Ivan Elagin was born Ivan Venediktovich Matveiev in Vladivostok, Russia on December 1, 1918. His father was the Futurist poet Venedikt Mart. His grandfather was N.P. Matveiev, a publisher and journalist. Elagin began his academic career studying Medicine at the Soviet Institute of Higher Learning in Kiev in the 1930s. In 1941 his studies were interrupted by war and he served as a medic in the military. Following World War II, he lived in several displaced persons camps around Europe and wrote his first volume of poetry, Po doroge ottuda; stikhi, published in Munich. His poems focused on the theme of the estranged and bewildered émigré. In 1950 he immigrated to the United States where he continued his education and his career as a poet and translator. All of his literary work was written under the name Elagin and published in Russian. Elagin's education in the U.S. was at Columbia University and then New York University where he completed his Ph. D. in Slavic Languages. In 1970 he accepted an appointment as an Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh and was made full professor in 1978. He also taught at the prestigious summer program in Russian language and culture at Middlebury College in Vermont. Elagin married Olga Anstey on June 17, 1938. They had two children: Inna who was born on October 8, 1943 and died of pneumonia in January of 1944 and Helen (Yelena) who was born on January 8, 1945. Elagin and Olga divorced in 1950 after their move to New York. He then married Irena Ivanovna Danngeizer on April 19, 1958. Their son Sergei was born in 1967. Ivan Elagin died of pancreatic cancer on February 8, 1987 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
From the description of Papers of Ivan Elagin, 1937-1990. (University of Pittsburgh). WorldCat record id: 422763176
