Deaths: Lauren Leighton
Lauren G. Leighton
Lauren G. Leighton, 81, professor emeritus of Slavic and Baltic languages and literatures, died Jan. 15 in Plymouth, Minnesota.
Leighton was an extensively published specialist in Russian Romanticism, in addition to translation theory and practice and Russian masonry. He taught Russian language and literature at UIC from 1978 until his retirement in 1997.
As either an author, editor or translator, some of his books included Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Two Worlds, One Art: Literary Translation in Russia and America, The Esoteric Tradition in Russian Romantic Literature, and The Art of Translation: Kornei Chukovsky’s ‘A High Art.’ Other publications included English language studies and translations of Russian writers Alexander Pushkin and Anton Chekhov, and dozens of academic articles and essays.
Leighton’s honors included a Fulbright Teaching Award for the 1991-92 academic year, during which he taught courses in translation theory and American culture at Moscow State Pedagogical University and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
From 1976 to 1980, he served as editor of the Slavic and East European Journal, the journal of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. In recognition of his outstanding service to that association, he received the Joe Malik Service Award in 1993.
Prior to joining UIC, Leighton was an associate professor at Northern Illinois University and an assistant professor at the University of Virginia.
Beginning in 1953, the Wisconsin native spent four years in active service with the U.S. Air Force. Leighton later received his bachelor’s degree in Slavic languages from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1960 and a master’s degree in Slavic languages and literatures from Indiana University in 1962. He earned a Ph.D. in Slavic languages from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1968.
In retirement, Leighton lived in Madison, Wisconsin, with his second wife, Svetlana Gorbacheva-Leighton, a musician and concert director.
He is survived by his sons, Denys and Jamie, and his first wife, Hera.
