Kaarel Ird

Kaarel Ird (27 August 1909 – 25 December 1986) was an Estonian theatre leader, director and actor.

Ird was born in Riga, and his theatrical career started in 1932 in Pärnu Töölisteater. Since 1940 he worked at Vanemuine Theatre, being most of time its stage manager, but in the meantime also its head.

From 1963 to 1971 and again from 1980 to 1985, Ird was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Kaarel Ird has remained in the history of Estonian theatre as a conflicted and contradictory personality. On the one hand, he was a powerful, explosive and dictatorial theatre director with a communist worldview, and on the other hand, he was a fervent defender of Estonian original heritage, which was condemned by the regime, the one who turned Vanemuine into a nationwide phenomenon and the guardian of the theatre renewal generation of the 1970s.

He also preserved the last of German influenced theater in Estonia while other theaters were slowly influenced by russification policies.

In 1936, Ird wed the stage actress and theatre director Epp Kaidu. He died on 25 December 1986 in Viljandi.