Alexander Elkin was born in St Petersburg, Russia. He was educated in Germany and London before qualifying as a lawyer. After being called to government service during World War II, he became Assistant Director of the UN European Office (Geneva) in 1946 and subsequently served as a senior legal adviser and consultant to a wide range of national and international organisations including the UN Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank.
Elkin lectured extensively, with particular reference to the drafting and language of the law, at many institutions across Europe and in the USA. He contributed to teaching at postgraduate level in the School of European Studies & Modern Languages at the University of Bath for more than twenty years and was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Bath in 1990.
The Elkin Collection was bequeathed to the University of Bath in 2001. It comprises books, including rare editions from the 1920s and 1930s and Russian language publications, relating to Russian literature, culture, biography, history, architecture, literary criticism, theatre and the arts.
Size: Over 500 published works.