Abstract

Z.G. Morozova — wife of the entrepreneur and philanthropist S.T. Morozov and later of the Moscow governor A.A. Reinbot — left a marked imprint on the cultural, charitable, and business life of Moscow and Russia in the early twentieth century. For the first time, the authors have read Morozova’s memoirs in their entirety, provided commentary, prepared them for publication (2025), and introduced them into scholarly circulation on the basis of manuscript drafts preserved in the holdings of the A.A. Bakhrushin Central State Theatre Museum. Alongside the memoirs, seven letters from Morozova to O.L. Knipper-Chekhova, written between 1902 and 1939, have been published from the collections of the Moscow Art Theatre Museum, together with visual materials from several Moscow museums. The article offers a source-critical characterization of this editorial work and outlines further prospects for research and for increasing the informational yield of the published materials. The chronological horizon of the ego-document corresponds to one of the most contested periods in Russian history: the final decades of imperial Russia, the eve of the events of 1917, and the years that followed. Morozova’s memoirs feature political and public figures, writers, artists, and actors who formed the elite of Russia’s Silver Age culture. The perceptive, at times incisive, and often ironic — occasionally unexpected — observations and judgments of an influential and intelligent woman about her era, its protagonists, and its prevailing moods will undoubtedly contribute to a fuller understanding of this watershed time, with all its conflicts and contradictions. The work with Morozova’s memoirs is conducted within the framework of the biographical method, an approach that privileges the discovery and appropriation of sources capable not only of reconstructing the past but also of representing it. Ego-documents are treated here as micronarratives of self and time, registering individual responses to historical landscapes changing before their eyes; assessing their informational potential, in turn, enriches historical knowledge with the emotional and psychological apprehension of the past.