Marc Raeff

Letters across the Ocean

Oleg Vital ́evich Budnitskii, ed., “Sovershenno lichno i doveritel ́no!” B. A. Bakhmetev—V. A. Maklakov: Perepiska 1919–1951 [Strictly Personal and Confidential! B. A. Bakhmeteff—V. A. Maklakov: Correspondence, 1919– 51], 3 vols. (Moscow and Stanford, CA: ROSSPEN and Hoover Institution Press, 2001–2). With a foreword by Terence Emmons. 568, 671, 671 pp. ISBN vol. 1: 5824301689, 5824301891; vol. 2: 5824301689, 5824302464; vol. 3: 5824301689, 5824303150.

The People, the Intelligentsia and Russian Political Culture

‘I1 est incroyable combien de systt?mes de morale et de politique ont t t e successivement trouvts, oublits, retrouves, oublies encore pour reparaitre un peu plus tard, toujours charmant ou surprenant le monde comme s’ils Ptaient nouveaux, et attestant I’ignorance des hommes, et non la ftcondite de l’esprit humain. 1 . . . I C’est, ainsique laplupart de ces faiseurs de thtories sociales, que nous voyons de nos jours, et qui nous semblent, avec raison, si dangereux, nous paraftraient de plus fort ennuyeux, si nous avions plus d’erudition et plus de mtmoire ’.t

What is European History

European history is whatever the historian wants it to be. It is a summary of the events and ideas political, religious, military, pacific, serious, romantic, prosaic, near at hand, far away, tragic, comic, significant, meaningless, anything else you would like it to be. There is only one limiting factor. It must take place in or derive from the area we call Europe. But as I am not sure what exactly that area is meant to be, I am pretty well in a haze about the rest.