Olga Nikolaevna Anstei also Olga Anstey (1 March 1912 – 30 May 1985; Ukrainian: Ольга Анстей), was a Jewish-Ukrainian émigré poet from Kiev.[1] She was the wife of poet Ivan Elagin (Ukrainian: Іван Єлагін). Olga Anstei is best remembered for writing about the Holocaust. Her "Kirillovskie iary" (another name for Babi Yar) written in 1943, was one of the first-ever literary works on the subject of 1941 massacre of Ukrainian Jews in Kiev.[2]
Olga Elagin and her husband defected together from the Soviet Union to the West 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.[1] They divorced in 1950.[3] She remarried, but divorced again. Olga Elagin died in New York City at the age of 73.[4]
She is buried at the Russian Orthodox Convent Novo-Diveevo in Nanuet, New York.
Selected works
edit- Door in the Wall (1949)
- Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1960); translator
- In the Way (1976)
References
edit- ^ a b Maria Gorecki Nowak (1 July 1999). Book Reviews: Berega featuring Olga Anstei and Ivan Elagin. M.E. Sharpe. p. 469. ISBN 1563247518. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) - ^ "Literature and Music (see: Ol'ga Anstei)". Kiev Gubernia, Ukraine. JewishGen Kehilalinks. 7 October 2012. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
- ^ ULS Archives (June 2009). "Ivan Elagin Papers". Summary Information. University of Pittsburgh Library System. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
- ^ W.W.H. (1 January 2002). "Anstei, Olga Nikolaevna (1912–1985)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. HighBeam Research. Archived from the original on 15 November 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2013.