Louis A. Pedrotti

Dr. Louis (Lou) Anthony Pedrotti, professor emeritus of Comparative Literature and Languages at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), passed away on May 20, 2010, following a stroke. He was born on February 23, 1924, and grew up in Pasadena, California. His service in the U.S. Army during World War II interrupted his undergraduate studies at Occidental College. He served as a Private from 1942 until 1945, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45.

Upon returning from his military service, Dr. Pedrotti completed his undergraduate degree at Occidental College with a BA in Foreign Languages and Political Science in 1948. He  went on to earn his MA (1951) and Ph.D. (1959) in Slavic Languages & Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Pedrotti came to UCR in 1959 as the first faculty appointment in the Russian Studies Program. His interests were in the teaching of Russian; Russian literature of the pre-Revolutionary period, especially Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Senkovsky, Chekhov and Bunin; Russian civilization and folklore; Polish literature; Romanoviana; and the early period of Russian science fiction and fantasy literature. His publications included The Genesis of a Literary Alien: Jozef-Julian Srekowsky published by the University of California Press in 1965 and the first English-language translation (with extensive commentary and analysis), of Osip Senkovsky's The Fantastic Journeys of Baron Brambeus in 1993, a work that was part of mid-19^th-century popular literature in Russia and which became a cornerstone of Russian science fiction.

Dr. Pedrotti’s colleagues remember him as a kind, gentle, and humorous man who was eager to support students and colleagues. He served as the Graduate Advisor in what now is the Department of Comparative Literature and Languages and received the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award in 1977. He retired from UCR in 1989, becoming a Professor Emeritus.

Dr. Perotti’s ashes are scattered at the UCR Botanical Gardens. Dr. Pedrotti is survived by his longtime partner, Edwin Traynor. 

This memorial was compiled and adapted by Katja M. Guenther from notices by former UCR Chancellor Timothy White and an obituary by Daryl and Barbara Mallett.