Yury Grigorovich

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Nikolayevich and the family name is Grigorovich.

Yury Nikolayevich Grigorovich (Russian: Юрий Николаевич Григорович; born 2 January 1927) is a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, ballet master, choreographer^[1] and pedagogue who dominated the Russian ballet for 30 years.

Yury Grigorovich
Юрий Григорович
Grigorovich in 1979
Born	(1927-01-02) January 2, 1927 (age 98) Leningrad, RSFSR, Soviet Union
Occupation(s)	Ballet dancer, choreographer, pedagogue

Yury Grigorovich after receiving the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" award in 2007.

Biography

Grigorovich was born in Leningrad to a family connected with the Imperial Russian Ballet. He graduated from the Leningrad Choreographic School in 1946 and danced as a soloist of the Kirov Ballet until 1962. His staging of Sergei Prokofiev's The Stone Flower (1957) and of The Legend of Love [ru] (1961) brought him acclaim as a choreographer. In 1964 he moved to the Bolshoi Theatre, where he would work as an artistic director until 1995. His most famous productions at the Bolshoi were The Nutcracker (1966), Spartacus (1967), and Ivan the Terrible (1975) [ru]. He controversially reworked Swan Lake to produce a happy end for the story in 1984. In 1995, he was accused of having allowed the theatre to plunge into stagnation and after many a squabble was ousted from office. Thereupon he choreographed for various Russian companies before settling in Krasnodar, where he set up his own company. Grigorovich has been heading the juries of numerous international competitions in classical ballet. After the death of his wife, ballerina Natalia Bessmertnova, he was offered the opportunity to return to the Bolshoi again in the capacity of ballet master and choreographer.

Awards and honors

• Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1957)
• Medal "In Commemoration of the 250th Anniversary of Leningrad" (1957)
• People's Artist of the RSFSR (1966)
• Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1970)
• Lenin Prize (1970)
• People's Artist of the USSR (1973)
• Two Orders of Lenin (1976, 1986)
• Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 1st class (Bulgaria) (1977)
• Two USSR State Prizes (1977, 1985)^[2]
• People's Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1981)
• Order of the October Revolution (1981)
• State Hamza Prize (1983)^[3]
• Hero of Socialist Labour (1986)
• Medal "In Commemoration of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow" (1997)
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 3rd class (2002) - for outstanding contribution to the development of choreographic art
• Golden Mask (2003)
• Order of Merit (Ukraine), 3rd class (2004)
• Order of Friendship (Kazakhstan), 2nd class (2005)
• Ludvig Nobel Prize (2006)
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 2nd class (2007) - for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic and international choreographic art, many years of creative activity
• Order of Francysk Skaryna (2007)
• Ovation (2008)
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 1st class (2011)
• State Prize of the Russian Federation (2017)

References

1. todayszaman.com Archived October 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
2. "Постановление ЦК КПСС и Совета Министров СССР О присуждении Государственных премий СССР 1977 года в области литературы, искусства и архитектуры" (PDF). Sovetskaya kultura (in Russian). No. 91. 8 November 1977. p. 5.
3. "Адабиёт, санъат ва архитектура соҳасида Ҳамза номидаги Ўзбекистон ССР давлат мукофотларини бериш тўғрисида" [On awarding the State Prizes of the Uzbekistan SSR named after Hamza in the field of literature, art and architecture]. Sovet Oʻzbekistoni (in Uzbek). No. 247. 28 October 1983. p. 2.