Born in Moscow, after studying philosophy at Moscow University, he wnt to study Roman history in Berlin (1886-91). Ivanov resided abroad almost continuously from 1891 to 1905, primarily in Italy, continuing his research and composing poetry.

He became the principal theorist of the Symbolists after the publication of his first book of verse, Lodestars, in 1902. A staunch defender of "culture," Ivanov espoused the Nitzschean idea that the artist is the summit of human hierarchy. Having studied Classics, his verse contains many allusions to Greek and other ancient myth.

After receiving permission to leave the Soviet Union in 1924, he spent the rest of his life living and working in Italy, where he converted to Roman Catholicism, and France. A student of classical antiquity, Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov was a major scholar-poet and translator and one of the important literary critics of the twentieth century. He died in Rome.