Nina Popova, Dancer Who Fled Bolsheviks and Nazis, Dies at 97

This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Nina Popova was a celebrated ballet dancer who escaped the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Nazis in Paris. It was the coronavirus that ultimately caught up to her.

She died on Aug. 7 at Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine, Fla., with a nurse holding her hand, her daughter, Irene Arriola, said. She was 97.

Ms. Popova married twice and had two children, one from each marriage — but, her daughter said, her interest was in dance, not parenting. She had no grandchildren. “I promised her that the dysfunction would end with me,” Ms. Arriola said.