Arts & Crafts – the Russian Connection

15 December 2021

Here are just a few key slides from the talk I gave to the William Morris Society recently.  I hope I’ll have the chance to do it again. I enjoyed the research about William Morris – about the influence his ideas and designs had on Russia and about his involvement with emigré Russians in London.

The main house on the Abramstevo estate

Constance Garnett’s translations of Russian literature into English made a huge contribution to the appreciation of Russian culture in Britain. She was encouraged and helped in this by both Feliks Volkovsky and Sergei Stepniak, political exiles from Russia, who were also friends with William Morris. Many of the Russians in London who opposed the Tsarist regime coalesced around Morris, who supported an organisation called The Friends of Russian Freedom.

At a meeting in December 1891 Volkovsky described the iniquities of the repressive government of Tsar Alexander III. Stepniak spoke next, at which point Morris (as quoted in Fiona MacCarthy’s biography) ‘sprang up and dashed into English Socialism, his voice rang out as he said that it was all very well to free Russia but were we not slaves ourselves, if Russia was in a mess we were in a terrible mess, let enlightened people join hands and help each other…’