I too would like to thank everyone for coming today. We also thank the History Department and the Harriman Institute for hosting the service and reception. In particular, thank you to Sean Sawyer of the history department for coordinating everything.
I’m pretty sure that my father would be “surprised” by all of this. That’s the word he used in a conversation that my mother and I had with him last spring. We were talking about identity politics and ended up arguing over the word identity. He basically kept saying that he had no identity because he didn’t think about himself in terms of any particular categories. When I pressed him and asked how he would describe himself, he kept saying that he was male and European. Well, we know he didn’t like to talk about himself, and that he was one of the least self-conscious or self-absorbed people ever, but still. We asked him, wouldn’t you describe yourself as an academic, an intellectual, an historian, a connoisseur of the arts, a great cook, a nice person, intelligent, calm, patient, rational? He said no. Finally he said, “When people tell me that I’m intelligent or kind, I’m always surprised.” Later that evening, we were walking up the stairs to go to bed. Due to the debilitating disease that he had (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS), the twelve or so steps were becoming increasingly difficult for him. As we were going up, I asked him if he really didn’t think of himself as someone who tried to be nice to others. He said, “When the opportunity arises to be nice to someone, then I try to be nice.”
So, he would be very surprised today. But even though he refused to define himself in terms of specific categories, he seemed to rather clearly know who he was, what he believed in, and how he wanted to live.
In a letter that he wrote to me in 1980 (I was a teenager and he was responding to something I had written, I don’t know what exactly) he said, “I recall that I was quite lonely in many ways and felt rebuffed by others – it did not bother me overly much, for I always had things in me (readings, daydreams, hopes, interests, observations) that filled my life quite well.”
Maybe because of those things “in him,” he exuded a strong sense of self to others. And as with anyone’s identity, who he was, what he believed in, and how he wanted to live were evident in all that he did – in the way he interacted with people, in the way he spent almost an hour washing a few heads of salad, in the books he read, and very much in the letters he wrote.
So, for today, I decided to read a few excerpts from some of my father’s letters to me. His own words say more about him as a person and father than I am able to articulate. I read through every letter from him that I have in my letter boxes. There are about 230 letters. The first ones go back to 1972 when he was in Russia, and I was seven and a half. There may be earlier ones, but I don’t have them in my own files. It was hard to pick and choose excerpts for a short speech. I just picked out a few that I liked, and that I think reflect what I would call his identity.
I should first mention that they are all signed with some variation of “love, kisses, Daddy.” As we discussed a few times, he liked the term “Daddy,” and that’s who he is to me. And, I think the letters also all reflect his kindness, as in practically every one he tells me to say hello to my friends, often with specific names, to our neighbors, and to varied others depending on where I was at the time. In 1985, I had the opportunity to go to Slovenia, and he wrote: “I told Mrs. Lencek (the Slavic librarian) that you were in Ljubljana, her hometown, and she was so happy that you liked it and had a good time. You see, sometimes it does not take much to make a person happy.”
The first letters are very short. I’ll read one from 1972 when he was in Russia and I was seven and a half. My mother, sister, and I joined him there, and eventually part of the trip included traveling by boat on the Danube.

“Today is Sunday – and the weather is very nice – not too hot, but sunny. I went to a museum that is in an old monastery. There is a big, thick wall around it, there are towers on every corner. Inside there are several churches – one looks like a hat, the kind priests or bishops wear. In the garden there were quite a few children, mainly small ones. They were with their parents or grandmothers who did not let them do anything, not even cry [perhaps a comment on Soviet childrearing??].^[1] What are you doing? Soon you’ll start camp – you must become a very good swimmer – just in case you fall off the boat.”

These letters are full of his observations, or “impressions,” as he would often say, about politics, my parents’ travels, theater, what he was reading, what was going on in the neighborhood, practical matters, my grandparents, my mother’s garden, the condition of the pool, and always peppered with his favorite sayings in English, German, and French.
Summer, 1979 – when I spent a month in Germany and he was responding to something that I had written about a visit to East Berlin –

“Yes, East Berlin is depressing. I think it is even more depressing than Russia. Somehow, the combination of defeat and slowness in cleaning up, the awareness of being under the heels of a foreign and enemy conqueror, and the almost total revolution that this occupation brought about, all make for the situation to be much worse than in Russia. Also, something you may not have really noted, but perhaps felt nonetheless, the combination of Soviet (or Communist) ideology and practices with the German discipline and Gruendlichkeit… really takes the cake.”

1980 –

“Yesterday I went to the theater in Braunschweig. I thought I would see a modern version of a comedy of the 18th cent. Italian comedy writer Goldoni. Instead – and I did not realize it until the play started – I saw Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. It took me about five minutes to realize fully that it could not be Goldoni and then five or so more minutes to recognize the play. The staging was not bad – some acting quite good, but some terrible. They used the famous verse translation of Schlegel and Tieck. But the young actors can’t speak verse anymore. At times it was ridiculous and painful. Then it moved too slowly in many parts – and a Shakespeare comedy has to prance about all the time, otherwise its silly story becomes too apparent and boring.”

It sounds like he didn’t really like it that much. But, he ends by writing, “Well, with a great play one can always derive some enjoyment.” Even though it was not always immediately obvious, he really did tend to look on the bright side of things.
As far as practical matters go,
1985 – when I was in Vienna for my junior year abroad –

“As you well know, it is my firm conviction that money exists to be spent in a worthwhile way. The only limitation to that principle is the availability of said product. So, please stop worrying about it or my being “angry” at you for spending. I wish we could provide you with more, but the reason we can’t is precisely that we are following the same rule.”

Although he may have appeared conservative to some, my father was open to new ideas and new ways of thinking about varied issues. He did not believe in tradition for its own sake. In 1985, he wrote that he heard “a brilliant lecture on the meaning of asceticism in early Christian and late classical times – quite a change of perspective on that. Also, finding out that my notions about the first thousand or so years of French history have to be revised in the light of recent archeological finds.”
In several letters, he mentions struggling with his work – not being able to write, or organize his ideas, or being lazy.
1980 –

“Perhaps I am foolish in trying to rewrite the French booklet now. I spend about 3-4 hours everyday on it in the library where they have good dictionaries. I hope Mr. Besançon will let me have his reactions to the first chapter – I almost hope he does not like it, so that I can stop working on it altogether!”

And there are all sorts of big life lessons, as well as instructions about little things.
1978 –

“I see that I’ll be quite busy when I return… But you, too, will be busy – it is important to start the new school year (& school) well and properly from the very beginning – it is so easy to fall back & get disoriented, especially in subjects such as Latin & Math.”

He actually didn’t like Latin, which is surprising given that he was so good with languages.
1980 – When I was in high school, and I was getting ready to go on a bike trip with a group –

“I also hope that you’ll find the other kids to your liking – not everybody, of course, that would be bad, almost. Anyway… you should not get upset by the stupidities and quirks of others.”

With a few exceptions, he certainly had a way of not getting upset by other people’s quirks. He would shrug his shoulders and offer a German or French saying: Das Menschen Wille ist ein Himmelreich, or Des goux et des couleurs. He would say that he just doesn’t pay attention.
Also in 1980, in response to something I had written:

“Yes, c’est la vie – and often sad it is. But it has a lot of good points too, and often it is up to us to discover or create them for ourselves. Hope you’ll succeed in that. It need not only be fun, but real joy and satisfaction for having accomplished something.”

1984 –

“Mommy had her regular check up… everything is okay. But [the doctor] noted a slightly elevated blood pressure… so that now Mommy does not put salt into the cooking [This did not last very long, my mother loves salt]. You may take a leaf from that for yourself and try to cut down on salt and salt containing foods.”

Of all the things he could have said to me about my eating habits, he tactfully focused on salt. He himself did not like salt, perhaps because he grew up with a mother who was adamantly anti-salt.
And probably my personal favorite, also from the summer of 1979 when I was in Germany. I was fourteen and a half, and I now shamefully admit that I went through a period of using a lot of foul language:

“Today I was at the University, bumped into Anne who had just received your letter but had not had the time to read it yet. [Why my sister gave him the letter first is still a mystery 30 years later.] By the way, of course you write to Anne as you speak to her and feel like it. But may I say that, from my experience, dirty words (unless used in truly imaginative and artistic fashion – and English is not quite good at that) add nothing to either the feeling or the idea you want to express. There really is no need for them, most of the time. One uses them, I know, when one does not have good enough a vocabulary to express what one wants to say. Or, of course, in moments of great stress, upset or what not – then it is another matter.”

All of this reflects how he was all the time. I think of what he would say and do in countless situations every day. I will always keep him close to guide me through life.

<img src=http://abimperio.net/pics/raeff2.jpg>

But, in his “surprise” at all of this, he would insist that we neither idealize nor idolize him. So, I’ll close with one more letter excerpt. When I was in graduate school, and probably going on and on way too much about my own professor whom I adored as my father’s students adore him, he wrote:

“I have the feeling that you are a bit too much in awe of your professor. I guess that distance and respect all too easily give rise to a feeling of awe as well. But then you know how “unawesome” professors are – you have been around them all your life. They are just as – or even more so – human as anyone else. “Pour grands que soient les rois, ils sont ce que nous sommes”.”^[2]