Though I had been familiar with his work and reputation for several years earlier, I have known János Bak personally since the very early nineties—1991 or 1992—when we first talked at, as I recall, an annual meeting of the American Historical Association. On that occasion, we conversed in passing, essentially in the hallways; closer contacts and friendship developed over the subsequent years. Yet, it was precisely because of that, slightly fleeting, informality of our initial meeting that I first sensed in János a quality with which I have always remained impressed: his ability to connect closely with a fellow, especially a younger, scholar and human being immediately, effortlessly, in the natural scheme of things, so to speak. In the span of a relatively few words, I knew I had just made a connection of that kind on a number of levels: the intellectual; the organizational and institutional; and, perhaps most importantly, the personal.
In that last regard, I was immediately struck by a sparkling wit, by a sense of humor extremely dry and sharp as a razor, by an unabashed openness and honesty—about himself, about our profession, about other things that matter—and by another quality I especially like, namely, that certain kind of prickliness which in fact unmistakeably expresses a boundless kindness to other human beings. Right from that moment onward, János has reminded me of some of my relatives—including those, on my father's side, whom I have have never met, but only heard about, because they died during the Second World War. This intuitively familiar, caring, occasionally intensely amusing sense of János as a person is fully shared by my wife, Renata, who works entirely outside academia (let alone medieval history), yet who, from that very different perspective, has discerned those same qualities, after meeting János in person, and though our joint perusal of hundreds of e-mails. I live in Southern California, so this phrase will be a bit cliché, but it is exactly accurate: János is one of those people who radiate good energy, and, even more importantly, good emotions.
This would be a great thing in any life trajectory; that is, even if János had not chosen to translate those qualities into the enormous academic and institutional achievements which, thanks to him, we can celebrate today—the Central European University and its Medieval Studies Department, the network of professional and personal contacts among a worldwide community of medievalists, the contribution of his activities to the academic establishment of his great country and city, and so much else. In that event, the people, places, and settings affected by his radiance would, quite simply, be different from what they are. So it is a stroke of great fortune to us all that he has channelled his personal qualities into an exceptional talent for great scholarship and community building. It is probably unnecessary and impossible to describe the resulting contributions, in any detail, right here. Let simply say that, specifically thanks to János, our professional world is a far, far, far better place than it otherwise would be. And so I close with an expression of thanks. I have been immensely privileged, and honored, to be brought by this extraordinary colleague into that part our professional world which he has done so much to create. This was marked out by a long series of further contacts with János—at conferences and similar occasions, starting with that initial occasion which I can't place at the moment, then continuing to Warsaw, Lublin, Leeds, San Marino (in California!), Riverside, Vancouver, and other places; by several teaching and related visits to Budapest, in 1998, 2005, and 2008; by collaboration related to collections of essays (one of which has just come out); by the great privilege of publishing in János's festschrift; and—interlaced with it all—by those hundreds of e-mails, which electronically projected joy and good humor to my family table halfway across the globe.
In this history of communication and contact, the mind again turns to the personal. János's correspondence to me consistently has raised two themes (highly medieval in their essence!) which I simply must note. One is love; exactly every one of his missives declared, at the end (and I quote) his "Love to all." The other is love's medieval twin, a certain kind of toughness: as János has spent the past twenty years imploring me, entirely rightly yet to absolutely no avail, to keep my prose succinct. It is a little awkward to include so much reference to myself in a comment whose subject is, after all, János, not I. But a good life is, I think, measured with actual other lives touched for the good—each ultimately, and inevitably, expressible in the first person. Mine was, and continues to be, touched for the good, because János is there. And so I write these words not as an act of self-reference, but as an act of modest witness.
Piotr Gorecki
