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In Memoriam – John Glad

It is with great sadness that the Kennan Institute marks the passing of former Kennan Institute director John Glad on 4 December 2015. He was 73 years of age.

In Memoriam – John Glad

It is with great sadness that the Kennan Institute marks the passing of former Kennan Institute director John Glad on 4 December 2015. He was 73 years of age.

In 1983-84, he served as Director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  In that capacity, he brought literature to the program, where it remains as an important element of the institute’s work. 

Dr. Glad was a prolific writer on a broad range of subjects that include Russian literature, literary translation, and Holocaust studies.  His publications in the field of Russian studies include: Russia Abroad: Writers, History, Politics; Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry; and Conversations in Exile: Russian Writers Abroad. These are considered seminal works in the field. As an educator, he taught Russian at Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, the University of Iowa, and the University of Maryland.

Dr. Glad was the translator of Varlam Shalamov's collections of stories written when the author was a political prisoner in the Soviet Gulag:  Kolyma Tales and Graphite.  Kolyma Tales was nominated for a National Book Award in 1981 for best translation.  After retiring from academia in 1994, he served as simultaneous interpreter for the U.S. Department of State, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.  He interpreted the speeches of presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin and other historical figures before and after the fall of the Soviet Union.

We gratefully acknowledge Larisa Romanov Glad (wife), Diana Glad (sister), and Aaron Glad Pearce (son) for contributing to this message, and express our deepest condolences to them and the rest of their family.