Jia Ruskaja

With her father, an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, Ruskaja fled Russia in 1918 just after the October Revolution.

Ruskaja married Evans Daniel Pole in Constantinople in 1920; after their marriage was annulled, their son lived in London with his father.

After her marriage to Aldo Borelli, editor of Corriere della Sera, Ruskaja received Italian citizenship.

In 1940, she founded the Royal School of Dance, initially attached to the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico, which became independent in 1948 as Accademia nazionale di danza, a school which only admitted women.

[1] Daisy Parrilla and Eleonora Abbagnato had contentious claims to the “Premio Roma Jia Russkaja” prize in 2011.

Jia Ruskaja during the rehearsal of Medea in the 1950s.