Alexander Burdonsky, Russian Director and Stalin’s Grandson, Dies at 75 – The New York Times

Alexander Burdonsky, an honored theater director in Russia and a grandson of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, has died. He was 75.

The Central Theater of the Russian Army in Moscow, where he had worked for 45 years, announced his death on Wednesday, saying the cause was cancer. It did not say where or when he died.

Mr. Burdonsky was decorated in 1996 as a People’s Artist of Russia, one of his country’s most prestigious awards. The Russian Army theater is housed in a grandiose Stalin-era building in the shape of a star. He directed more than two dozen plays there, including Chekhov’s “The Seagull.”

In a telegram, the Russian culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky, hailed Mr. Burdonsky as a “many-faceted talent.”