Yasen Zasursky

Biography

Yassen Nikolayevich Zassoursky (also Yasen Nikolayevich Zasursky; Russian: Я́сен Никола́евич Засу́рский; October 29, 1929 – August 1, 2021) was a Soviet and Russian literary scholar, media theorist, journalist, and educator. He held the degree of Doctor of Philological Sciences (1967) and the academic title of professor (1968). From 1965 to 2007, he served as dean of the Faculty of Journalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University, and from 2007 to 2021 as president of the Faculty of Journalism.

Zassoursky was one of the most influential figures in Russian journalism education and media studies. For several decades, he was deeply involved in international academic cooperation and maintained close professional ties with UNESCO, participating in expert commissions on communication, media systems, and global information flows, representing Russia in international research associations, IAMCR and many others. Through this work, he became part of a broad international intellectual network and played an important role in integrating Soviet and later Russian journalism studies into global scholarly discourse.

In 2018, he was awarded the honorary title Honored Journalist of the Russian Federation.