Ivan Elagin (December 1, 1918 – February 8, 1987; russian: Иван Венедиктович Елагин, real name Ivan Matveyev) was a Russian émigré

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

born in

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea ...

. He was the husband of poet

Olga Anstei Olga Nikolaevna Anstei also Olga Anstey (1 March 1912 – 30 May 1985; uk, Ольга Анстей), was a History of the Jews in Ukraine, Jewish-Ukrainian émigré poet from Kiev. She was the wife of poet Ivan Elagin (poet), Ivan Elagin ( uk, � ...

, best remembered for writing about

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

Life

Ivan Matveyev was born in Vladivostok in Siberia and studied medicine in Kiev in the 1930s. He was the first cousin of poet

Novella Matveyeva Novella Nikolayevna Matveyeva (russian: Новелла Николаевна Матвеева; 7 October 1934 in Pushkin, Saint Petersburg – 4 September 2016, Moscow Oblast) was a Russian bard, poet, writer, screenwriter, dramatist, and literar ...

. During World War II he remained in Kiev under the German occupation, and after the war served as a medic, and spent several years in displaced persons camps before immigrating to the United States. Elagin and his wife Olga left the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

to the West with the retreating German army in 1943. Their works were published side by side in the poetry anthology entitled ''Berega: Stikhi Poetov Vtoroi Emigratsii'' (Shores: Poetry of the Second Emigration) by Valentina Sinkevich, the first ever collection of works by the second wave of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. They divorced in New York in 1950. Elagin became professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

; a post held until his death from cancer in 1987. Professor Elagin was also affiliated with the Russian School at the Middlebury College Language Schools program. He was appointed as Visiting Poet-Lecturer in 1969 by Robert L. Baker, Dean and Director of the Russian Summer School.

References

External links

* Ivan Elagin papers and correspondences at the University of Pittsburgh {{DEFAULTSORT:Elagin, Ivan Soviet poets Jewish writers 1918 births 1987 deaths Soviet emigrants to the United States Deaths from cancer in Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh faculty