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Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

was also during that period that Mircea Eliade completed his voluminous and influential History of Religious Ideas, which grouped together the overviews of his main original interpretations of religious history. He occasionally traveled out of the United States, such as attending the Congress for the History of Religions in Marburg (1960) and visits to Sweden and Norway in 1970. Final years and death Initially, Eliade was attacked with virulence by the Romanian Communist Party press, chiefly by România Liberă—which described him as "the Iron Guard's ideologue, enemy of the working class, apologist of Salazar's dictatorship". However, the regime also made

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. In the 1970s, Eliade was approached by the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime in several ways, in order to have him return. The move was prompted by the officially sanctioned nationalism and Romania's claim to independence from the Eastern Bloc, as both phenomena came to see Eliade's prestige as an asset. An unprecedented event occurred with the interview that was granted by Mircea Eliade to poet Adrian Păunescu, during the latter's 1970 visit to Chicago; Eliade complimented both Păunescu's activism and his support for official tenets, expressing a belief that the youth of Eastern Europe is clearly superior to

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

that of Western Europe. [...] I am convinced that, within ten years, the young revolutionary generation shan't be behaving as does today the noisy minority of Western contesters. [...] Eastern youth have seen the abolition of traditional institutions, have accepted it [...] and are not yet content with the structures enforced, but rather seek to improve them. Păunescu's visit to Chicago was followed by those of the nationalist official writer Eugen Barbu and by Eliade's friend Constantin Noica (who had since been released from jail). At the time, Eliade contemplated returning to Romania, but was eventually persuaded by fellow Romanian

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

intellectuals in exile (including Radio Free Europe's Virgil Ierunca and Monica Lovinescu) to reject Communist proposals. In 1977, he joined other exiled Romanian intellectuals in signing a telegram protesting the repressive measures newly enforced by the Ceauşescu regime. Writing in 2007, Romanian anthropologist Andrei Oișteanu recounted how, around 1984, the Securitate unsuccessfully pressured to become an agent of influence in Eliade's Chicago circle. During his later years, Eliade's fascist past was progressively exposed publicly, the stress of which probably contributed to the decline of his health. By then, his writing career was hampered by severe arthritis. The last academic honors

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

bestowed upon him were the French Academy's Bordin Prize (1977) and the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, granted by George Washington University (1985). Mircea Eliade died at the Bernard Mitchell Hospital in April 1986. Eight days previously, he suffered a stroke while reading Emil Cioran's Exercises of Admiration, and had subsequently lost his speech function. Four months before, a fire had destroyed part of his office at the Meadville Lombard Theological School (an event which he had interpreted as an omen). Eliade's Romanian disciple Ioan Petru Culianu, who recalled the scientific community's reaction to the news, described Eliade's death as

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

"a mahaparanirvana", thus comparing it to the passing of Gautama Buddha. His body was cremated in Chicago, and the funeral ceremony was held on University grounds, at the Rockefeller Chapel. It was attended by 1,200 people, and included a public reading of Eliade's text in which he recalled the epiphany of his childhood—the lecture was given by novelist Saul Bellow, Eliade's colleague at the University. His grave is located in Oak Woods Cemetery. Work The general nature of religion In his work on the history of religion, Eliade is most highly regarded for his writings on Alchemy, Shamanism, Yoga and

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

what he called the eternal return—the implicit belief, supposedly present in religious thought in general, that religious behavior is not only an imitation of, but also a participation in, sacred events, and thus restores the mythical time of origins. Eliade's thinking was in part influenced by Rudolf Otto, Gerardus van der Leeuw, Nae Ionescu and the writings of the Traditionalist School (René Guénon and Julius Evola). For instance, Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane partially builds on Otto's The Idea of the Holy to show how religion emerges from the experience of the sacred, and myths of time and nature.

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

so on (in other words, actual and potential). Eliade argues that "Yahweh is both kind and wrathful; the God of the Christian mystics and theologians is terrible and gentle at once". He also thought that the Indian and Chinese mystic tried to attain "a state of perfect indifference and neutrality" that resulted in a coincidence of opposites in which "pleasure and pain, desire and repulsion, cold and heat [...] are expunged from his awareness". According to Eliade, the coincidentia oppositorum’s appeal lies in "man's deep dissatisfaction with his actual situation, with what is called the human condition". In many mythologies,

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

of the East generally retain a cyclic view of time—for instance, the Hindu doctrine of kalpas. According to Eliade, most religions that accept the cyclic view of time also embrace it: they see it as a way to return to the sacred time. However, in Buddhism, Jainism, and some forms of Hinduism, the Sacred lies outside the flux of the material world (called maya, or "illusion"), and one can only reach it by escaping from the cycles of time. Because the Sacred lies outside cyclic time, which conditions humans, people can only reach the Sacred by escaping the human condition.

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

According to Eliade, Yoga techniques aim at escaping the limitations of the body, allowing the soul (atman) to rise above maya and reach the Sacred (nirvana, moksha). Imagery of "freedom", and of death to one's old body and rebirth with a new body, occur frequently in Yogic texts, representing escape from the bondage of the temporal human condition. Eliade discusses these themes in detail in Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. Symbolism of the Center A recurrent theme in Eliade's myth analysis is the axis mundi, the Center of the World. According to Eliade, the Cosmic Center is a necessary corollary to

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

renders an account of human [religious] evolution since the Paleolithic era". If an Urmonotheismus did exist, Eliade adds, it probably differed in many ways from the conceptions of God in many modern monotheistic faiths: for instance, the primordial High God could manifest himself as an animal without losing his status as a celestial Supreme Being. According to Eliade, heavenly Supreme Beings are actually less common in more advanced cultures. Eliade speculates that the discovery of agriculture brought a host of fertility gods and goddesses into the forefront, causing the celestial Supreme Being to fade away and eventually vanish from many

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

themes is the shaman's supposed death and resurrection. This occurs in particular during his initiation. Often, the procedure is supposed to be performed by spirits who dismember the shaman and strip the flesh from his bones, then put him back together and revive him. In more than one way, this death and resurrection represents the shaman's elevation above human nature. First, the shaman dies so that he can rise above human nature on a quite literal level. After he has been dismembered by the initiatory spirits, they often replace his old organs with new, magical ones (the shaman dies to

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

dies not once but many times: having died during initiation and risen again with new powers, the shaman can send his spirit out of his body on errands; thus, his whole career consists of repeated deaths and resurrections. The shaman's new ability to die and return to life shows that he is no longer bound by the laws of profane time, particularly the law of death: "the ability to 'die' and come to life again [...] denotes that [the shaman] has surpassed the human condition". Having risen above the human condition, the shaman is not bound by the flow of

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

gods (particularly the High God, according to Eliade's deus otiosus concept) were closer to humans during the mythical age, the shaman's easy communication with the High God represents an abolition of history and a return to the mythical age. Because of his ability to communicate with the gods and descend to the land of the dead, the shaman frequently functions as a psychopomp and a medicine man. Eliade's philosophy Early contributions In addition to his political essays, the young Mircea Eliade authored others, philosophical in content. Connected with the ideology of Trăirism, they were often prophetic in tone, and saw

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

looming (while asking that young people be allowed to manifest their will and fully experience freedom before perishing). One of Eliade's noted contributions in this respect was the 1932 Soliloquii ("Soliloquies"), which explored existential philosophy. George Călinescu who saw in it "an echo of Nae Ionescu's lectures", traced a parallel with the essays of another of Ionescu's disciples, Emil Cioran, while noting that Cioran's were "of a more exulted tone and written in the aphoristic form of Kierkegaard". Călinescu recorded Eliade's rejection of objectivity, citing the author's stated indifference towards any "naïveté" or "contradictions" that the reader could possibly reproach

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

him, as well as his dismissive thoughts of "theoretical data" and mainstream philosophy in general (Eliade saw the latter as "inert, infertile and pathogenic"). Eliade thus argued, "a sincere brain is unassailable, for it denies itself to any relationship with outside truths." The young writer was however careful to clarify that the existence he took into consideration was not the life of "instincts and personal idiosyncrasies", which he believed determined the lives of many humans, but that of a distinct set comprising "personalities". He described "personalities" as characterized by both "purpose" and "a much more complicated and dangerous alchemy". This

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

even in those cases where Eliade described the latter as an "abyssal experience" into which man may take the plunge. The critic pointed out that the addition of "a magical solution" to the options taken into consideration seemed to be Eliade's own original contributions to his mentor's philosophy, and proposed that it may have owed inspiration to Julius Evola and his disciples. He also recorded that Eliade applied this concept to human creation, and specifically to artistic creation, citing him describing the latter as "a magical joy, the victorious break of the iron circle" (a reflection of imitatio dei, having

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

salvation for its ultimate goal). Philosopher of religion Anti-reductionism and the "transconscious" By profession, Eliade was a historian of religion. However, his scholarly works draw heavily on philosophical and psychological terminology. In addition, they contain a number of philosophical arguments about religion. In particular, Eliade often implies the existence of a universal psychological or spiritual "essence" behind all religious phenomena. Because of these arguments, some have accused Eliade of over-generalization and "essentialism", or even of promoting a theological agenda under the guise of historical scholarship. However, others argue that Eliade is better understood as a scholar who is willing to

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

(Eliade cites Immanuel Kant as the likely forerunner of this kind of "historicism"). He adds that human consciousness transcends (is not reducible to) its historical and cultural conditioning, and even suggests the possibility of a "transconscious". By this, Eliade does not necessarily mean anything supernatural or mystical: within the "transconscious", he places religious motifs, symbols, images, and nostalgias that are supposedly universal and whose causes therefore cannot be reduced to historical and cultural conditioning. Platonism and "primitive ontology" According to Eliade, traditional man feels that things "acquire their reality, their identity, only to the extent of their participation in a

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

transcendent reality". To traditional man, the profane world is "meaningless", and a thing rises out of the profane world only by conforming to an ideal, mythical model. Eliade describes this view of reality as a fundamental part of "primitive ontology" (the study of "existence" or "reality"). Here he sees a similarity with the philosophy of Plato, who believed that physical phenomena are pale and transient imitations of eternal models or "Forms" (see Theory of forms). He argued: Plato could be regarded as the outstanding philosopher of 'primitive mentality,' that is, as the thinker who succeeded in giving philosophic currency and

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

making it real". Furthermore, traditional man's behavior gains purpose and meaning through the Sacred: "By imitating divine behavior, man puts and keeps himself close to the gods—that is, in the real and the significant." According to Eliade, "modern nonreligious man assumes a new existential situation". For traditional man, historical events gain significance by imitating sacred, transcendent events. In contrast, nonreligious man lacks sacred models for how history or human behavior should be, so he must decide on his own how history should proceed—he "regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and refuses all appeal to transcendence". From

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

century: The new discipline of History of Religions developed rapidly in this cultural context. And, of course, it followed a like pattern: the positivistic approach to the facts and the search for origins, for the very beginning of religion. All Western historiography was during that time obsessed with the quest of origins. [...] This search for the origins of human institutions and cultural creations prolongs and completes the naturalist's quest for the origin of species, the biologist's dream of grasping the origin of life, the geologist's and the astronomer's endeavor to understand the origin of the Earth and the Universe.

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

the immortal soul or atman within man. According to Eliade, Hindus thus escape the terror of history by refusing to see historical time as the true reality. Eliade notes that a Western or Continental philosopher might feel suspicious toward this Hindu view of history: One can easily guess what a European historical and existentialist philosopher might reply [...] You ask me, he would say, to 'die to History'; but man is not, and he cannot be anything else but History, for his very essence is temporality. You are asking me, then, to give up my authentic existence and to take

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

refuge in an abstraction, in pure Being, in the atman: I am to sacrifice my dignity as a creator of History in order to live an a-historic, inauthentic existence, empty of all human content. Well, I prefer to put up with my anxiety: at least, it cannot deprive me of a certain heroic grandeur, that of becoming conscious of, and accepting, the human condition. However, Eliade argues that the Hindu approach to history does not necessarily lead to a rejection of history. On the contrary, in Hinduism historical human existence is not the "absurdity" that many Continental philosophers see it

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

new world or civilization on the ruins of the old. Thus, they feel comforted even in contemplating the end times. Eliade argues that a Western spiritual rebirth can happen within the framework of Western spiritual traditions. However, he says, to start this rebirth, Westerners may need to be stimulated by ideas from non-Western cultures. In his Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries, Eliade claims that a "genuine encounter" between cultures "might well constitute the point of departure for a new humanism, upon a world scale". Christianity and the "salvation" of History Mircea Eliade sees the Abrahamic religions as a turning point between

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

the ancient, cyclic view of time and the modern, linear view of time, noting that, in their case, sacred events are not limited to a far-off primordial age, but continue throughout history: "time is no longer [only] the circular Time of the Eternal Return; it has become linear and irreversible Time". He thus sees in Christianity the ultimate example of a religion embracing linear, historical time. When God is born as a man, into the stream of history, "all history becomes a theophany". According to Eliade, "Christianity strives to save history". In Christianity, the Sacred enters a human being (Christ)

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

to save humans, but it also enters history to "save" history and turn otherwise ordinary, historical events into something "capable of transmitting a trans-historical message". From Eliade's perspective, Christianity's "trans-historical message" may be the most important help that modern man could have in confronting the terror of history. In his book Mito ("Myth"), Italian researcher Furio Jesi argues that Eliade denies man the position of a true protagonist in history: for Eliade, true human experience lies not in intellectually "making history", but in man's experiences of joy and grief. Thus, from Eliade's perspective, the Christ story becomes the perfect myth

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

be saved from the world only through secret knowledge (gnosis). Ellwood claimed that the three mythologists were "modern gnostics through and through", remarking, Whether in Augustan Rome or modern Europe, democracy all too easily gave way to totalitarianism, technology was as readily used for battle as for comfort, and immense wealth lay alongside abysmal poverty. [...] Gnostics past and present sought answers not in the course of outward human events, but in knowledge of the world's beginning, of what lies above and beyond the world, and of the secret places of the human soul. To all this the mythologists spoke,

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

the means of escaping History, of saving myself through symbol, myth, rite, archetypes". In Ellwood's view, Eliade's nostalgia was only enhanced by his exile from Romania: "In later years Eliade felt about his own Romanian past as did primal folk about mythic time. He was drawn back to it, yet he knew he could not live there, and that all was not well with it." He suggests that this nostalgia, along with Eliade's sense that "exile is among the profoundest metaphors for all human life", influenced Eliade's theories. Ellwood sees evidence of this in Eliade's concept of the "Terror of

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

history" from which modern man is no longer shielded. In this concept, Ellwood sees an "element of nostalgia" for earlier times "when the sacred was strong and the terror of history had barely raised its head". Criticism of Eliade's scholarship Overgeneralization Eliade cites a wide variety of myths and rituals to support his theories. However, he has been accused of making over-generalizations: many scholars think he lacks sufficient evidence to put forth his ideas as universal, or even general, principles of religious thought. According to one scholar, "Eliade may have been the most popular and influential contemporary historian of religion",

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

In Kirk's view, Eliade derived his theory of eternal return from the functions of Australian Aboriginal mythology and then proceeded to apply the theory to other mythologies to which it did not apply. For example, Kirk argues that the eternal return does not accurately describe the functions of Native American or Greek mythology. Kirk concludes, "Eliade's idea is a valuable perception about certain myths, not a guide to the proper understanding of all of them". Even Wendy Doniger, Eliade's successor at the University of Chicago, claims (in an introduction to Eliade's own Shamanism) that the eternal return does not apply

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

to all myths and rituals, although it may apply to many of them. However, although Doniger agrees that Eliade made over-generalizations, she notes that his willingness to "argue boldly for universals" allowed him to see patterns "that spanned the entire globe and the whole of human history". Whether they were true or not, she argues, Eliade's theories are still useful "as starting points for the comparative study of religion". She also argues that Eliade's theories have been able to accommodate "new data to which Eliade did not have access". Lack of empirical support Several researchers have criticized Eliade's work as

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

having no empirical support. Thus, he is said to have "failed to provide an adequate methodology for the history of religions and to establish this discipline as an empirical science", though the same critics admit that "the history of religions should not aim at being an empirical science anyway". Specifically, his claim that the sacred is a structure of human consciousness is distrusted as not being empirically provable: "no one has yet turned up the basic category sacred". Also, there has been mention of his tendency to ignore the social aspects of religion. Anthropologist Alice Kehoe is highly critical of

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Eliade's work on Shamanism, namely because he was not an anthropologist but a historian. She contends that Eliade never did any field work or contacted any indigenous groups that practiced Shamanism, and that his work was synthesized from various sources without being supported by direct field research. In contrast, Professor Kees W. Bolle of the University of California, Los Angeles argues that "Professor Eliade's approach, in all his works, is empirical": Bolle sets Eliade apart for what he sees as Eliade's particularly close "attention to the various particular motifs" of different myths. French researcher Daniel Dubuisson places doubt on Eliade's

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

scholarship and its scientific character, citing the Romanian academic's alleged refusal to accept the treatment of religions in their historical and cultural context, and proposing that Eliade's notion of hierophany refers to the actual existence of a supernatural level. Ronald Inden, a historian of India and University of Chicago professor, criticized Mircea Eliade, alongside other intellectual figures (Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell among them), for encouraging a "romantic view" of Hinduism. He argued that their approach to the subject relied mainly on an Orientalist approach, and made Hinduism seem like "a private realm of the imagination and the religious which

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

modern, Western man lacks but needs." Far right and nationalist influences Although his scholarly work was never subordinated to his early political beliefs, the school of thought he was associated with in interwar Romania, namely Trăirism, as well as the works of Julius Evola he continued to draw inspiration from, have thematic links to fascism. Writer and academic Marcel Tolcea has argued that, through Evola's particular interpretation of Guénon's works, Eliade kept a traceable connection with far right ideologies in his academic contributions. Daniel Dubuisson singled out Eliade's concept of homo religiosus as a reflection of fascist elitism, and argued

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

and not to initiates of esoteric circles. After the 1960s, he, together with Evola, Louis Rougier, and other intellectuals, offered support to Alain de Benoist's controversial Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne, part of the Nouvelle Droite intellectual trend. Notably, Eliade was also preoccupied with the cult of Thracian deity Zalmoxis and its supposed monotheism.Eliade, "Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God", in Slavic Review, Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1974), p.807–809 This, like his conclusion that Romanization had been superficial inside Roman Dacia, was a view celebrated by contemporary partisans of Protochronist nationalism. According to historian Sorin Antohi, Eliade

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

"religious" or "traditional" societies. Furthermore, some see a connection between Eliade's essentialism with regard to religion and fascist essentialism with regard to races and nations. To Ellwood, this connection "seems rather tortured, in the end amounting to little more than an ad hominem argument which attempts to tar Eliade's entire [scholarly] work with the ill-repute all decent people feel for storm troopers and the Iron Guard". However, Ellwood admits that common tendencies in "mythological thinking" may have caused Eliade, as well as Jung and Campbell, to view certain groups in an "essentialist" way, and that this may explain their purported

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

antisemitism: "A tendency to think in generic terms of peoples, races, religions, or parties, which as we shall see is undoubtedly the profoundest flaw in mythological thinking, including that of such modern mythologists as our three, can connect with nascent anti-Semitism, or the connection can be the other way." Literary works Generic traits Many of Mircea Eliade's literary works, in particular his earliest ones, are noted for their eroticism and their focus on subjective experience. Modernist in style, they have drawn comparisons to the contemporary writings of Mihail Sebastian, I. Valerian, and Ion Biberi. Alongside Honoré de Balzac and Giovanni

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

perspective on life culminated in "banality", leaving authors gripped by the "cult of the self" and "a contempt for literature". Polemically, Călinescu proposed that Mircea Eliade's supposed focus on "aggressive youth" served to instill his interwar Romanian writers with the idea that they had a common destiny as a generation apart. He also commented that, when set in Romania, Mircea Eliade's stories lacked the "perception of immediate reality", and, analyzing the non-traditional names the writer tended to ascribe to his Romanian characters, that they did not depict "specificity". Additionally, in Călinescu's view, Eliade's stories were often "sensationalist compositions of the

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

illustrated magazine kind." Mircea Eliade's assessment of his own pre-1940 literary contributions oscillated between expressions of pride and the bitter verdict that they were written for "an audience of little ladies and high school students". A secondary but unifying feature present in most of Eliade's stories is their setting, a magical and part-fictional Bucharest. In part, they also serve to illustrate or allude to Eliade's own research in the field of religion, as well as to the concepts he introduced. Thus, commentators such as Matei Călinescu and Carmen Mușat have also argued that a main characteristic of Eliade's fantasy prose

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Călinescu objected to the narrative, arguing that both the physical affair and the father's rage seemed artificial, while commenting that Eliade placing doubt on his Indian characters' honesty had turned the plot into a piece of "ethnological humor". Noting that the work developed on a classical theme of miscegenation, which recalled the prose of François-René de Chateaubriand and Pierre Loti, the critic proposed that its main merit was in introducing the exotic novel to local literature. Mircea Eliade's other early works include Șantier ("Building Site"), a part-novel, part-diary account of his Indian sojourn. George Călinescu objected to its "monotony", and,

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

to sexual adventures, and seduces the women of the Lecca family (who have hired him as a piano teacher). Romanian-born novelist Norman Manea called Anicet's experiment: "the paraded defiance of bourgeois conventions, in which venereal disease and lubricity dwell together." In one episode of the book, Anicet convinces Anișoara Lecca to gratuitously steal from her parents—an outrage which leads her mother to moral decay and, eventually, to suicide. George Călinescu criticized the book for inconsistencies and "excesses in Dostoyevskianism", but noted that the Lecca family portrayal was "suggestive", and that the dramatic scenes were written with "a remarkable poetic calm."

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

The novel Marriage in Heaven depicts the correspondence between two male friends, an artist and a common man, who complain to each other about their failures in love: the former complains about a lover who wanted his children when he did not, while the other recalls being abandoned by a woman who, despite his intentions, did not want to become pregnant by him. Eliade lets the reader understand that they are in fact talking about the same woman. Fantastic and fantasy literature Mircea Eliade's earliest works, most of which were published at later stages, belong to the fantasy genre. One

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

a Lead Soldier"). In the former, a company of beetle spies is sent among the red ants—their travel offers a setting for satirical commentary. Eliade himself explained that Memoriile unui soldat de plumb was an ambitious project, designed as a fresco to include the birth of the Universe, abiogenesis, human evolution, and the entire world history. Eliade's fantasy novel Domnișoara Christina, was, on its own, the topic of a scandal. The novel deals with the fate of an eccentric family, the Moscus, who are haunted by the ghost of a murdered young woman, known as Christina. The apparition shares characteristics

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Writing for the Spanish journal La Vanguardia, commentator Sergio Vila-Sanjuán described the first volume of Eliade's Autobiography (covering the years 1907 to 1937) as "a great book", while noting that the other main volume was "more conventional and insincere." In Vila-Sanjuán's view, the texts reveal Mircea Eliade himself as "a Dostoyevskyian character", as well as "an accomplished person, a Goethian figure". A work that drew particular interest was his Jurnal portughez ("Portuguese Diary"), completed during his stay in Lisbon and published only after its author's death. A portion of it dealing with his stay in Romania is believed to have

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

been lost. The travels to Spain, partly recorded in Jurnal portughez, also led to a separate volume, Jurnal cordobez ("Cordoban Diary"), which Eliade compiled from various independent notebooks. Jurnal portughez shows Eliade coping with clinical depression and political crisis, and has been described by Andrei Oișteanu as "an overwhelming [read], through the immense suffering it exhales." Literary historian Paul Cernat argued that part of the volume is "a masterpiece of its time", while concluding that some 700 pages were passable for the "among others" section of Eliade's bibliography. Noting that the book featured parts where Eliade spoke of himself in

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

eulogistic terms, notably comparing himself favorably to Goethe and Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu, Cernat accused the writer of "egolatry", and deduced that Eliade was "ready to step over dead bodies for the sake of his spiritual 'mission' ". The same passages led philosopher and journalist Cătălin Avramescu to argue that Eliade's behavior was evidence of "megalomania". Eliade also wrote various essays of literary criticism. In his youth, alongside his study on Julius Evola, he published essays which introduced the Romanian public to representatives of modern Spanish literature and philosophy, among them Adolfo Bonilla San Martín, Miguel de Unamuno, José

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Ortega y Gasset, Eugeni d'Ors, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo. He also wrote an essay on the works of James Joyce, connecting it with his own theories on the eternal return ("[Joyce's literature is] saturated with nostalgia for the myth of the eternal repetition"), and deeming Joyce himself an anti-historicist "archaic" figure among the modernists. In the 1930s, Eliade edited the collected works of Romanian historian Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu. M. L. Ricketts discovered and translated into English a previously unpublished play written by Mircea Eliade in Paris 1946 Aventura Spirituală (A Spiritual Adventure). It was published by

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

for the first time in Theory in Action -the journal of the Transformative Studies Institute, vol. 5 (2012): 2–58. Adaptations The Bengali Night (1988) Domnişoara Christina ("Miss Christina") (1992) Șarpele ("The Snake") (1996) Eu sunt Adam! (1996) Youth Without Youth (2007) Domnişoara Christina ("Missis Christina") (2013) Controversy: antisemitism and links with the Iron Guard Early statements The early years in Eliade's public career show him to have been highly tolerant of Jews in general, and of the Jewish minority in Romania in particular. His early condemnation of Nazi antisemitic policies was accompanied by his caution and moderation in regard to

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Nae Ionescu's various anti-Jewish attacks.Ornea, p.408–409, 412 Late in the 1930s, Mihail Sebastian was marginalized by Romania's antisemitic policies, and came to reflect on his Romanian friend's association with the far right. The subsequent ideological break between him and Eliade has been compared by writer Gabriela Adameşteanu with that between Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. In his Journal, published long after his 1945 death, Sebastian claimed that Eliade's actions during the 1930s show him to be an antisemite. According to Sebastian, Eliade had been friendly to him until the start of his political commitments, after which he severed all ties.Sebastian,

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

new waves of Jews are flooding into the country. Rather than a Romania again invaded by kikes, it would be better to have a German protectorate. The friendship between Eliade and Sebastian drastically declined during the war: the latter writer, fearing for his security during the pro-Nazi Ion Antonescu regime (see Romania during World War II), hoped that Eliade, by then a diplomat, could intervene in his favor; however, upon his brief return to Romania, Eliade did not see or approach Sebastian. Later, Mircea Eliade expressed his regret at not having had the chance to redeem his friendship with Sebastian

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

figures. Beyond his involvement with a movement known for its antisemitism, Eliade did not usually comment on Jewish issues. However, an article titled Piloţii orbi ("The Blind Pilots"), contributed to the journal Vremea in 1936, showed that he supported at least some Iron Guard accusations against the Jewish community: Since the war [that is, World War I], Jews have occupied the villages of Maramureş and Bukovina, and gained the absolute majority in the towns and cities in Bessarabia. [...] It would be absurd to expect Jews to resign themselves in order to become a minority with certain rights and very

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

many duties—after they have tasted the honey of power and conquered as many command positions as they have. Jews are currently fighting with all forces to maintain their positions, expecting a future offensive—and, as far as I am concerned, I understand their fight and admire their vitality, tenacity, genius. One year later, a text, accompanied by his picture, was featured as answer to an inquiry by the Iron Guard's Buna Vestire about the reasons he had for supporting the movement. A short section of it summarizes an anti-Jewish attitude: Can the Romanian nation end its life in the saddest decay

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

to publicize this matter previously. Polemics and exile Dumitru G. Danielopol, a fellow diplomat present in London during Eliade's stay in the city, later stated that the latter had identified himself as "a guiding light of [the Iron Guard] movement" and victim of Carol II's repression. In October 1940, as the National Legionary State came into existence, the British Foreign Office blacklisted Mircea Eliade, alongside five other Romanians, due to his Iron Guard connections and suspicions that he was prepared to spy in favor of Nazi Germany. According to various sources, while in Portugal, the diplomat was also preparing to

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

disseminate propaganda in favor of the Iron Guard. In Jurnal portughez, Eliade defines himself as "a Legionary", and speaks of his own "Legionary climax" as a stage he had gone through during the early 1940s. The depolitisation of Eliade after the start of his diplomatic career was also mistrusted by his former close friend Eugène Ionesco, who indicated that, upon the close of World War II, Eliade's personal beliefs as communicated to his friends amounted to "all is over now that Communism has won". This forms part of Ionesco's severe and succinct review of the careers of Legionary-inspired intellectuals, many

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

of them his friends and former friends, in a letter he sent to Tudor Vianu.Ornea, p.184–185 In 1946, Ionesco indicated to Petru Comarnescu that he did not want to see either Eliade or Cioran, and that he considered the two of them "Legionaries for ever"—adding "we are hyenas to one another". Eliade's former friend, the communist Belu Zilber, who was attending the Paris Conference in 1946, refused to see Eliade, arguing that, as an Iron Guard affiliate, the latter had "denounced left-wingers", and contrasting him with Cioran ("They are both Legionaries, but [Cioran] is honest"). Three years later, Eliade's political

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

activities were brought into discussion as he was getting ready to publish a translation of his Techniques du Yoga with the left-leaning Italian company Giulio Einaudi Editore—the denunciation was probably orchestrated by Romanian officials. In August 1954, when Horia Sima, who led the Iron Guard during its exile, was rejected by a faction inside the movement, Mircea Eliade's name was included on a list of persons who supported the latter—although this may have happened without his consent. According to exiled dissident and novelist Dumitru Ţepeneag, around that date, Eliade expressed his sympathy for Iron Guard members in general, whom he

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

viewed as "courageous". However, according to Robert Ellwood, the Eliade he met in the 1960s was entirely apolitical, remained aloof from "the passionate politics of that era in the United States", and "[r]eportedly [...] never read newspapers" (an assessment shared by Sorin Alexandrescu). Eliade's student Ioan Petru Culianu noted that journalists had come to refer to the Romanian scholar as "the great recluse". Despite Eliade's withdrawal from radical politics, Ellwood indicates, he still remained concerned with Romania's welfare. He saw himself and other exiled Romanian intellectuals as members of a circle who worked to "maintain the culture of a free

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Romania and, above all, to publish texts that had become unpublishable in Romania itself". Beginning in 1969, Eliade's past became the subject of public debate in Israel. At the time, historian Gershom Scholem asked Eliade to explain his attitudes, which the latter did using vague terms. As a result of this exchange, Scholem declared his dissatisfaction, and argued that Israel could not extend a welcome to the Romanian academic. During the final years of Eliade's life, his disciple Culianu exposed and publicly criticized his 1930s pro-Iron Guard activities; relations between the two soured as a result. Eliade's other Romanian disciple,

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Andrei Oişteanu, noted that, in the years following Eliade's death, conversations with various people who had known the scholar had made Culianu less certain of his earlier stances, and had led him to declare: "Mr. Eliade was never antisemitic, a member of the Iron Guard, or pro-Nazi. But, in any case, I am led to believe that he was closer to the Iron Guard than I would have liked to believe." At an early stage of his polemic with Culianu, Eliade complained in writing that "it is not possible to write an objective history" of the Iron Guard and its

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. Arguing that people "would only accept apologetics [...] or executions", he contended: "After Buchenwald and Auschwitz, even honest people cannot afford being objective". Posterity Alongside the arguments introduced by Daniel Dubuisson, criticism of Mircea Eliade's political involvement with antisemitism and fascism came from Adriana Berger, Leon Volovici, Alexandra Lagniel-Lavastine, Florin Țurcanu and others, who have attempted to trace Eliade's antisemitism throughout his work and through his associations with contemporary antisemites, such as the Italian fascist occultist Julius Evola. Volovici, for example, is critical of Eliade not only because of his support for the Iron Guard, but

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

also for spreading antisemitism and anti-Masonry in 1930s Romania. In 1991, exiled novelist Norman Manea published an essay firmly condemning Eliade's attachment to the Iron Guard. Other scholars, like Bryan S. Rennie, have claimed that there is, to date, no evidence of Eliade's membership, active services rendered, or of any real involvement with any fascist or totalitarian movements or membership organizations, nor that there is any evidence of his continued support for nationalist ideals after their inherently violent nature was revealed. They further assert that there is no imprint of overt political beliefs in Eliade's scholarship, and also claim that

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Eliade's critics are following political agendas.Bryan S. Rennie, Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1996, p.149–177. Romanian scholar Mircea Handoca, editor of Eliade's writings, argues that the controversy surrounding Eliade was encouraged by a group of exiled writers, of whom Manea was a main representative, and believes that Eliade's association with the Guard was a conjectural one, determined by the young author's Christian values and conservative stance, as well as by his belief that a Legionary Romania could mirror Portugal's Estado Novo. Handoca opined that Eliade changed his stance after discovering that the

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Legionaries had turned violent, and argued that there was no evidence of Eliade's actual affiliation with the Iron Guard as a political movement. Additionally, Joaquín Garrigós, who translated Eliade's works into Spanish, claimed that none of Eliade's texts he ever encountered show him to be an antisemite. Mircea Eliade's nephew and commentator Sorin Alexandrescu himself proposed that Eliade's politics were essentially conservative and patriotic, in part motivated by a fear of the Soviet Union which he shared with many other young intellectuals. Based on Mircea Eliade's admiration for Gandhi, various other authors assess that Eliade remained committed to nonviolence. Robert

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Ellwood also places Eliade's involvement with the Iron Guard in relation to scholar's conservatism, and connects this aspect of Eliade's life with both his nostalgia and his study of primal societies. According to Ellwood, the part of Eliade that felt attracted to the "freedom of new beginnings suggested by primal myths" is the same part that felt attracted to the Guard, with its almost mythological notion of a new beginning through a "national resurrection". On a more basic level, Ellwood describes Eliade as an "instinctively spiritual" person who saw the Iron Guard as a spiritual movement. In Ellwood's view, Eliade

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

was aware that the "golden age" of antiquity was no longer accessible to secular man, that it could be recalled but not re-established. Thus, a "more accessible" object for nostalgia was a "secondary silver age within the last few hundred years"—the Kingdom of Romania's 19th century cultural renaissance. To the young Eliade, the Iron Guard seemed like a path for returning to the silver age of Romania's glory, being a movement "dedicated to the cultural and national renewal of the Romanian people by appeal to their spiritual roots". Ellwood describes the young Eliade as someone "capable of being fired up

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

by mythological archetypes and with no awareness of the evil that was to be unleashed". Because of Eliade's withdrawal from politics, and also because the later Eliade's religiosity was very personal and idiosyncratic, Ellwood believes the later Eliade probably would have rejected the "corporate sacred" of the Iron Guard. According to Ellwood, the later Eliade had the same desire for a Romanian "resurrection" that had motivated the early Eliade to support the Iron Guard, but he now channeled it apolitically through his efforts to "maintain the culture of a free Romania" abroad. In one of his writings, Eliade says, "Against

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

the terror of History there are only two possibilities of defense: action or contemplation." According to Ellwood, the young Eliade took the former option, trying to reform the world through action, whereas the older Eliade tried to resist the terror of history intellectually. Eliade's own version of events, presenting his involvement in far right politics as marginal, was judged to contain several inaccuracies and unverifiable claims.Ornea, p.202, 208–211, 239–240 For instance, Eliade depicted his arrest as having been solely caused by his friendship with Nae Ionescu. On another occasion, answering Gershom Scholem's query, he is known to have explicitly denied

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

ever having contributed to Buna Vestire. According to Sorin Antohi, "Eliade died without ever clearly expressing regret for his Iron Guard sympathies". Z. Ornea noted that, in a short section of his Autobiography where he discusses the Einaudi incident, Eliade speaks of "my imprudent acts and errors committed in youth", as "a series of malentendus that would follow me all my life." Ornea commented that this was the only instance where the Romanian academic spoke of his political involvement with a dose of self-criticism, and contrasted the statement with Eliade's usual refusal to discuss his stances "pertinently". Reviewing the arguments

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

brought in support of Eliade, Sergio Vila-Sanjuán concluded: "Nevertheless, Eliade's pro-Legionary columns endure in the newspaper libraries, he never showed his regret for this connection [with the Iron Guard] and always, right up to his final writings, he invoked the figure of his teacher Nae Ionescu." In his Felix Culpa, Manea directly accused Eliade of having embellished his memoirs in order to minimize an embarrassing past. A secondary debate surrounding Eliade's alleged unwillingness to dissociate with the Guard took place after Jurnalul portughez saw print. Sorin Alexandrescu expressed a belief that notes in the diary show Eliade's "break with his

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

in Eliade's version, was taken by various commentators, beginning with Mihail Sebastian, as a favorable allusion to the Iron Guard's beliefs on commitment and death, as well as to the bloody outcome of the 1941 Legionary Rebellion. Ten years after its premiere, the play was reprinted by Legionary refugees in Argentina: on the occasion, the text was reviewed for publishing by Eliade himself. Reading Iphigenia was what partly sparked Culianu's investigation of his mentor's early political affiliations. A special debate was sparked by Un om mare. Culianu viewed it as a direct reference to Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and his rise

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

in popularity, an interpretation partly based on the similarity between, on one hand, two monikers ascribed to the Legionary leader (by, respectively, his adversaries and his followers), and, on the other, the main character's name (Cucoanes). Matei Călinescu did not reject Culianu's version, but argued that, on its own, the piece was beyond political interpretations. Commenting on this dialog, literary historian and essayist Mircea Iorgulescu objected to the original verdict, indicating his belief that there was no historical evidence to substantiate Culianu's point of view. Alongside Eliade's main works, his attempted novel of youth, Minunata călătorie a celor cinci cărăbuși

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

in țara furnicilor roșii, which depicts a population of red ants living in a totalitarian society and forming bands to harass the beetles, was seen as a potential allusion to the Soviet Union and to communism. Despite Eliade's ultimate reception in Communist Romania, this writing could not be published during the period, after censors singled out fragments which they saw as especially problematic. Cultural legacy Tributes An endowed chair in the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School was named after Eliade in recognition of his wide contribution to the research on this subject; the current (and

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

first incumbent) holder of this chair is Wendy Doniger. To evaluate the legacy of Eliade and Joachim Wach within the discipline of the history of religions, the University of Chicago chose 2006 (the intermediate year between the 50th anniversary of Wach's death and the 100th anniversary of Eliade's birth), to hold a two-day conference in order to reflect upon their academic contributions and their political lives in their social and historical contexts, as well as the relationship between their works and their lives. In 1990, after the Romanian Revolution, Eliade was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. In Romania, Mircea

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Eliade's legacy in the field of the history of religions is mirrored by the journal Archaeus (founded 1997, and affiliated with the University of Bucharest Faculty of History). The 6th European Association for the Study of Religion and International Association for the History of Religions Special Conference on Religious History of Europe and Asia took place from September 20 to September 23, 2006, in Bucharest. An important section of the Congress was dedicated to the memory of Mircea Eliade, whose legacy in the field of history of religions was scrutinized by various scholars, some of whom were his direct students

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

at the University of Chicago. As Antohi noted, Eliade, Emil Cioran and Constantin Noica "represent in Romanian culture ultimate expressions of excellence, [Eliade and Cioran] being regarded as proof that Romania's interwar culture (and, by extension, Romanian culture as a whole) was able to reach the ultimate levels of depth, sophistication and creativity." A Romanian Television 1 poll carried out in 2006 nominated Mircea Eliade as the 7th Greatest Romanian in history; his case was argued by the journalist Dragoş Bucurenci (see 100 greatest Romanians). His name was given to a boulevard in the northern Bucharest area of Primăverii, to

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

a street in Cluj-Napoca, and to high schools in Bucharest, Sighişoara, and Reşiţa. The Eliades' house on Melodiei Street was torn down during the communist regime, and an apartment block was raised in its place; his second residence, on Dacia Boulevard, features a memorial plaque in his honor. Eliade's image in contemporary culture also has political implications. Historian Irina Livezeanu proposed that the respect he enjoys in Romania is matched by that of other "nationalist thinkers and politicians" who "have reentered the contemporary scene largely as heroes of a pre- and anticommunist past", including Nae Ionescu and Cioran, but also

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Ion Antonescu and Nichifor Crainic. In parallel, according to Oişteanu (who relied his assessment on Eliade's own personal notes), Eliade's interest in the American hippie community was reciprocated by members of the latter, some of whom reportedly viewed Eliade as "a guru". Eliade has also been hailed as an inspiration by German representatives of the Neue Rechte, claiming legacy from the Conservative Revolutionary movement (among them is the controversial magazine Junge Freiheit and the essayist Karlheinz Weißmann). In 2007, Florin Ţurcanu's biographical volume on Eliade was issued in a German translation by the Antaios publishing house, which is mouthpiece for

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

the Neue Rechte. The edition was not reviewed by the mainstream German press. Other sections of the European far right also claim Eliade as an inspiration, and consider his contacts with the Iron Guard to be a merit—among their representatives are the Italian neofascist Claudio Mutti and Romanian groups who trace their origin to the Legionary Movement. Portrayals, filmography and dramatizations Early on, Mircea Eliade's novels were the subject of satire: before the two of them became friends, Nicolae Steinhardt, using the pen name Antisthius, authored and published parodies of them. Maitreyi Devi, who strongly objected to Eliade's account of

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

their encounter and relationship, wrote her own novel as a reply to his Maitreyi; written in Bengali, it was titled Na Hanyate (translated into English as "It Does Not Die"). Several authors, including Ioan Petru Culianu, have drawn a parallel between Eugène Ionesco's Absurdist play of 1959, Rhinoceros, which depicts the population of a small town falling victim to a mass metamorphosis, and the impact fascism had on Ionesco's closest friends (Eliade included). In 2000, Saul Bellow published his controversial Ravelstein novel. Having for its setting the University of Chicago, it had among its characters Radu Grielescu, who was identified

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

by several critics as Eliade. The latter's portrayal, accomplished through statements made by the eponymous character, is polemical: Grielescu, who is identified as a disciple of Nae Ionescu, took part in the Bucharest Pogrom, and is in Chicago as a refugee scholar, searching for the friendship of a Jewish colleague as a means to rehabilitate himself. In 2005, the Romanian literary critic and translator Antoaneta Ralian, who was an acquaintance of Bellow's, argued that much of the negative portrayal was owed to a personal choice Bellow made (after having divorced from Alexandra Bagdasar, his Romanian wife and Eliade disciple). She

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

also mentioned that, during a 1979 interview, Bellow had expressed admiration for Eliade. The 1988 film The Bengali Night, directed by Nicolas Klotz and based upon the French translation of Maitreyi, stars British actor Hugh Grant as Allan, the European character based on Eliade, while Supriya Pathak is Gayatri, a character based on Maitreyi Devi (who had refused to be mentioned by name). The film, considered "pornographic" by Hindu activists, was only shown once in India. In addition to The Bengali Night, films based on, or referring to, his works, include: Mircea Eliade et la redécouverte du Sacré (1987), part

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

of the television series Architecture et Géographie sacrées, by Paul Barbă Neagră; Domnişoara Christina (1992), by Viorel Sergovici; Eu Adam (1996), by Dan Pița; Youth Without Youth (2007), by Francis Ford Coppola. Eliade's Iphigenia was again included in theater programs during the late years of the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime: in January 1982, a new version, directed by Ion Cojar, premiered at the National Theater Bucharest, starring Mircea Albulescu, Tania Filip and Adrian Pintea in some of the main roles. Dramatizations based on his work include La Țigănci, which has been the basis for two theater adaptations: Cazul Gavrilescu ("The Gavrilescu

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Case"), directed by Gelu Colceag and hosted by the Nottara Theater, and an eponymous play by director Alexandru Hausvater, first staged by the Odeon Theater in 2003 (starring, among others, Adriana Trandafir, Florin Zamfirescu, and Carmen Tănase). In March 2007, on Eliade's 100th birthday, the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company hosted the Mircea Eliade Week, during which radio drama adaptations of several works were broadcast. In September of that year, director and dramatist Cezarina Udrescu staged a multimedia performance based on a number of works Mircea Eliade wrote during his stay in Portugal; titled Apocalipsa după Mircea Eliade ("The Apocalypse According

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

to Mircea Eliade"), and shown as part of a Romanian Radio cultural campaign, it starred Ion Caramitru, Oana Pellea and Răzvan Vasilescu. Domnișoara Christina has been the subject of two operas: the first, carrying the same Romanian title, was authored by Romanian composer Șerban Nichifor and premiered in 1981 at the Romanian Radio; the second, titled La señorita Cristina, was written by Spanish composer Luis de Pablo and premiered in 2000 at the Teatro Real in Madrid. See also Bibliography of Mircea Eliade Notes References Mircea Eliade:A History of Religious Ideas, Vol. 1 (trans. Willard R. Trask), University of Chicago

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Press, Chicago, 1978.Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism (trans. Philip Mairet), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1991Myth and Reality (trans. Willard R. Trask), Harper & Row, New York, 1963Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (trans. Philip Mairet), Harper & Row, New York, 1967Myths, Rites, Symbols: A Mircea Eliade Reader, Vol. 2, Ed. Wendell C. Beane and William G. Doty, Harper Colophon, New York, 1976Patterns in Comparative Religion, Sheed & Ward, New York, 1958Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History (trans. Willard R. Trask), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1971 "The Quest for

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

origini până în prezent ("The History of Romanian Literature from Its Origins to Present Times"), Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1986 John Daniel Dadosky, The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan, State University of New York Press, Albany, 2004 Robert Ellwood, The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1999 Victor Frunză, Istoria stalinismului în România ("The History of Stalinism in Romania"), Humanitas, Bucharest, 1990 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, London, 1993 Mircea Handoca, Convorbiri cu şi despre Mircea Eliade ("Conversations

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

with and about Mircea Eliade") on Autori ("Published Authors") page of the Humanitas publishing house Furio Jesi, Mito, Mondadori, Milan, 1980 G. S. Kirk,Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973The Nature of Greek Myths, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1974 William McGuire, Bollingen: An Adventure in Collecting the Past, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1982. Lucian Nastasă, "Suveranii" universităţilor româneşti ("The 'Sovereigns' of Romanian Universities"), Editura Limes, Cluj-Napoca, 2007 (available online at the Romanian Academy's George Bariţ Institute of History) Andrei Oişteanu, "Angajamentul politic al lui Mircea Eliade" ("Mircea Eliade's Political Affiliation"), in 22,

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Nr. 891, March–April 2007; retrieved November 15, 2007; retrieved January 17, 2008 "Mircea Eliade şi mişcarea hippie" ("Mircea Eliade and the Hippie Movement"), in Dilema Veche, Vol. III, May 2006; retrieved November 7, 2007 Z. Ornea, Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească ("The 1930s: The Romanian Far Right"), Editura EST-Samuel Tastet Editeur, Bucharest, 2008 Mihail Sebastian, Journal, 1935–1944: The Fascist Years, Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 2000. David Leeming. "Archetypes". The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. UC—Irvine. 30 May 2011 Further reading English Carrasco, David and Law, Jane Marie (eds.). 1985. Waiting

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

for the Dawn. Boulder: Westview Press. Dudley, Guilford. 1977. Religion on Trial: Mircea Eliade & His Critics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Idinopulos, Thomas A., Yonan, Edward A. (eds.) 1994. Religion and Reductionism: Essays on Eliade, Segal, and the Challenge of the Social Sciences for the Study of Religion, Leiden: Brill Publishers. McCutcheon, Russell T. 1997. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Oxford University Press. Olson, Carl. 1992. The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade: A Search for the Centre. New York: St Martins Press. Pals, Daniel L. 1996. Seven Theories of Religion.

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

USA: Oxford University Press. Rennie, Bryan S. 1996. Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion. Albany: State University of New York Press. . . Simion, Eugen. 2001. Mircea Eliade: A Spirit of Amplitude. Boulder: East European Monographs. Strenski, Ivan. 1987. Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History: Cassirer, Eliade, Levi Strauss and Malinowski. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Wasserstrom, Steven M. 1999. Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos. Princeton: Princeton University Press Wedemeyer, Christian; Doniger, Wendy (eds.). 2010. Hermeneutics, Politics, and the History of Religions: The Contested Legacies of Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade.

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press Other languages Alexandrescu, Sorin. 2007. Mircea Eliade, dinspre Portugalia. Bucharest: Humanitas. Băicuş, Iulian, 2009, Mircea Eliade. Literator şi mitodolog. În căutarea Centrului pierdut. Bucharest: Editura Universităţii Bucureşti Călinescu, Matei. 2002. Despre Ioan P. Culianu şi Mircea Eliade. Amintiri, lecturi, reflecţii. Iaşi: Polirom. Culianu, Ioan Petru. 1978. Mircea Eliade. Assisi: Cittadella Editrice; 2008 Roma: Settimo Sigillo. David, Dorin. 2010. De la Eliade la Culianu (I). Cluj-Napoca: Eikon. De Martino, Marcello. 2008. Mircea Eliade esoterico. Roma: Settimo Sigillo. Dubuisson, Daniel. 2005. Impostures et pseudo-science. L'œuvre de Mircea Eliade. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion Gorshunova, Olga. 2008.

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Terra Incognita of Ioan Culianu, in Ètnografičeskoe obozrenie. N° 6, pp. 94–110. .. Laignel-Lavastine, Alexandra. 2002. Cioran, Eliade, Ionesco – L'oubli du fascisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France-Perspectives critiques. Oişteanu, Andrei. 2007. Religie, politică şi mit. Texte despre Mircea Eliade şi Ioan Petru Culianu. Iaşi: Polirom. Posada, Mihai. 2006. Opera publicistică a lui Mircea Eliade. Bucharest: Editura Criterion. Ruşti, Doina. 1997. Dicţionar de simboluri din opera lui Mircea Eliade. Bucharest: Editura Coresi Tacou, Constantin (ed.). 1977. Cahier Eliade. Paris: L'Herne. Tolcea, Marcel. 2002. Eliade, ezotericul. Timişoara: Editura Mirton. Ţurcanu, Florin. 2003. Mircea Eliade. Le prisonnier de l'histoire''. Paris: Editions La

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Découverte. External links Biography of Mircea Eliade Mircea Eliade, From Primitives to Zen List of Terms Used in Mircea Eliade's The Sacred and The Profane Bryan S. Rennie on Mircea Eliade Joseph G. Muthuraj, The Significance of Mircea Eliade for Christian Theology Mircea Eliade presentation on the "100 Greatest Romanians" site Archaeus magazine Claudia Guggenbühl, Mircea Eliade and Surendranath Dasgupta. The History Of Their Encounter Guide to the Mircea Eliade Papers 1926-1998 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center Category:1907 births Category:1986 deaths Category:20th-century philosophers Category:20th-century Romanian novelists Category:20th-century Romanian dramatists and playwrights Category:Romanian historians of religion Category:Mythographers

Mircea Eliade

Romanian-American historian, writer, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago.

Category:Romanian philosophers Category:Philosophers of religion Category:Eastern Orthodox philosophers Category:Religious studies scholars Category:Shamanism Category:Traditionalist School Category:Romanian esotericists Category:Romanian orientalists Category:Romanian anthropologists Category:Contimporanul writers Category:Romanian journalists Category:Romanian literary critics Category:Romanian memoirists Category:Romanian essayists Category:Romanian fantasy writers Category:Romanian male short story writers Category:Romanian short story writers Category:Romanian travel writers Category:Romanian writers in French Category:Romanian male novelists Category:Male dramatists and playwrights Category:People from Bucharest Category:Members of the Romanian Orthodox Church Category:Scouting and Guiding in Romania Category:Spiru Haret National College (Bucharest) alumni Category:University of Bucharest alumni Category:University of Bucharest faculty Category:University of Calcutta alumni Category:Members of the Iron Guard Category:Christian fascists Category:Romanian people of World

Lin Carter

American fantasy writer, editor, critic

Linwood Vrooman Carter (June 9, 1930 – February 7, 1988) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor, poet and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft (for an H. P. Lovecraft parody) and Grail Undwin. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which introduced readers to many overlooked classics of the fantasy genre. Life Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. He was an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy in his youth, and became

Lin Carter

American fantasy writer, editor, critic

broadly knowledgeable in both fields. He was also active in fandom. Carter served in the United States Army (infantry, Korea, 1951–53), and then attended Columbia University and took part in Leonie Adams's Poetry Workshop (1953–54).<ref>Contributor note on Lin Carter in August Derleth, ed. Fire, Sleet and Candlelight: New Poems of the Macabre. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1961, p. 228</ref> He was an advertising and publishers' copywriter from 1957 until 1969, when he took up writing full-time. He was also an editorial consultant. During much of his writing career he lived in Hollis, New York. Carter was married twice, first

Lin Carter

American fantasy writer, editor, critic

to Judith Ellen Hershkovitz (married 1959, divorced 1960) and second to Noel Vreeland (married 1963, when they were both working for the publisher Prentice-Hall; divorced 1975). Carter was a member of the Trap Door Spiders, an all-male literary banqueting club which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery-solvers, the Black Widowers. Carter was the model for Asimov's character Mario Gonzalo. Carter was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose work he anthologized in the Flashing Swords! series.

Lin Carter

American fantasy writer, editor, critic

In the 1970s Carter published one issue of his own fantasy fanzine Kadath, named after H. P. Lovecraft's fictional setting (see The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath). It was printed in extremely low numbers and was scarcely circulated. It contained Carter's Cthulhu Mythos story "The City of Pillars" (pp. 22–25). Carter resided in East Orange, New Jersey, in his later years, and drank and smoked heavily. It was probably smoking that gave him oral cancer in 1985. Only his status as a Korean War veteran enabled him to receive extensive surgery. However, it failed to cure the cancer and left him