From October 6, 2022, Professor Michael Ignatieff delivered the Annual Edmund Burke Lecture for 2022, 'Democracy and the Legacy of Revolutionary Violence.'

Michael Ignatieff is a Canadian writer, historian and former politician, now Rector Emeritus of the Central European University in Vienna and a professor in the history department. He has been a leader of the Liberal Party of Canada as well as a professor at the Kennedy School, Harvard, and is the author of Isaiah Berlin: A Life, The Needs of Strangers, On Consolation, and many other works. 

‘All democracies born of revolution—France, America, and Ireland, for example—have to find ways to reckon with their revolutionary origins, and with the violence that attended their birth. Since revolutions empower the people to rise up in defence of their rights, revolutionary origins can continue to inspire succeeding generations to defend theirs, but they can also pose a continuing challenge to the stability of democratic institutions. Edmund Burke’s reflections on the revolutions of 1688 in Britain, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789 can help us understand how contemporary democracies should handle the often combustible heritage of revolutionary origins.’

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