As the result of a lucky coincidence I was offered the opportunity to travel to the University of Cambridge as a visiting student even before I had completed my master’s degree. Cambridge taught me a lot, particularly during my time there as PhD student. My entire life literally revolved around research and the university. In practice, all of my friends were post-graduate students or researchers, and we worked from morning to night at least six days a week.

The main reason for my desire to go to Cambridge was my interest in intellectual history and political thought. Cambridge has long been the most important centre of research into intellectual history, and the contextualist school of intellectual history and political thought is often called the Cambridge School. It was a particular honour for me when the most renowned representative of the school, Quentin Skinner, agreed to be my opponent at the defence of my doctoral thesis in Helsinki in September 1992. My ties with Cambridge have remained strong throughout my entire scholarly career.