Annotation: Polina Bogdanova analyzes the shared and individual features of the generation of theatre producers who had come of age by the early 1970s. This generation has taken up the baton from the cohort of major stage directors that preceded them. Not only did they speak out against the ideology and aesthetics of Stalinism, but they also rejected totalitarianism as such in all its guises. Their artistic and social agenda proved to be far more radical than that of their predecessors in that they primarily focused on issues of existential and metaphysical nature. This widened the scope of their creative quest, which worked to inscribe them into a larger context of world theatre. Today the names of Anatoly Vasiliev, Kama Ginkas, Lev Dodin and Valery Fokin are well known all around the world. These major artists are reputed for their originality and talent as creators of their own theatres, that were instrumental in shaping world theatre in the 20th and 21st centuries.