Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov (1854–1946)

One of the important representatives of Russian populism at the end of the 19th century.

Morozov was born in 1854 and was a radical revolutionary when he was young. In the 1870s he began to take part in the revolutionary movement and was a prominent member of the Russian Narodnik organization “Zemlya i Volya” (Land and Liberty). He was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor for his involvement in the assassination of Alexander II, and after his release, he engaged in in teaching and scientific research activities in the institutions of higher learning in the University of Petersburg. After the victory of the October revolution, Morozov became the director of the Lesgaft Institute of Natural Sciences, and in 1932 he became an honorary member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Morozov had a wide range of interests and penchants. He made in-depth studies in natural science and historical science, but his works were still mainly influenced by populism. As a representative of revolutionary populism, Morozov acted as the representative of the interests of the peasants and directed his hatred towards the Tsar’s absolutism. He asserted that capitalism did not conform to the national conditions of Russia and pinned his hope for revolutionizing society on the peasants, and fantasized about a direct transition to the socialist society through the Russian rural commune. Morozov died in 1946.