Matveyev joined the Red Army after the German invasion in 1941, and went to military school in Tyumen. After graduation, Lieutenant Matveyev was mobilized into the Red Army, and fought in World War II. After the end of the war, Matveyev worked for a year at the military school in Tyumen, as a director of the school's amateur theater art group, where he met his future wife, Lidiya Matveyeva. They married in April 1947.