It is known that Anna’s mother Lyubov Pavlova was a laundress, while the identity of her father remains unclear. It is debated whether he was Lyubov’s married husband Matvey, a soldier in the Russian army, or Lazar Polyakov, a banker at whose house she was serving prior to Anna’s birth.
When Anna Pavlova was eight she had an opportunity to watch Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Mariinsky Theater as a gift from her mother. It was there that she fell in love with ballet once and for all. From that moment on, Anna would rave about dancing and persuaded her mother to take her for an audition to ballet school – but she was refused entrance because of her young age and fragility.
The future ballet star was a slender girl with an “airy” constitution, while at that time a strong build was considered necessary for a dancer in order to perform complicated movements and figures.