Boris Kirillovich Ilyin (1918-2014)
B
orn in Kazan. Nine-day-old Boris was taken by his mother
Olga
Alexandrovna
to the east following the White Army. By 1924, the family
moved to San Francisco.
He attended Madison, Grant Elementary School and Galileo High School.
Graduated from the University of California at Berkeley (1940). Enlisted in the
army. In 1942 he married Edna Earl Allen (Edda) in Mullins, South Carolina.
During the war and immediately after it he served in Germany and France. He
retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
After the war, he took Creative Writing courses at Stanford and published
Green Boundary, a novel about life in post-war Germany (1949). He taught
English at Stanford and Pomona College.
Entered the diplomatic service in the U.S. Foreign Service. He worked in
France and Washington, including as a specialist on Russia.
He retired in 1969 and wrote books and paintings. Since 1970 he began to
exhibit publicly. Published his second novel, False Flag, set in France during
the Cold War.
Boris began painting in oils at the age of seven, and at eighteen his art
education was continued by his uncle
Pyotr Aleksandrovich Ilyin
. Already in
adulthood he mastered watercolor and acrylic paints.
When the first opportunity arose in the nineties, he started close
communication with the Russian part of the family, with museums in
Muranovo and Kazan. He was a hospitable host. He came with his wife and
daughter Nadezhda to Russia. He was involved in translating Olga
Alexandrovna’s books into Russian and took care of their publication.
EARL (NADJA)
ALEXANDRA (LITA)
NATALYA
ANNA
MARY ELLEN
1
2
BORIS ILYIN
1918 - 2014
EDNA EARL ALLEN
1921 - 1997
OLGA
ALEXANDROVNA
1894-1991
KIRILL
BORISOVICH
ILYIN
1896-1974
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