The Russian ballerina Lydia Kyasht was very much a free spirit. A childhood friend of her fellow ballerina Tamara Karsavina, she appears frequently in the early pages of the latter's autobiography, usually as chief mischief-maker, and her autobiography reflects that aspect of her personality. She gives her impressions and experiences of European life and society, especially of the Russian Court before the revolution, but her book is as much about the author's romantic adventures as it is about her dazzling career as a dancer - "I believe it is a good thing for a woman to have a lover", she writes, a bold sentiment for 1929 when her book was first published.
Kyasht was born in 1885. She studied at the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet School with Pavel Gerdt and joined the Maryinsky Theatre in 1902, becoming second dancer in 1905 and first dancer in 1908. She was also a soloist with the Bolshoi (1903-4) and performed in various concert recitals. In 1908 she went to London where she succeeded Adeline Genée as prima ballerina at the Empire Theatre, performing there for several seasons until 1913. In 1912 she also danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (and again in 1919), and made her New York debut in 1914. After returning to Russia to dance concert performances (1914-17) she settled in London and founded her own school (which moved to Cirencester in 1948) while also dancing in cabaret and the theatre. In 1939 she founded her own company, Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise, which toured England (1939) and Europe (1944) and in 1940 also ran the Lydia Kyasht Ballet. From 1953 she also taught at the Legat School. She died in 1959.