Princess Volkonskaya profoundly influenced her son Serge, defining many of his interests, including his Orthodox religious views; among her friends was the well-known Russian philosopher, theologian and poet Vladimir Solovyov.

From his birth, Michael was registered as a serf, and as the son of a deportee wasn't allowed to enter the University, [clarification needed] but in 1855, just after the death of Emperor Nicholas I, he reached Russia from Siberia, and by the 1870s had become a member of the State Council.

In the spring of 1893, he attended the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago as an official representative of the Department of Public Instruction, and an article by him about it was published later on in Vestnik Evropy ("The European Bulletin").

In 1910, he trained in and taught eurhythmics with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, influencing Stanislavski's work on "tempo-rhythm",[4][5] as well as the Delsarte method of gestures and movements, and he began to publish articles publicizing them in Russia.

After the October Revolution he taught acting technique in Moscow for a time, but in the spring of 1919 he contracted typhus (as a result of which a premature obituary was published), and in August he was arrested by the Cheka.

During this time he became "a close friend and associate of the poet Marina Tsvetaeva (who dedicated to him her cycle of poems 'The Disciple' and wrote an essay about his memoirs).