Marc Raeff


Marc Raeff was a specialist in Russian history who taught at Columbia University in New York, 1961–88. He held the Bakhmeteff chair in Russian Studies.
Harvard University historian Richard Pipes says, "He was very much interested in the Western aspect of Russian culture. He was a pillar of Russian historical studies in this country."

Career

Raeff was born in Moscow July 28, 1923, and was the only child of Isaac and Victoria Raeff. Isaac Raeff was of Jewish heritage, but was not observant. Victoria Raeff's mother was Lutheran, and Victoria attended a Lutheran church in Kharkov as a child. His father was an engineer, and his mother was a biochemical technician. The government sent his father to Berlin to oversee quality control on machinery destined for Russia. They refused to return to Moscow in 1927; in 1933 they moved to Paris. They emigrated to the U.S. in 1941.
Raeff attended schools in German, French and English, but he spoke Russian at home, with his parents. He wrote in English, French, German, and Russian, and also read Italian and Polish.
Raeff served in the U.S. Army in World War II as an interpreter in POW camps. He attended Harvard, working with Professor Michael Karpovich, who trained numerous scholars. He earned his Ph.D in 1950. He taught at Clark University from 1949 until 1961, when he moved to Columbia. He married Lillian Gottesman in 1951; they had two daughters, Anne and Catherine.
Raeff's research focused on the Russian Empire, with an emphasis on the Russian intelligentsia at home and in diaspora. Wirtschafter argues that he always "stressed the complexity and dynamism of the social and political arrangements that defined Imperial Russia". Raeff directed numerous Ph.D. dissertations. His teaching and writing were free of ideological overtones during and after the Cold War. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1957. He published numerous articles and books.