Yury Grigorovich
Юрий Григорович
Grigorovich in 1979
Born	2 January 1927 Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR
Died	19 May 2025 (aged 98) Moscow, Russia
Occupation(s)	Ballet dancer, choreographer, pedagogue

Yury Nikolayevich Grigorovich (Russian: Юрий Николаевич Григорович; 2 January 1927 – 19 May 2025)^[1] was a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, ballet master, choreographer,^[2] and pedagogue who dominated the Russian ballet for 30 years.

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 headed 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. On 19 May 2025, Grigorovich died aged 98, on the same day as one of his fellow ballet dancers and collaborators, Yuri Vladimirov.^[3]

• 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)^[4]
• People's Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1981)
• Order of the October Revolution (1981)
• State Hamza Prize (1983)^[5]
• 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 rize (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)