Elagin Ivan Venediktovich

Elagin, IVAN Venediktovich (cf.. name Matveev) (1918-1987), Russian poet. In 1943 a German-occupied Kiev went to the West. Prior to 1950 was in Germany in the refugee camps of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, then moved to the U.S..
Born Dec. 1, 1918 in Vladivostok, childhood passed in Vladivostok and Harbin, where a certain fame enjoyed by his father, Futurist poet Benedikt March, 1937 became the victim of repression. Elagin studied at the Kiev Medical Institute (unfinished), in the years of occupation, he worked in a maternity home, which could give rise to persecution for cooperating with the enemy. Poems written since the mid 1930's, but at home printed only once (an authorized translation of the poem Ukrainian poet M. Rila, which has provided all possible assistance to a beginning writer). In 1939, met in Leningrad with Akhmatova - an episode described in his autobiographical poem "Remembrance" (1979) and the poem "I never believed ..."

. Early lyrics Elagina painted noticeable influence of Mayakovsky and to a lesser extent, by Boris Pasternak, and on the formation of his personality had an infatuation with the works of A. Green
. As his first wife, . poet A. Anstey, . with which they had fled from Kiev when the Soviet troops, , . also became a 'displaced person', . Elagin with youth to understand the impossibility of its existence within the borders of Soviet literature,
. However, in the creative respect he owes it (especially those of its masters, who represent the vanguard of the 1920's) more than the Russian classical tradition.

Ivanov called Elagina 'poet pronounced Soviet formations', V. Weidle also found that poetry Elagina emerged in line with the traditions bequeathed to Vladimir Mayakovsky and Futurism

. The first poetry book, . signed by the pseudonym, . which is reminiscent of Elagin bridge and thus on the Block, . were published poet in Munich ( "On the way out", . 1947 - just called and the first big book Elagina, . published in 1953 in the United States, "You, . My Century ", . 1948),
. Chronicle of brutal trials inherited Elagina generation, which has done its 'steep route' along the roads of the century, steel, and poetry books that are created in the United States, among them a special place belongs to a large extent the final volume of "Under the constellation ax" (1976)

. Immediately on his arrival in New York Elagin became a permanent employee of the newspaper 'The new Russian word', where more than a decade waged a verse lampoon on current issues (part of his publications was the book "The political satires in verse, 1959)
. Mastered the English language, . Elagin began translating American poets, . gave a few years shifting of the epic poem by Stephen Vincent Bene "John Brown's Body" (a piece was published in the magazine 'America' in 1970 and first presented Elagina Russian audience, . which is intended for publication; full translation was published in 1979),
. In the 1970's Elagin predpodaval Russian literature at the University of Pittsburgh, and regularly attended the Summer School in Russian studies Midlberri (pc. Vermont). His latest book, "Heavy Stars", published in the funds collected friends and admirers of the poet, came a few days before his death.

Creativity late Elagina different interest in the philosophical topics related primarily to his conception of time which never becomes a dead past, if you save a spiritual connection with people and events distant pores. In recent years, the lyrics are echoes and religious reasons, not the inherent Elagin in its early days, and the fate of the emigrant understood not only as suffering, but as a blessing, because 'sharper and sweeter than the smell of cut grass at'. Elagin also belongs published in 1949, the play "Portrait of Mademoiselle Tanju," which is a rework I. Kalman operetta "The Violet of Montmartre".

Elagin died in Pittsburgh on Feb. 8, 1987.