Background
Isaiah Berlin was born on June 6, 1909, in Riga, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire (present-day Latvia). Berlin was the only surviving child of a prosperous Jewish family, the son of Mendel Berlin, a timber trader and direct descendant of Shneur Zalman (founder of Chabad Hasidism), and his wife Marie, née Volshonok. He spent his first six years in Riga, and later lived in Andreapol (a small timber town near Pskov, effectively owned by the family business) and Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), witnessing both the February and October Revolutions of 1917.
The family moved often and eventually ended up in St. Petersburg. Even as a young child he witnessed some of the most profound events of the 20th century, when at the age of six he watched the Russian Revolution unfold in the streets below the family's apartment window. The family emigrated to Great Britain in March, 1920 when Berlin was eleven.