Mircea Eliade



Mircea Eliade (March 13 1907 – April 22 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. As a scholar of religion, he traced the primordial myths and symbols common to different cultures and pointed out the importance of hierophanies (manifestations of the sacred in everyday life). His literary works belong to the fantasy and autobiographical genre; the best known are the autobiographical novels Maitreyi (Bengal Nights), the novel Domnişoara Christina (Miss Christina), and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger (The Secret of Dr. Honigberger) and La Ţigănci (With the Gypsy Girls). Although his reputation as a philosopher remains intact, since the 1970s Eliade has been criticized for having sympathized with the Iron Guard, a fascist and anti-Semitic political organization.

During his youth, he was a disciple of Nae Ionescu and member of the literary society Criterion. He also served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Remarkable for his vast erudition, Eliade had fluent command of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and less command of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). He was elected postmortem member of the Romanian Academy.

Early life
Born in Bucharest, Eliade attended the Spiru Haret National College in the same class as Arşavir Acterian, Haig Acterian, and Petre Viforeanu (and several years the senior of Nicolae Steinhardt, who was to satirize his novels under the pen name Antisthius, and who became a close friend of Eliade's); while in high school, he wrote his debut work, the autobiographical Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent (influenced by the literature of Giovanni Papini, particularly his Un uomo finito). He became interested in natural sciences at an early age, and taught himself French and English, the latter so he could read James Frazer's Golden Bough in the original. He graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in 1928, earning his diploma with a study on Italian Philosophy from Marsilio Ficino to Giordano Bruno, and subsequently traveled to Italy, where he met Papini and collaborated with the scholar Giuseppe Tucci. It was during his student years that Eliade would meet Nae Ionescu and become one of his disciples and friends.

His scholarly works began after a long period of study in 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. In 1928 he sailed for Calcutta to study Sanskrit and philosophy under Surendranath Dasgupta, a University of Cambridge-educated Bengali professor at the University of Calcutta and author of a five volume History of Indian Philosophy. While living with Dasgupta, Eliade fell in love with his daughter, Maitreyi Devi, later writing a barely-disguised autobiographical novel (Bengal Nights) in which he claimed that he carried on a physical relationship with her. When she became aware of this account, she contested his account in her own novel Nya Hanyate (It Does Not Die, written in Bengali).

At the time, he became interested in the actions of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met personally, and the Satyagraha as a phenomenon; later, Eliade adapted Gandhist ideas in his discourse on spirituality and Romania.

Early 1930s
As one of the figures in the Criterion literary society (1933-1934), his initial encounter with the traditional far right was polemical: the group's conferences were stormed by members of A. C. Cuza's National-Christian Defense League, who objected to what they viewed as pacifism and addressed anti-Semitic insults to several speakers, including Mihail Sebastian; in 1933, he was among the signers of a manifesto opposing Nazi Germany's state-enforced racism. Eliade's views at the time focused on innovation — in the summer of 1933, he replied to an anti-modernist critique written by George Călinescu: "'All I wish for is a deep change, a complete transformation. But, for God's sake, in any direction other than spirituality'."

However, while a professor at the University of Bucharest (1933-1939), Eliade became active in nationalist politics, eventually enrolling in the Totul pentru Ţară ("Everything for the Fatherland" Party), the political expression of the Iron Guard, and contributing to its 1937 electoral campaign in Prahova County — as indicated by his inclusion on a list of party members with county-level responsibilities (published in Buna Vestire). He also contributed to the movement's press, writing in such papers as Sfarmă Piatră and Buna Vestire. He and friends Emil Cioran and Constantin Noica were by then under the influence of Trăirism, a school of thought that was formed around the ideals expressed by Romanian philosopher Nae Ionescu. A form of existentialism, Trăirism was also the synthesis of traditional and newer right-wing beliefs.

Eliade's articles before and after his adherence to the principles of the Iron Guard (or, as it was usually known at the time, the Legionary Movement), beginning with his famous Itinerar spiritual ("Spiritual itinerary", serialized in Cuvântul in 1927) center on several political ideals advocated by the far right. They displayed his rejection of liberalism and the modernizing goals of the 1848 Wallachian revolution (perceived as "an abstract apology of Mankind" and "ape-like imitation of [Western] Europe"), as well as for democracy itself (accusing it of "managing to crush all attempts at national renaissance", and later praising Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy on the grounds that, according to Eliade, "[in Italy,] he who thinks for himself is promoted to the highest office in the shortest of times"). He approved of an ethnic nationalist state centered on the Romanian Orthodox Church (in 1927, despite his still-vivid interest in Theosophy, he recommended young intellectuals "the return to the Church"), which he opposed to, among others, the secular nationalism of Constantin Rădulescu-Motru; referring to this particular ideal as "Romanianism", Eliade was, in 1934, still viewing it as "neither fascism, nor chauvinism". A major dissatifaction with the state focused on the unemployment of intellectuals, whose careers in state-financed institutions had been rendered uncertain by the Great Depression.

Internment and diplomatic service
By 1937, he gave his intellectual support to the Iron Guard, in which he saw "a Christian revolution aimed at creating a new Romania", and a group able "to reconcile Romania with God".

The stance taken by Eliade resulted in his arrest on July 14, 1938 after a crackdown on the Iron Guard authorized by King Carol II. Eliade was kept for three weeks in a permanently lighted cell at the Siguranţa Statului Headquarters, in an attempt to have him sign a "declaration of dissociation" with the Iron Guard, but he refused to do so. In the first week of August he was transferred to a makeshift camp at Miercurea-Ciuc. When Eliade began coughing blood in October 1938, he was taken to a clinic in Moroeni, because the death of a popular young writer in custody was a potential scandal. Eliade was simply released on November 12 and, with the help of Alexandru Rosetti, became the cultural attaché to the United Kingdom, a posting cut short when Romanian-British foreign relations were broken.

After leaving London he retained the same position in Portugal, where he was kept on as diplomat by the National Legionary State (the Iron Guard government) and, ultimately, by Ion Antonescu's regime. In 1942, Eliade authored a volume in praise of the Estado Novo, established in Portugal by António de Oliveira Salazar, alleging that "The Salazarian state, a Christian and totalitarian one, is first and foremost based on love". On July 7 of the same year, he was received by Salazar himself, who asked assigned Eliade the task of warning Antonescu to withdraw the Romanian Army from the Eastern Front ("[In his place], I would not be grinding it in Russia"). Eliade also claimed that such contacts with the leader of a neutral country had made him the target for Gestapo surveillance, but that he had managed to communicate Salazar's advice to Mihai Antonescu, Romania's Foreign Minister.

Exile
At signs that the Romanian communist regime was about to take hold, Eliade opted not to return to the country. He lived in France, where, recommended by Georges Dumézil, he taught at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris; it was estimated that, at the time, it was not uncommon for him to work 15 hours a day.

In 1957, he moved to the United States. He was invited by Joachim Wach to give a series of lectures at Wach's home institution, the University of Chicago, and settled in Chicago. The two scholars are generally admitted to be the founders of the "Chicago school" that basically defined the study of religions for the second half of the 20th century. Upon Wach's untimely death before the lectures were delivered, Eliade was appointed as his replacement, becoming the Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions. He also worked as editor-in-chief of Macmillan Publishers' Encyclopedia of Religion, collaborated with Carl Jung and the Eranos circle, and wrote for the Antaios magazine (edited by Ernst Jünger).

Initially 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 Salzar's dictatorship"), he was slowly rehabilitated beginning in the early 1960s (under the rule of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej). In the 1970s, Eliade was approached by the Nicolae Ceauşescu 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 phenomenons 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 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 poet Eugen Barbu and by Eliade's friend Constantin Noica. At the time, Eliade contemplated returning to Romania, but was eventually persuaded by fellow Romanian intellectuals in exile (including Radio Free Europe's Virgil Ierunca and Monica Lovinescu) to reject Communist proposals.

In 1990, after the Romanian Revolution, Eliade was elected post-mortem to the Romanian Academy. A Romanian Television 1 poll nominated him as the 7th Greatest Romanian in history; his case was argued by the writer Dragoş Bucurenci (see 100 greatest Romanians).

The scholar
In his work on the history of religion, Eliade is most highly regarded for his writings on Shamanism, Yoga and cosmological myths. He has had a decisive influence on many scholars, for instance Ioan Petru Culianu. In Romania, Eliade's legacy in the field of history of religions is mirrored by the journal Archaeus (founded 1997). 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 first incumbent) holder of this chair is Wendy Doniger, Eliade's colleague from 1978 until his death.

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.

His Treatise on the History of Religions was praised by French philologist Georges Dumézil for its coherence and ability to synthesize diverse and distinct mythologies.

His scholarly work includes a well known study of Shamanism, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, and an analysis of Yoga as a concrete search for freedom from human limitations, Yoga, Immortality and Freedom. In Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return Eliade provides an analysis of time as heterogeneous for the religious and homogeneous for the non-religious and a conception of the "terror of history" and the ability to continually "reactualize" the mythical age. He calls this reactualization of In the mythical age the "eternal return" (see Eternal Return (Eliade)).

Several researchers have criticized Eliade's work as 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.

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 Evola he continued to draw inspiration from, have thematic links to Fascism; 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 contribution. 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 Zalmoxis and its supposed monotheism. His conclusions regarding Dacian history (arguing that Romanization was superficial inside Roman Dacia) have been celebrated by contemporary partisans of Protochronist nationalism.

2007 will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mircea Eliade, and 2005 was the 50th anniversary of the death of Joachim Wach. To evaluate the legacy of Eliade and Wach to the discipline of the history of religions, The University of Chicago chose the intermediary year, 2006, to hold a two-day conference to reflect upon their academic contributions and their political lives in their social and historical contexts, and also the relationship between the works and the lives.

Controversy: anti-Semitism and links with the Iron Guard
The early years in Eliade's public career show him to have been highly tolerant of the Jews in general, and of the Jewish minority in Romania in particular. His early condemnation of Nazi anti-Semitic policies was accompanied by his caution and moderation in regard to Nae Ionescu's various anti-Jewish attacks.

Mihail Sebastian claimed in his Journal that Eliade's actions during the 1930s show him to be an anti-Semite. According to Sebastian, who was Jewish, Eliade had shown himself friendly to him until the start of his political commitments, after which he severed all ties. Before their friendship came apart, however, Sebastian claimed that he took notes on their conversations (which he later published) during which Eliade was supposed to have expressed anti-Semitic views. According to Sebastian, Eliade said in 1939:

"'The Poles' resistance in Warsaw is a Jewish resistance. Only yids are capable of the blackmail of putting women and children in the front line, to take advantage of the Germans' sense of scruple. The Germans have no interest in the destruction of Romania. Only a pro-German government can save us.... What is happening on the frontier with Bukovina is a scandal, because 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.'"

Later, Eliade expressed his regret of not having had the chance to redeem his friendship with Sebastian, before the latter was killed in a car accident.

The content of Sebastian's testimony is disputable given the uncharacteristic radicalism of Eliade's supposed views, and the clear but unprecedented esteem reserved for German methods. Beyond his involvement with a movement known for its anti-Semitism, Eliade did not usually comment on Jewish issues. However, a text he contributed to Vremea in 1936 showed that he supported at least some Iron Guard accusations against the Jewish community:

"'Ever since the war [that is, World War I], Jews have invaded villages in Maramureş and Bukovina, and have become absolute majority in every town in Bessarabia. [...] It would be absurd to expect Jews to resign themselves in order to become a minority with certain rights and very 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 state of decay ever to be known in history, undermined by misery and syphilis, invaded by Jews and torn apart by foreigners, demoralized, betrayed, sold off for some hundreds of millions lei?'"

According to the literary critic Z. Ornea, in the 1980s Eliade denied authorship of the text. He explained the use of his signature, his picture, and the picture's caption, as having been applied by the magazine's editor, Mihail Polihroniade, to a piece the latter had written after having failed to obtain Eliade's contribution; he also claimed that, given his respect for Polihroniade, he had not wished to publicize the occurrence at any thitherto moment.

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. 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 expressed to his friends amounted to "all is over now that «Communism has won»" (this forms part of Ionesco's harsh and succinct review of the careers of Legionary-inspired intellectuals, many of them his friends and former friends, in a letter he sent to Tudor Vianu). In August 1954, when Horia Sima, who led the Iron Guard during its exile, was rejected by a faction inside the movement, his name was included on a list of persons who supported the latter (although this may have happened without Eliade's consent). During the final years of Eliade's life, his disciple Ioan Petru Culianu exposed and publicly criticized his 1930s pro-Iron Guard activities; relations between the two soured as a result.

Further criticism of his political involvement with anti-Semitism and fascism came from Adriana Berger, Leon Volovici, Daniel Dubuisson, Florin Ţurcanu and others, who have attempted to trace Eliade's anti-Semitism throughout his work and through his associations with contemporary anti-Semites, 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 also for spreading anti-Semitism and anti-Masonry in 1930s Romania.

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 Eliade's critics are following political agendas.

Eliade's own version of events, presenting his involvement in far right politics as marginal, was judged to contain several inaccuracies and unverifiable claims. On another occasion, he is known to have denied ever having contributed to Buna Vestire.

Critical works about Eliade

 * Allen, Douglas. 2002. Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade. London: Routledge.
 * Carrasco, David and Law, Jane Marie (eds.). 1985.  Waiting for the Dawn.  Boulder: Westview Press.
 * Culianu, Ioan Petru. 1978. Mircea Eliade. Assisi: Citadela Editrice
 * Dadosky, John D. 2004.  The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan.  Albany: State University of New York Press.
 * Dudley, Guilford. 1977.  Religion on Trial: Mircea Eliade & His Critics.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
 * Ellwood, Robert S. 1999.  The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell.  Albany: State University of New York Press.
 * 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.
 * Rennie, Bryan S. 1996.  Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion.  Albany: State University of New York Press.
 * Rennie, Bryan S. (ed.). 2001.  Changing Religious Worlds: The Meaning and End of Mirce Eliade.  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.
 * Tolcea, Marcel. 2002.  Eliade, ezotericul.  Timişoara: Editura Mirton.
 * Ţurcanu, Florin. 2003.  Mircea Eliade. Le prisonnier de l'histoire.  Paris: Editions La Découverte.
 * Wasserstrom, Steven M. 1999.  Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos.  Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Eliade in cinema
Eliade has never been protagonist in a cinema production. Following is a list of films based on, or referring to, his works.
 * Mircea Eliade et la redécouverte du Sacré (1987), part of the television series Architecture et Géographie sacrée, by Paul Barbă Neagră
 * La Nuit Bengali (1988), by Nicolas Klotz
 * Domnişoara Christina (1996), by Viorel Sergovici
 * Eu Adam (1996), by Dan Piţa
 * Youth Without Youth (2007), by Francis Ford Coppola