Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential.Wendy Doniger, "Foreword to the 2004 Edition", Eliade, Shamanism, p. xiii One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but (at least in the minds of the religious) actually participate in them.
Eliade's literary works belong to the fantastic and autobiographical genres. The best known are the novels Maitreyi ('La Nuit Bengali' or 'Bengal Nights', 1933), Noaptea de Sânziene ('The Forbidden Forest', 1955), Isabel și apele diavolului ('Isabel and the Devil's Waters'), and Romanul Adolescentului Miop ('Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent', 1989); the novellas Domnișoara Christina ('Miss Christina', 1936) and Tinerețe fără tinerețe ('Youth Without Youth', 1976); and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger ('The Secret of Dr. Honigberger', 1940) and La Țigănci ('With the Gypsy Girls', 1963).
Early in his life, Eliade was a journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and a member of the literary society Criterion. In the 1940s, he served as cultural attaché of the Kingdom of Romania to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a Romanian Christian fascist organization. His involvement with fascism at the time, as well as his other far-right connections, came under frequent criticism after World War II.
Eliade had fluent command of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and a reading knowledge of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). In 1990 he was elected a posthumous member of the Romanian Academy.
Biography
Childhood Born in Bucharest, he was the son of Romanian Land Forces officer Gheorghe Eliade (whose original surname was Ieremia)Biografie, in HandocaSilviu Mihai, "A doua viaţă a lui Mircea Eliade" ("Mircea Eliade's Second Life"), in Cotidianul, February 6, 2006; retrieved July 31, 2007 and Jeana née Vasilescu.Călinescu, p. 956 An Orthodox believer, Gheorghe Eliade registered his son's birth four days before the actual date, to coincide with the liturgical calendar feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. Mircea Eliade had a sister, Corina, the mother of semiologist Sorin Alexandrescu.Simona Chiţan, "Nostalgia după România" ("Nostalgia for Romania"), interview with Sorin Alexandrescu, in Evenimentul Zilei, June 24, 2006 His family moved between Tecuci and Bucharest, ultimately settling in the capital in 1914, and purchasing a house on Melodiei Street, near Piața Rosetti, where Mircea Eliade resided until late in his teens.Sergio Vila-Sanjuán, "Paseo por el Bucarest de Mircea Eliade" ("Passing through Mircea Eliade's Bucharest"), in La Vanguardia, May 30, 2007 ; retrieved January 16, 2008
Eliade kept a particularly fond memory of his childhood and, later in life, wrote about the impact various unusual episodes and encounters had on his mind. In one instance during the World War I Romanian Campaign, when Eliade was about ten years of age, he witnessed the bombing of Bucharest by German zeppelins and the patriotic fervor in the occupied capital at news that Romania was able to stop the Central Powers' advance into Moldavia.Ion Hadârcă, "Mircea Eliade la începuturi" ("Mircea Eliade at His Beginnings") , in Revista Sud-Est, 1/2007; retrieved January 21, 2008
He described this stage in his life as marked by an unrepeatable epiphany.Ioan P. Culianu, "Mahaparanirvana", in El Hilo de Ariadna , Vol. IIEllwood, pp. 98–99 Recalling his entrance into a drawing room that an "eerie iridescent light" had turned into "a fairy-tale palace", he wrote, I practiced for many years [the] exercise of recapturing that epiphanic moment, and I would always find again the same plenitude. I would slip into it as into a fragment of time devoid of duration—without beginning, middle, or end. During my last years of lycée, when I struggled with profound attacks of melancholy, I still succeeded at times in returning to the golden green light of that afternoon. [...] But even though the beatitude was the same, it was now impossible to bear because it aggravated my sadness too much. By this time I knew the world to which the drawing room belonged [...] was a world forever lost.Eliade, Autobiography, in Ellwood, pp. 98–99
Robert Ellwood, a professor of religion who did his graduate studies under Mircea Eliade,Ellwood, p. 5 saw this type of nostalgia as one of the most characteristic themes in Eliade's life and academic writings.
Adolescence and literary debut After completing his primary education at the school on Mântuleasa Street, Eliade attended the Spiru Haret National College in the same class as Arșavir Acterian, Haig Acterian, and Petre Viforeanu (and several years the senior of Nicolae Steinhardt, who eventually became a close friend of Eliade's).Steinhardt, in Handoca Among his other colleagues was future philosopher Constantin Noica and Noica's friend, future art historian Barbu Brezianu.Veronica Marinescu, " 'Am luat din întâmplările vieții tot ce este mai frumos', spune cercetătorul operei brâncușiene" (" 'I Took the Best Out of Life's Occurrences', Says Researcher of Brâncuși's Work") , interview with Barbu Brezianu, in Curierul Național, March 13, 2004; retrieved February 22, 2008
As a child, Eliade was fascinated with the natural world, which formed the setting of his very first literary attempts, as well as with Romanian folklore and the Christian faith as expressed by peasants. Growing up, he aimed to find and record what he believed was the common source of all religious traditions. The young Eliade's interest in physical exercise and adventure led him to pursue mountaineering and sailing, and he also joined the Romanian Boy Scouts.Maria Vlădescu, "100 de ani de cercetaşi" ("100 Years of Scouting"), in Evenimentul Zilei, August 2, 2007
With a group of friends, he designed and sailed a boat on the Danube, from Tulcea to the Black Sea.Constantin Roman, Continental Drift: Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures, CRC Press, Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol and Philadelphia, 2000, p. 60 In parallel, Eliade grew estranged from the educational environment, becoming disenchanted with the discipline required and obsessed with the idea that he was uglier and less virile than his colleagues. To cultivate his willpower, he would force himself to swallow insects and only slept four to five hours a night. At one point, Eliade was failing four subjects, among which was the study of the Romanian language.
Instead, he became interested in natural science and chemistry, as well as the occult, and wrote short pieces on entomological subjects. Despite his father's concern that he was in danger of losing his already weak eyesight, Eliade read passionately. One of his favorite authors was Honoré de Balzac, whose work he studied carefully. Eliade also became acquainted with the modernist short stories of Giovanni Papini and social anthropology studies by James George Frazer.
His interest in the two writers led him to learn Italian and English in private, and he also began studying Persian and Hebrew. At the time, Eliade became acquainted with Saadi's poems and the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. He was also interested in philosophy—studying, among others, Socrates, Vasile Conta, and the Stoics Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and read works of history—the two Romanian historians who influenced him from early on were Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu and Nicolae Iorga. His first published work was the 1921 Inamicul viermelui de mătase ("The Silkworm's Enemy"), followed by Cum am găsit piatra filosofală ("How I Found the Philosophers' Stone"). Four years later, Eliade completed work on his debut volume, the autobiographical Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent.
University studies and Indian sojourn
Between 1925 and 1928, he attended the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, earning his diploma with a study on Early Modern Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella. In 1927, Eliade traveled to Italy, where he met Papini and collaborated with the scholar Giuseppe Tucci.
It was during his student years that Eliade met Nae Ionescu, who lectured in Logic, becoming one of his disciples and friends.Călinescu, pp. 954, 955; Nastasă, p. 76 He was especially attracted to Ionescu's radical ideas and his interest in religion, which signified a break with the rationalist tradition represented by senior academics such as Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Dimitrie Gusti, and Tudor Vianu (all of whom owed inspiration to the defunct literary society Junimea, albeit in varying degrees).
Eliade's scholarly works began after a long period of study in British India, at the University of Calcutta. Finding that the Maharaja of Kassimbazar sponsored European scholars to study in India, Eliade applied and was granted an allowance for four years, which was later doubled by a Romanian scholarship.Nastasă, p. 237 In autumn 1928, he sailed for Calcutta to study Sanskrit and philosophy under Surendranath Dasgupta, a Bengali Cambridge alumnus and professor at Calcutta University, the author of a five volume History of Indian Philosophy. Before reaching the Indian subcontinent, Eliade also made a brief visit to Egypt. Once in India, he visited large areas of the region, and spent a short period at a Himalayan ashram.McGuire, p. 150; Nastasă, p. 237
He studied the basics of Indian philosophy, and, in parallel, learned Sanskrit, Pali and Bengali under Dasgupta's direction. At the time, he also became interested in the actions of Mahatma Gandhi and the Satyagraha as a phenomenon; later, Eliade adapted Gandhian ideas in his discourse on spirituality and Romania.
In 1930, while living with Dasgupta, Eliade fell in love with his host's daughter and the protege of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, Maitreyi Devi, later writing a barely disguised autobiographical novel Maitreyi (also known as "La Nuit Bengali" or "Bengal Nights"), in which he claimed that he carried on a physical relationship with her.Ginu Kamani, "A Terrible Hurt: The Untold Story behind the Publishing of Maitreyi Devi", at the University of Chicago Press website; retrieved July 16, 2007
Eliade received his PhD in 1933, with a thesis on Yoga practices.Biografie, in Handoca; Nastasă, p. 237Albert Ribas, "Mircea Eliade, historiador de las religiones" ("Mircea Eliade, Historian of Religions"), in El Ciervo. Revista de pensamiento y cultura, Año 49, Núm. 588 (Marzo 2000), pp. 35–38 The book, which was translated into French three years later, had significant impact in academia, both in Romania and abroad.
He later recalled that the book was an early step for understanding not just Indian religious practices, but also Romanian spirituality.Eliade, in Nastasă, p. 238 During the same period, Eliade began a correspondence with the Ceylonese-born philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy.McGuire, p. 150 In 1936–1937, he functioned as honorary assistant for Ionescu's course, lecturing in Metaphysics.Nastasă, p. 442; Ornea, p. 452