Lyubimov, Yuri Petrovich 1917–2014, Russian theater director, b. Yaroslavl, grad. B. V. Shchukin Drama School (1939). After service in World War II, he joined (1946) the Vakhtangov Theater as an actor, becoming a director after 1959. His 1963 production of Brecht's Good Person of Szechwan created a sensation and established him as a leader of Russia's experimental theater. The following year he founded Moscow's Taganka Theater, which became extremely popular with its many avant-garde productions. In 1984, while in London, Lyubimov publicly criticized the Soviet government, which then stripped him of his citizenship and removed him from his theater post. He subsequently directed productions at prominent theaters throughout Europe and the United States. In 1988, as glasnost was changing Soviet cultural policy, Lyubimov was invited back to Russia to stage Boris Godunov. His citizenship and his directorship of the Taganka were restored, and he retired as artistic director in 2011.
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