Inna Zubkovskaya

Who was Inna Zubkovskaya?

Inna Zubkovskaya was a Russian ballerina. She was trained at the Bolshoi School and graduated in 1941. She immediately joined the Kirov Ballet where she remained until her retirement in 1970. According to Meisner, "her flawless technique, allied to a sensitive reticence, fitted the Maryinsky's elegant purity and they invited her to join". She was half-Jewish with an exceptional, dark-eyed beauty - earning the nickname the Black Pearl. She then became a teacher of the company until her death. She married twice: first to Nicolai Zubkovsky - whose name she kept for the stage - before divorcing him and marrying Sviatoslav Kusnetsov. Both her husbands were dancers. and her daughter, Katerina, and her son, Nikolai, both became dancers in the Maryinsky.

Zubkovskaya was unusual as she was a Kirov dancer with a Bolshoi background. This arose as she was evacuated to Perm, a wartime haven for Soviet artists and arts institutions, where she joined the Kirov Ballet. She danced many major roles of the classical repertory, including Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Nikiya in La Bayadere, Kitri in Don Quixote, the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty and the title role of La Esmeralda.