also an elected member of the Moscow Exchange Society.

In addition, Morozov was actively involved in charity work, in particular, helping needy students.

Between art and revolution

One of the central issues for Savva Morozov after starting an independent business life was the implementation of reforms aimed at improving the lives of his employees.

“Because of the famous Morozov strike of 1885, when his father’s workers demanded to raise their wages and ease working conditions, but were dispersed by the troops, Savva Morozov had a certain complex.

He became one of the entrepreneurs who are now called socially responsible, ”said Igor Kiryanov, professor of PSNIU, Doctor of Historical Sciences, in an interview with RT.

According to historians, Morozov made sure that there were no unjustified layoffs at his enterprises.

At the state level, he demanded to limit the working day to 12 hours.

“Sunday schools and sports clubs were created at each Morozov enterprise, and showers worked.

Special houses were built for the workers,” Sergei Vivatenko said.

Some historians believe that Morozov, as an Old Believer, did not perceive the Romanov dynasty, but most researchers believe that at the dawn of his entrepreneurial career, he was loyal to the authorities.

In 1896, during the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod, the manufacturing department of which he led, Morozov personally met Emperor Nicholas II with bread and salt.

During the exhibition, Savva had a quarrel with Finance Minister Sergei Witte.  

Soon the minister failed the Morozov project on long-term loans from the treasury to industrialists and merchants.

This was a painful blow, with which some historians associate drastic changes in Morozov's worldview.

  • The former mansion of Savva Morozov on Spiridonovka

  • RIA News

  • © Eduard Pesov

After the deterioration of relations with Witte, Morozov left his social activities in the merchant environment.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, he fell into despondency and became embittered at the world around him.

Around the same time, his relationship with his wife deteriorated.

Morozov continued to manage the family business responsibly and with dedication, but he needed something that could fill the "spiritual void" that had formed after the refusal of social activities.

And the theater filled this void.

In the winter of 1897-1898, Morozov supported the idea of ​​Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, who decided to create the Moscow Art Theater, and became one of the shareholders of the new cultural institution, allocating 10 thousand rubles for this.

According to historians, Morozov went into a new business with his head.

In total, in the first years of the theater's existence, he invested up to half a million rubles in it - a colossal amount by the standards of that time.

In 1900, he became the director of the economic part of the theater and took up the arrangement of its building. 

  • Moscow Art Theatre, after perestroika 1900-1903

  • © Wikimedia Commons

At the same time

Morozov was carried away by one of the stars of the theater - the actress and secret Marxist revolutionary Maria Andreeva.

Their relationship began presumably in 1899 and lasted about four years.

Morozov was under the strong moral influence of the actress and began to provide material assistance to the Social Democrats.

“Morozov began to finance social democratic publications, in particular Iskra, and hid revolutionaries in his house.

There is a version that illegal printing houses were right at his factories, ”said Vitaly Zakharov, a professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, in a comment to RT.

In 1903, relations between Morozov and Andreeva ended.

The actress became the civil wife of the writer Maxim Gorky.

And a year later, Morozov ceased to participate in the activities of the Moscow Art Theater.

During the Revolution of 1905, he became disillusioned with the Social Democrats.

Morozov returned to the family and did not want to see anyone from outsiders.

According to acquaintances, he was in a state of nervous breakdown, on the verge of insanity.

However, according to some historians, he faked his illness in order to break the political ties that compromised him.

In 1905, Morozov and his wife left for France: according to one version, for treatment, according to another, to hide from the revolutionaries who demanded money from the entrepreneur.

On May 26, Savva Morozov was found shot to death in a hotel room in the Maritime Alps.

Next to him was a note in which he asked that no one be blamed for his death.

According to Vitaly Zakharov, historians do not have a common opinion about the real circumstances of the entrepreneur's death.

There are different versions: Morozov's suicide, murder out of political revenge (deprived of funding by revolutionaries or Black Hundreds), and even imitation of death.

Morozov was buried at the Old Believer Rogozhsky cemetery in Moscow, which became another reason for the public to doubt his suicide.

“Savva Morozov was a bright person.

He belonged to a galaxy of entrepreneurs of his time, who believed that their wealth is to some extent the property of the whole society, and they need to be shared.

Therefore, he introduced a social security system at his enterprises, introduced benefits, created conditions for training workers.

The ideals of social justice were not empty words for him,” concluded Vitaly Zakharov.