Yevgenia Vladimirovna Dobrovolskaya (Russian: Евге́ния Влади́мировна Доброво́льская; 26 December 1964 – 10 January 2025) was a Soviet and Russian actress of theater and cinema, People's Artist of the Russian Federation (2005), a laureate of the Nika Award (2001) and Golden Eagle Award (2007).

Biography

Dobrovolskaya was born on 26 December 1964 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.

In 1987 she graduated from GITIS (course of Lyudmila Kasatkina and Sergey Kolosov), and was admitted to the Maxim Gorky Moscow Art Theater.

She made her debut in the movies in 1983 in the Pavel Chukhrai film A Canary Cage.

In 2014, she took part in an advertising campaign for absorbent underwear, Depend.

Personal life

• First husband — Vyacheslav Baranov (1958-2012), actor.
  • Son Stepan (born 1 November 1986).
• Second husband — Mikhail Yefremov, actor (married from January 1990 to December 1997).
  • Son Nikolai (born 16 August 1991).
• Son Yan (born 19 July 2002) from extramarital affairs with the actor Yaroslav Boyko.
• Third husband — Dmitry Manannikov, cinematographer (2009-2025).
  • Daughter Anastasia (born 6 February 2009).

On 4 December 2024, Dobrovolskaya entered the palliative care center in Moscow for cancer complications. On 10 January 2025, she died from the illness at the age of sixty, after having battled serious illness for the last year of her life. Her diagnosis was not widely publicized and sources are divided as to when she was diagnosed with cancer giving the dates as early as 2021. Acute heart failure was named as the preliminary cause of the actress's death.

Selected filmography

• Moonzund (1987) as Irina Artenyeva
• Queen Margot (1996) as Margaret of Valois
• Mechanical Suite (2001) as Lyuba
• Deadly Force (2003) as Marina Korotkova
• Mars (2004) as Galina
• The Wedding Chest (2005) as apothecary
• Actress (2007) as Аnnа
• The Irony of Fate 2 (2007) as Snegurochka
• The Tale of Soldier Fedot, The Daring Fellow (2008) as nurse of king (voice)
• Jolly Fellows (2009) as Valentina
• Heavenly Court (2011) as Anna Vladimirovna, witness
• Guys from Mars (2011) as Yulia's mother
• The White Guard (2012) as Vanda
• Pyotr Leschenko. Everything That Was... (2013) as Maria Burenina
• Winter Season (2022) as Katya's mother