He ruled the world's most famous ballet company with an iron fist for three decades until he was ousted in a revolt against his authoritarian style.

Now Yuri Grigorovich is returning to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow to oversee the Soviet-era repertoire that earned him global fame as a choreographer.

Grigorovich, 81, was the Bolshoi's artistic director from 1964 until 1995 when he was forced out amid accusations that its reputation had stagnated and crumbled with the Soviet Union. His appointment this week as a ballet master by the general director Anatoli Iksanov marks a stunning return.

In a classically Russian twist, Grigorovich first received the invitation to return to the theatre at the funeral last month of his wife, Natalia Bessmertnova, the legendary ballerina whose name means immortal in Russian.

She was among 15 dancers who protested against Grigorovich's departure with a one-day strike. They appeared on stage in jeans and T-shirts before a shocked audience expecting to see Romeo and Juliet, the first time that a performance was cancelled by a dancers' protest since the Bolshoi was founded in 1776. “The director said at the funeral that the Bolshoi is home to Mr Grigorovich and he is most welcome back. Since we have nine Grigorovich productions in the current repertoire, he thought it would be good to have him back in a certain role,” the theatre spokeswoman Katerina Novikova told The Times.

In a sign perhaps of continued controversy over Grigorovich's legacy, his appointment was announced as the Bolshoi named Yuri Burlaka to be its new artistic director from 2009. Burlaka, 39, will replace Aleksei Ratmansky, who has won widespread praise as artistic director since 2004 for modernising the Bolshoi's outlook and restoring its world-class reputation.

Mr Iksanov declared that, in choosing Burlaka, “I was guided by the principle that the new artistic director of the Bolshoi Theatre's ballet should be the heir of Ratmansky”. The Bolshoi's current repertoire includes nine ballets choreographed by Grigorovich, including Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, as well as Aram Khachaturian's Spartacus. It performed his version of Adolphe Adam's Giselle last night.

The Bolshoi symbolised Soviet cultural success under his rule, dazzling Western audiences by the brilliance and athleticism of its dancers, some of whom defected during foreign tours despite constant KGB attention. His staging of Spartacus helped to create the image of male Russian dancers as muscular and virile performers.

But his dictatorial management style drew comparisons to Joseph Stalin and even star dancers lived in fear of sudden dismissal. One leading dancer, Gediminas Taranda, stunned his audience in 1993 by announcing on stage that he had been fired. Reform was essential after the Soviet collapse as state funding dwindled and stars took the chance to earn more money abroad. But Grigorovich resisted moves to place dancers on renewable contracts and refused to update the Bolshoi's repertoire.

He was forced to resign after repeated clashes with the general director Vladimir Kokonin. His replacement was Vladimir Vasiliev, a former leading dancer who had been pushed out by Grigorovich in the 1980s. Mr Vasiliev was dismissed by President Putin in 2000 amid discontent at poor performances.

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