Konstantin Khabensky is a Soviet and Russian theater, film, television, and dubbing actor, film director, screenwriter, producer, and public figure. People's Artist of the Russian Federation (2012). Since October 28, 2021, he has served as the Artistic Director and General Director of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre. Born on January 11, 1972, in Leningrad, USSR.
In July 2018, he was entered into the database of the "Myrotvorets" website for illegally visiting the territory of Russian-occupied Crimea.
In 2024, he became a member of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art of the Russian Federation.
Konstantin Khabensky's Stance on the War in Ukraine
Konstantin Khabensky avoids making direct political comments and describes himself as apolitical. At the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he ostensibly expressed support for Ukrainians, but those anti-war posts were soon revealed to be fake. In March 2022, on the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre's official page, he declared that he had never participated and had no intention of engaging in political debates, including the topic of war.
Later, Khabensky released the following statement:
Under today's circumstances, when people are dying every single day, it is very hard — psychologically hard — for me and many of my colleagues to step onto the stage and do our work, yet we will continue doing our job. Because the theater is a place where people speak about humanity, about the life of the human spirit, and about the values of human life
Subsequently, he canceled several scheduled productions at MXAT:
The special military operation continues. Almost every day people are perishing. The boys carrying out their professional duty. Ordinary civilians. The theater is a living organism. It has a duty to know, see, and feel all of this. We are not obliged to comment on current events, but we must sense the situation, feel the audience's mood, and deeply understand why they come to us right now
As director of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, he removed from the theater's production schedules the premieres of artists who did not support the war in Ukraine, while in remaining repertoire productions the names of directors Dmitry Krymov, Kirill Serebrennikov, and Aleksandr Molochnikov were completely erased from playbills.
In January 2023, he fired People's Artist of Russia Dmitry Nazarov and his wife, Olga Vasilyeva, from the theater on account of their anti-war stance.
In September 2023, Putin bestowed upon Khabensky the "Order of Honor" for his contributions to the development of Russian culture and arts and many years of fruitful work.
In February 2025, in an interview with aif.ru, Khabensky revealed that he is planning to stage theatrical productions centered on the so-called SMO:
We have to wait. There is a beginning — but no finale yet. And talking about what happened to a person during the SMO without some degree of generalization seems premature to me. Although with the literature created over the past three years, one can already begin working. And we are thinking in that direction. In particular, we talked with Anna Revyakina. This cannot be done merely for the sake of ticking a box, just to report: here is a timely performance for you. I wouldn't rush or force the events. The guys are fighting, risking their lives. So let us also be careful with this subject.
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