Slava I. Yastremski is an Associate Professor of Russian and Comparative Humanities at Bucknell University. He was born and grew up in Moscow where he graduated from the Department of Theater History and Dramatic Literature of the Moscow State Theater Institute. Professor Yastremski worked at the Taganka Theater, wrote for the newspaper Izvestia, and also worked in Russian television and motion pictures as an assistant director.

Professor Yastremski and his family immigrated to the United States in 1975. In 1981 he received his PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Kansas and went to work at Yale. During his 9 years a Yale University, he served as coordinator of Russian language instruction. He taught and produced plays at Middlebury's Russian Summer School for 7 years. Professor Yastremski joined the Bucknell faculty in 1990 and in 1994-1996 he served as Chair of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics. In 1999-2000 Professor Yastremski received the CIES Fulbright fellowship and spent a year in Russia working on a book New Cinema of the New Russia for which he interviewed major contemporary Russian filmmakers. In 2000 Professor Yastremski was the leading force in introducing two new academic programs to the Bucknell curriculum – the Film Studies and the innovative Comparative Humanities programs.

One of the main goals of Professor Yastremski’s research is to bring Russian literature and culture to a broad array of US audiences. He has published several successful translations of works by prominent Soviet writers and poets: a collection of Vasily Aksyonov's stories Surplussed Barrelware, a collection of Marina Tsvetaeva's poetry, After Russia, Andrei Sinyanski's controversial book Strolls with Pushkin, for which he received Columbia University's Translation Center Award and AATSEEL's Best Translation of the Year award, Olga Sedakova’s Poems and Elegies, and, most recently, a collection of short stories by a Russian Ukrainian writer Igor Klekh A Land the Size of Binoculars. In addition to his translations, Professor Yastremski has published articles on literary landscape and poetry of V. Khlebnikov and Nikolai Gumilev.

Publications

2004 - translation of Contemporary Russian Women Poets. Michael Naydan is co-translator. Submitted for publication to Host Publications, Inc., Austin, TX.

2004 - translation of The Dream of Africa: African Poems and Prose of Nikolai Gumilev. Michael Naydan is co-translator. Submitted for publication to Yale University Press.

2004 - translation of Igor Klekh A Land The Size of the Binoculars. Northwestern University Press. Michael Naydan is co-translator. The book includes a three-pages introduction and eleven pages of notes, written jointly by the co-translators.

2003 - translation of Olga Sedakova Poems and Elegies. Bucknell University Press. Michael Naydan is co-translator.
In addition to the translation, he was the compiler and the editor on this book. He also wrote an introduction (p. xxvi-xliii), conducted an interview with the poet, which was included in the book (p. viii-xxv), and provided notes to the poems (p. 135-139).

2002 - Translation of Nadezhda Ptushkina's play "Rachel's Flute," in Glas. A Journal of New Russian Writing, Moscow, Russia- Birmingham, UK-Chicago, USA.

2001 - "Teatr dlja sebja. Landshaft stsenicheskikh kompozitsij Mikhaila Levitina" (Theater for Oneself. The Landscape of Stage Compositions of Mikhail Levitin), in Teatr i drama, Tver: Tver State University (19 pages).

- Contemporary Russian Women Poets Poema Publishers.
A hand-made artist edition of 500 copies. Co-translated with Michael Naydan. Color illustrations by Irina R. Yastremski.

2000 - "Khozhdenie (ne)sviatogo Venedikta v Sviatuiu Zemliu. Moskva-Petushki kak tekst avtorskogo tela," (The Pilgrimage of the (Un)Saint Venedikt to the Holy Land) in "Moskva-Petushki" Venedikta Erofeeva, Tver: Tver State University (p. 11 - 17).

- "Tema Orfeia v tvorchestve Mariny Tsvetaevoj" (The Theme of Orpheus in the Works of Marina Tsvetaeva), in Poeticheskij tekst i tekst kultury, Vladimir: Vladimir Pedagogical University (p. 181-192).

- The Dream of Africa: African Poems by Nikolai Gumilev. Poema Publishers. A hand-made artist edition of 500 copies. Co-translated with Michael Naydan. Color illustrations by Irina R. Yastremski.

1999 - Landscape of the Soul: Contemporary Russian Poetry about Nature. Plains, PA: Poema Publishers. A hand-made artist edition of 1000 copies. Co-translated with Michael Naydan. Color illustrations by Irina R. Yastremski.

1998 - "Politicheskie motivy v tvorchestve Nikolaia Gumileva (Tsikl stikhotvorenij o Pervoj mirovoj vojne" (Political motifs in the Works of Nikolai Gumilev (A Cycle of Poems about World War I), in Filologiia, Vladimir: Vladimir Pedagogical University (p. 223-229).

- A selection of poems by contemporary American women poets: Tess Gallagher, Louise Glück, and Molly Peacock in my translation, in Credo. Scholarly and Literary Journal, # 6-7, '98, Tambov: Tambov State University.

1997 - "'Pod nenuzhnoju setkoi dolgot i shirot': Problema vzaimootnoshenija cheloveka i prostranstva v 'Afrikanskikh' fotografijakh N. S. Gumileva" (Under the Unnecessary Net of Longitudes and Latitudes: The Problem of the Relationship between Man and Space in 'African' Photographs of N. S. Gumilev), in Istoricheskij istochnik: chelovek i prostranstvo, Theses of the International Conference, published by the Russian State Humanities University, Moscow, Russia (p.160-163).

- "Cosmonaut Meets Superman: The Myth of the Soviet Positive Hero in the 1970s" in Streletz, #3, Moscow, Russia (p. 241-259).

- "The Gardens of the Soul: The Word 'Garden' in Nikolai Gumilev's Poetry" in The Proceedings of International Conference on Poetic Word at Tambov, Russia (13 pages).

- "Ocean Sahara: The Myth of Orient and the 'African Space' in Nikolai Gumilev's collection The Tent," in Artistic Text and Culture. Theses of the International Conference 23-25 September, Vladimir: Vladimir Pedagogical University Press, pp. 94-98 (in Russian)

1996 - "Verbal Landscape: The problem of Space in Poetry of V. Khlebnikov" in Messenger of Velimir Khlebnikov Society, Moscow, Russia (p. 195-204).

- "Landscapology" in Messenger of the Humanities, #2, Moscow, Russia (p. 19-23).