Prof. Stevka Šmitran

Šmitran graduated at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. In 1983 she obtained the post-graduate title of “Magister” and in 2006 her PhD degree. Her academic career started in 1976 at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, “Gabriele d’Annunzio” University of Pescara, where she taught Russian language and literature, Slavic philology, Serbian-Croatian language and literature, and Southern Slavic culture. Since the 1984/85 academic year she has been a full professor of teaching, first of Serbo-Croatian language, then of Russian language, Cultures and institutions of the Balkan countries and from the 2022/23 academic year of teaching Russian language and culture at the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Teramo. She is the author of more than one hundred publications including volumes, articles, translations, and introductions. She has edited the first Italian translation of poems by Ivo Andrić, Miodrag Pavlović and other poets. She has presented papers at conferences and has given seminars at several prestigious universities. She has taught in the (first level) MA in Reading, preserving and cataloguing ancient documents from the Adriatic area, as well as in the Enrico Mattei MA. She was a member of the Teaching and Research Committee for the Doctoral Degree Programme in Cultural identities and juridical experiences in the Adriatic area: from late-ancient koinè to the age of common law. In 1996 she was awarded the Calliope prize for translation. She is co-founder and secretary of the “NordSud” (North-South) International Prize for Literature and Science at the Pescarabruzzo Foundation. She is a registered journalist-publicist. She is a member of the Italian Association of Slavers (AIS). She is a member of the Italian Association of Southeast European Studies (AISSEE). She is a member of PEN International in Trieste. She has worked in collaboration with the RAI regional cultural section. In 2007 she received the Great Women of 21st century award from the American Biographical Institute, Raleigh, North Carolina.