Morozovs

a family of Russian millionaire textile manufacturers.

The founder of the family was Savva Vasil’evich Morozov (1770–1862), a former serf, shepherd, drayman, and hired weaver at the Kononov factory. In 1797 he organized his own silk-weaving enterprise in the village of Zuevo in the Bogorodsk district of Moscow Province, today the city of Orekhovo-Zuevo. In 1820 he purchased both his own freedom and that of his four sons.

Between 1825 and 1840 the Morozovs founded four textile factories which during the second half of the 19th century grew into major firms: the Society of the Nikol’skoe Manufactory of Savva Morozov, Son, and Company; the Society of the Manufactory of Vikula Morozov and Sons in the Settlement of Nikol’skoe; the Company of the Bogorodsk-Glukhov Manufactory; and the Society of the Tver’ Manufactory of Cotton Goods. The famous Morozov strike of 1885 took place at the Nikol’skoe Manufactory while it was directed by Timofei Savvich Morozov (1823–89).

The best known of the family was the next owner of the Nikol’skoe Manufactory, Savva Timofeevich Morozov (born in 1862; died May 13 [26], 1905), who graduated in 1885 from Moscow University with a degree in chemistry. A friend of M. Gorky and a patron of the Moscow Art Theater, he was sympathetic to revolutionaries. As a member of the Moscow city duma during the revolutionary events of 1905, he spoke out against the use of military force in the struggle with the workers and advocated the right to strike, assemble, and organize peaceably. Yet it was on his initiative that in March 1905 a conference of industrial leaders met to consider joint measures against the strike movement. Savva Morozov’s contradictory public positions led him to personal catastrophe: removal from the affairs of the factory, illness, and suicide.

In 1913–14 the Morozov enterprises employed more than 54,000 workers; more than 100 million rubles worth of merchandise was produced and the net worth of Morozov capital exceeded 110 million rubles. The Morozov enterprises were nationalized along with other major textile factories by decree of the Soviet government on June 8, 1918.