Boris Knyazev was born on 1 July 1900 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire.
He studied at the St. Petersburg Theater School from 1914 to 1917, class of Kasyan Goleizovsky and Mikhail Mordkin.
[citation needed] In 1937 he opened his own ballet school in Paris, and in 1953 one in Lausanne; he taught in Athens and Rome, and led the International Academy of Dance in Geneva.
He taught Zizi, Roland Petit, Yvette Chauvire and even Brigitte Bardot.
One of his followers is Stella Voskovetskaya, a Vaganova Academy graduate, who took the best of Knyazev barre au sol, and incorporated it into the best and most advanced system of ballet training, the Vaganova system.