Gene Barabtarlo was a gentleman, a conscientious and highly learned 
scholar, a great Nabokovian, an excellent linguist… and a friend. I 
first met him in June 1992. I had invited him to the first Nice 
Conference on Nabokov where he gave a paper entitled “Nabokov in the 
Wilson Archive.” I seem to remember that it was his first visit to this 
part of the world, one of Nabokov’s favorite haunts. He was constantly 
taking pictures, as he did again at the third Nice conference in 2006; 
after it, he went to Soliès-Pont and sent me pictures he had taken 
there. There was something of a Sherlock Holmes in him; he liked solving 

The news of Gennady Aleksandrovich Barabtarlo’s passing should not have caught me off-guard, but I must confess to finding myself lost for words at a moment that I knew would be coming. If I were to try to find a reason to my being at a loss today, I would have to attribute it to my irrational sense that Gennady Aleksandrovich’s rectitude, his convictions, and indeed faith would prove a bulwark against even the most potent and cunning of afflictions. No such luck, of course, but even in the haze of this sad, impossible day it is already becoming clear that this is not where this story ends.

Nabokov scholar Gennady Alexandrovich (“Gene”) Barabtarlo died on February 24, aged 70. 

Gennady Barabtarlo, 70, died peacefully at home on Feb. 24, 2019.

Visitation will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019, at St. Luke the Evangelist Church, 1510 Audubon Drive, Columbia. Funeral services will follow at 1 p.m. at the church. Burial will be in Columbia City Cemetery. A memorial service is planned for a later date.

This volume seeks essays exploring the experiences of teaching Lolita in the #MeToo era. I hope to bring together responses to Nabokov’s art that blend pedagogy and critical analysis. After teaching the novel for many years, many of us have witnessed (and continue to witness) a fascinating shift in student responses to the text following the start of the #MeToo movement.