About the Author
Michael Ignatieff was born in Toronto, educated at the University of Toronto, and gained a doctorate in history at Harvard. He was senior research fellow at Kings College, Cambridge, for several years and has held visiting posts in France, the USA and Canada. His books range from The Needs of Strangers, an essay on the philosophy of human needs, to a family memoir, The Russian Album, and two novels, including Scar Tissue which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1993, he wrote and presented the prize-winning television series, Blood and Belonging, and in early 1998 published his study of morality in modern conflict, The Warriors Honor. His most recent book is The Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond. He lives in London.
Acknowledgements
Aline Berlin spent hours talking to me about Isaiah, shared her letters from him and offered me hospitality at Headington House, Albany and Paraggi. It is not easy to see your life set down on the page, and the temptation must be great to put limits and barriers in a biographers way. This makes it all the more extraordinary that she put none in mine. I thank her for her forbearance.
As Berlins editor and literary trustee, Henry Hardy collected Berlins letters from hundreds of sources; sorted his unpublished manuscripts and prepared them for publication; and collected an archive of papers, photographs, tape-recordings and videos. In addition, he gave me hours of his time, correcting my mistakes and pointing me towards sources I had neglected. He deserves no blame for any inaccuracies which remain and deserves a lions share of the credit for such accuracy as has been achieved. His collaboration with me was a model of generosity, and his work on the Berlin archive has set an extraordinary standard of scholarly accuracy.
The Cerberus guarding the gate of Isaiah Berlins life for over twenty-five years was his secretary, Mrs Pat Utechin. I am grateful to her for securing appointments for me at short notice, correcting countless strange errors in earlier drafts of this book, and for sharing her memories of the boss.
While working in Oxford, I was able to stay in the Presidents Lodgings at Magdalen College, thanks to Anthony Smith. He has provided me with hospitality and affection for over twenty years and has listened to me worrying about my books more often than he must care to remember.
I interviewed many friends, colleagues and students of Sir Isaiah and wish to thank them all for their co-operation and assistance. Where their comments figure in the manuscript, their contribution is noted in the endnotes. In this connection, I want particularly to acknowledge: Peter and Philippe Halban, Herbert and Jenifer Hart, Stuart Hampshire, Stephen and Natasha Spender, Alfred and Irene Brendel, Noel and Gabrielle Annan, Jean Floud, George Weidenfeld, William Deakin, William Hayter, Avishai and Edna Margalit, Robert Silvers, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Daphne Straight, Clarissa Avon, Brenda Tripp, John Gray, Richard Wollheim, Bernard Williams, Richard Wilberforce, Michael Brock, Ralph Dahrendorf, Harry Shukman, Katharine Graham, Eric Hobsbawm, Steven Lukes, Gerald Cohen, Berel Rodal, Ian Buruma, Tim Garton Ash, Ben Rogers, David Butler, Andrzej Walicki, Bernard Wasserstein, Peter Oppenheimer, Leonard Wolfson, David Daiches, Edward Mortimer, Shiela Sokolov Grant, Cressida Ridley, Mary Bennett, Dimitri Obolensky, Nicholas Henderson, Max Beloff, David Cesarani, Isabel Roberts, Ronald Hope, Michael Goldman, Norman Davies, Shirley Anglesey, Charles Taylor, Larry Siedentop and Jonathan Sacks.
Michael Brock, former Vice-President and Bursar of Wolfson College, provided invaluable assistance on Berlins years as President of the College.
It is impossible to thank individually all of the hundreds of people and institutions who responded to the appeal by Henry Hardy and myself for copies of Berlins correspondence. We received support and co-operation from research libraries and institutions around the world, with one exception, All Souls. It is regrettable that a community of scholars who depend for their work on accepted conventions of access to archival material should deny a biographer access to papers on a fellow who was a credit to their institution for over sixty years.
I hope that those of Isaiahs friends and colleagues who go in search of their names in my index will not be disappointed if they do not find themselves in my pages. The range of his acquaintance was so large that inclusiveness had to be sacrificed for narrative coherence. Similarly, everyone who knew him had their own Isaiah. I have included as many of these versions of the man as I can, and I hope that those who have not found their version will at least find themselves surprised by the variety of other Isaiahs on display in these pages.
Thanks too to Briony Glassco (Walton), actress, mother of three and wife, for the enthusiasm and joie de vivre which she brought to her research for this project.
The fellows of St Antonys College, Oxford, were kind enough to elect me to an Alistair Home Fellowship while I was working on this biography. I especially want to thank my benefactor, Alastair Home, for his generosity. Thanks too to the staff of the London Library and the Wiener Library for bibliographical help.
I was lucky that my editor at Chatto, Jenny Uglow, is an accomplished biographer in her own right and was able to bring to my book her sense of how to bring a life alive. She was ably assisted by the editorial team at Chatto, led by Alison Samuel. Her predecessor, Jonathan Burnham, made the book welcome and I remember his acumen and advice with affection and respect. In New York, Sara Bershtel at Metropolitan Books provided an incomparable line edit, and, in Toronto, Cynthia Good and her team provided their usual high standard of editorial assistance.
I wish to thank the following persons for reading the manuscript and making suggestions: Suzanna Zsohar, Bernard and Patricia Williams, Pat Utechin, Aline Berlin, Reni Brendel, Avishai Margalit and Henry Hardy. I also wish to thank Douglas Matthews, former Librarian of the London Library, for his help in preparing the index.
The mistakes which remain, alas, are mine.
Text and picture acknowledgements: I would like to thank the following for permission to include quotations from published works: Zephyr Press, Boston, for Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems, translated by Judith Hemschemeyer and edited by Roberta Reeder (1989); Angel Books, London, for Osip Mandelstam, The Eyesight of Wasps, translated by James Greene (1989); John Stalworthy and the Oxford Magazine for The Guest from the Future: a tryptych, 194088 (1989). Extracts from the unpublished letters of A.J. Ayer are reproduced by courtesy of the Estate of A.J. Ayer; the extract from Elizabeth Bowens letter of 27 September 1935 is reproduced by permission of Curtis Brown Limited, London; the extract from T. S. Eliots letter of 9 February 1952 is reproduced by permission of Mrs Valerie Eliot; from Boris Pasternaks unpublished letter of 26 July 1946 by permission of The Pasternak Trust; extracts from the correspondence of Stephen Spender appear by courtesy of the Estate of Stephen Spender, and from an unpublished letter of 23 October 1997 by courtesy of the Prime Minister.
I would also like to thank Aline Berlin, and Henry Hardy and the Berlin Archive, Wolfson College, Oxford, for providing many photographs, and granting their kind permission to reproduce them. I am grateful to the Estate of Cecil Beaton, and to Clive Barda, Deborah Elliot and Steve Pyke for permission to include their portraits of Isaiah Berlin; to Pat Utechin for her photograph of Sir Isaiah and Lady Berlin with Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner: to Patricia Williams for her photograph of Isaiah in his holiday hat; and to John Murray, publishers, and Europasche Verlaganstalt, for the portrait of Anna Akhmatova, included in
