Svetlana Steponavičienė (born Nedeliajeva), Ph D, former associate professor at Vilnius university, now retired, studied Slavonic philology at Lomonosov Moscow State University, was a Ph D student of Scandinavian philology at Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) University. Wrote her PhD thesis on the style of the tetralogy The Light of the World by Halldór Laxness under the supervision of professor Michail Steblin-Kamenskij and defended it in 1966. Among other courses taught General, Germanic and Slavonic linguistics and seminars on Old Norse literature and translation at Vilnius University. Has been an active member of the Lithuanian-Danish Society and The Nordic Association in Lithuania since 1990. In  2007 founded the club of Åge Meyer Benedictsen's friends and has been its chairman since.

Svetlana Steponavičienė has translated old and modern Scandinavian literature, predominantly Icelandic and Danish, into Russian and Lithuanian. Her translation of Egil’s saga, which came out in 1975 (the second, updated edition appeared in 2012), was the first translation of Icelandic sagas not only in Lithuania, but also in the Baltics.