Olga Lepeshinskaya (dancer)

Olga Lepeshinskaya
Lepeshinskaya as Swanilda, Coppélia, 1957
Born	28 September 1916 Kiev, Russian Empire
Died	20 December 2008 (aged 92) Moscow, Russia
Cause of death	Heart attack
Alma mater	Moscow State Academy of Choreography
Occupation	Prima ballerina, teacher
Years active	1935-2008
Awards	(1936) (1971)

Olga Vasiliyevna Lepeshinskaya (Russian: Ольга Васильевна Лепешинская; 28 September [O.S. 15 September] 1916 – December 20, 2008) was a Soviet ballerina. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1951.

Lepeshinskaya was born to an old Polish noble family in Kiev, Russian Empire (now the capital of Ukraine). Her grandfather, Vasily Pavlovich Lepeshinsky, was arrested as a member of the revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya. Her father, Vasily Vasilievich Lepeshinsky, was a railway engineer, one of the builders of the Chinese Eastern Railway.

From the early years Lepeshinskaya showed her talents in dancing and in the 1925 she was admitted to the Bolshoi Choreographic School. She appeared for the first time on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre at the age of ten as one of the little birds in the ballet The Daughter of the Snows. In 1932 she played the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker ballet.

Lepeshinskaya graduated from Bolshoi Choreographic School and started working the Bolshoi Theatre. She started as Rosina in a ballet of The Barber of Seville (Тщетная предосторожность) performed by the second stage of the theater. In 1935 she performed the main role in the Three Fat Men ballet by Yury Olesha. The ballet became very popular and the 18-year-old ballerina became famous.

Lepeshinskaya performed in private concerts at the Moscow Kremlin from the age of 17. She was very close to Polina Zhemchuzhina, wife of Vyacheslav Molotov. It was a great shock for her when Zhemchuzhina was imprisoned in a Gulag. Lepeshinskaya was known as the favourite ballerina of Joseph Stalin and even rumoured to be his mistress. In 1943 she became a member of the Communist Party.