Elvira Galkina

Elvira Abramovna Galkina also known as Elya Galkina (born December 4, 1965, Lovozero, Murmansk, Soviet Union) is a Russian Kildin Sámi poet, author, and musician.

Early life and education

Elvira Abramovna Vasiljeva was born on December 4, 1965, in the town of Lovozero, Murmansk, Soviet Union to a Kildin Sámi mother, Galina Gerasimovna Danilova, and a Russian father, Abram Vasilyevich Vasilyev. She spent her childhood with her maternal grandparents in the former village of Motka in Lovozero District until she went to school.

From 1973 to 1983 she studied at the school in Lovozero. From 1983 to 1987, she studied at the Institute of the Peoples of the North at the A. I. Herzen Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute. After graduating in 1987, she returned to Lovozero and worked as a teacher in a secondary school for a year, after which she switched to the Lovozero Cultural Center where she has been ever since.

Career Galkina wrote her first book of poetry Пе̄ййвьесь пе̄ййв in Kildin Sámi in 1991. It was reprinted in Russia again the following year, and a few years later Davvi Girji republished it in Kildin Sámi. The same year, Lasse Luoppal translated the poems from Kildin Sámi to Northern Sámi and Davvi Girji published a bilingual edition of the book. This edition of the book won Galkina the Saami Council Literature Prize.