Igor's first wife Nina Dyakonova (1915–2013) was an historian and critic of English literature, with a special interest in English Romantic poetry of the early 19th century (Keats, Byron, Shelley) and its reception in European and Russian literature. A student of Professors Viktor Zhirmunsky and Mikhail Alexeyev, she was a professor at her alma mater Saint Petersburg State University, and later, teacher-training Herzen University.