the history of the history of religions in romania

Religion (2002) 32, 71–85doi:10.1006/reli.2002.0392,, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

SURVEY ARTICLE

The History of the History of Religions in Romania

M L R

While the history of religions (HR) has a long ‘prehistory’ in Romania, its formalintroduction dates only from 1925–26, with the early writings of Mircea Eliade.Eliade’s career in Romania was cut short by political events and the Second WorldWar, while the imposition of Soviet control after the war resulted in his becoming anexile. His influence led a few of his compatriots to follow in his footsteps during thedark decades of Communism, but not until the overthrow of the CeausescuGovernment in 1989 did it again become possible to engage freely in HR studies.Today these studies are flourishing as never before and bidding to attract worldwideattention. � 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Although the discipline known variously as ‘history of religions’, ‘comparative religion’and Religionswissenschaft was becoming established in universities of Europe and Americain the second half of the nineteenth century (see Kitagawa 1959, pp. 1–5, 14–18; Allesand Kitagawa 1985, p. 187), in Romania it remained unknown until 1925–26.However, a long ‘prehistory’ of history of religions (hereafter HR) can be traced in thisregion, chiefly in two fields of study: Oriental languages and philosophy on the onehand and ethnology and folklore on the other.

The ‘Prehistoric Era’Recently, the young Romanian historian of religions Eugen Ciurtin has pursuedchronologically the growth of knowledge and the image of Asia, especially of India, inthe Romanian regions (see Ciurtin 1998–99). The first Romanian to travel in theOrient was the Spartar Nicolae ‘Milescu’ (1637–1708) of Moldavia, who was sent in1675 by Czar Peter as Russia’s first ambassador to the Chinese capital. He travelled alsoin Siberia (see Ciurtin 2000c) and the Ottoman Empire. Lacking ‘phenomenologicalobjectivity’, Nicolae, a devout Orthodox Christian, could see only paganism and a needfor missionaries in these regions. Indeed, he regarded Islam and Roman Catholicism asno less polytheistic and idolatrous than those religions he encountered in Asia (seeCiurtin 1998–99, pp. 284–8).

The Moldavian Prince Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723), one of Romania’s mostbroadly cultured figures of the eighteenth century, lived for some twenty years inConstantinople, where he came to know intimately the Ottoman world. He studiedIslamic history, theology and folklore, becoming Romania’s ‘first orientalist’ (seeCurticapeanu 1978, pp. 113–8). Although he was well acquainted with Islam and insome of his writings practised ‘comparative theology’, his attitude towards that religionwas as negative as that of the Sparat (see Ciurtin 1998–99, p. 293).

Much less prominent than Cantemir was Constantin Oltelniceanu, the all butforgotten bibliophile of the first half of the nineteenth century, whose collection ofbooks on Asian subjects, acquired after his death by the Romanian Academy in1867–68, laid the foundation on which its great library was built. It is amazingly rich

� 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.0048–721X/02/$-see front matter

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in reference works: Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese and Arabic dictionaries, grammars andtranslations, essential volumes written by European scholars, and forty-two issues ofJournal asiatique (see Ciurtin 1998, pp. 119–47; Ciurtin 1998–99, pp. 120, 131–44).

Chronologically, the next Romanian attracted to India was the Saxon pharmacistJohann Martin Honnigberger (1795–1869)—a man whom Eliade would ‘use’ in hisnovel of 1940, Secretul Doctorului Honnigberger. An indefatigable traveller, he made,between 1815 and 1869, five journeys to India, three in Europe, and one to Africa,circling the Cape of Good Hope. Honigsberger’s interests in India were primarily inbotany and medicine, but as an archaeologist he was one of the first Europeans toexamine Buddhist stupas, some thirty of which he explored (see Ciurtin 1998–99,pp. 311–8).

Another important but little known nineteenth-century Romanian Indianist wasConstantin Georgian (1850–1904). A modern historian of religions, Arion Rosu, hascalled him ‘the founder of Romanian Indology’ (see Rosu 1967). Having decided on hisvocation at an early age, he left upon graduation from the University of Bucharest forParis, where he studied Indian languages, literature and philosophy under BréalFoucaux, A. Bergaigne and others at the Sorbonne. After a year there, he sought out stillmore prestigious teachers: Hübschmann, Curtius and Brockhaus, at Leipzig and Berlin.Having become a skilled linguist (Greek, Latin, Romanian, Sanskrit, Persian), heobtaijned a doctorate from Leipzig and honours from the Sorbonne. But upon returningto Bucharest, where he had been promised a (new) chair in Sanskrit language andliterature at the University, he was denied it. Neither was he welcomed at Iasi, wherea chair in comparative linguistics already existed. Instead, he was sent as a secretary tothe Diplomatic Agency in Berlin. There he wrote, in 1876, a critical edition of part ofthe Sanskrit drama, Mrcchkatika, in Devinagari—a ‘first’ for a Romanian. He came backto Romania later that year to a minor instructional post, which he held until his deathin 1904.

The only book Georgian published was Universalitatea principilor reginiuni crestine (TheUniversitality of the Principles of the Christian Religion), subtitled A Study ofComparative Religion (Bucharest, 1878). As the first Romanian effort at a ‘history ofreligions’ (which he must surely have encountered in France and Germany), it issomewhat limited, treating only Indo-European nations (those whose languages heknew: Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Irish, German and Persian) and Brahmanism,Mazdeism and Buddhism. He declares that ‘the oldest religion of which we havemonuments is that of our ancestors, the Aryans’, and he asserts that Vedic polytheism isa ‘remnant’ of primitive monotheism. Christianity is the highest religion (see Ciurtin1998–99, p. 327). In addition to this book, one journal article and two theses, Georgianleft behind a sizeable archive of personal papers which he donated to the Library of theRomanian Academy (see Ciurtin 1997, pp. 147–65; Ciurtin 1998–99, pp. 318–35,428–30).

Contemporary with Georgian was Mihai Eminescu (1850–89), Romania’s almostsainted poet. In his brief lifetime Eminescu produced an impressive oeuvre, consisting notonly of poetry but also of short novels and political articles from his years as a journalist.Born in Northern Moldavia, then Austro-Hungarian territory, he studied history andphilosophy at Vienna (1869–72) and Berlin (1877–74). At Berlin, he probably alsostudied Sanskrit (Calinescu, pp. 177). By 1866 he was already composing poetry, andsome of his best loved verses were penned at Vienna and Berlin. Between 1877 and1883, when a mental and physical breakdown forced his retirement, he engaged injournalism at Bucharest. After a struggle with his health lasting four yers, he died in a

The History of the History of Religions in Romania 73

Moldavian sanitorium at age thirty-nine (see Calinescu, pp. 120–81, 207–317;MacGregor-Hastie 1972, pp. xxi–xxvii; Petrescu 1978, pp. 208–9).

Eminescu’s poetry and world view seem strongly influenced by Indian thought.According to friends, he had read the Suakuntala, the Mahabharata and the Ramayanabefore undertaking his studies in Germany. At Berlin, he may have taken courses inSanskrit with Albrect Weber and Ebert (see Calinescu, p. 177). Among his papers arethree notebooks of 1886 containing the beginning of a translation of Franz Bopp’sSanskrit grammar (see Itu 1995, pp. 9, 15; Eminescu 1989; Bhose 1977a, pp. 68–79), aswell as several Rig Vedic hymns (see Itu 1995, p. 11). Rig Veda X.129 is the obviousinspiration for passages in several of Eminescu’s poems, and other references occur in hisprose writings. Buddhist concepts appear frequently as well, and he believed in death as‘extinction’, or Nirvana (see Ciurtin 1998–99, p. 356).

Two other men, important literary figures in their day, should be mentioned inpassing for their interest in India: Aron Densusianu (1837–1900) and George Cosbuc(1866–1918), who translated excerpts from the Rig Veda, Mahabharata, Ramayana andKalidasa (see Poanta, pp. 164–8; Ciurtin 1998–99, pp. 431–2). At the turn of thecentury Teodor Iordanescu, educated at Halle, translated selections from Sanskrit works(Vedic hymns, the epics, Kalidasa, the Jatakas, etc.) and wrote on Indian folklore (seeCiurtin 1998–99, pp. 373, 434). The little known Gheorghe Popescu-Ciocanel(1869–1929), after graduating from École des Hautes Études, devoted his life to thestudy of Persian, Arabic and Islam. A few of his works were published, but, with hishaving settled in Dobrogea, the Persian and Arabic grammars he had written were lostin the Balkan War of 1913 (see Ciurtin 1998–99, pp. 332–5).

Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu (1838–1907), historian, linguist and folklorist as well aspoet, dramatist and journalist, was born in Besarabia (then Russian territory). Heattended the University of Kharkov but was largely self-educated (see Dragan 1978,p. 246). He crossed into Romanian territory in 1857 and settled at Iasi, engaging injournalism and literary activities. In 1863 he moved to Bucharest, where he foundedseveral satirical magazines, wrote a play and a novel, published political articles inperiodicals, and began composing a history of Romanian literary criticism. Named toa position at the University of Bucharest, he inaugurated a course in comparativephilology (1875), including not only Romance and classical languages but also Sanskrit,‘Zendic’, Armenian, Albanian, Celtic, German and Slavic tongues, which he wouldcontinue to teach until 1890. In 1878 and 1886 he represented his country at sessions ofthe International Congress of Orientalists. Following the death of his daughter Iulia, in1888, Hasdeu, grief-stricken, turned to spiritualism. He built a remote ‘castle’, to whichhe retreated, alone, in 1897, and was virtually forgotten until Eliade’s massive edition ofselected works was published in 1937 (see Hasdeu 1937, pp. xxvi–xxxv; Ricketts 1988,II, pp. 931–53; Dragan 1978, p. 246; Ciurtin 1998–99, p. 359).

One of Hasdeu’s passions was folklore. Learning of his Romanian publications in thisfield, F. Max Müller initiated correspondence with him (1879–99), imploring him topublish his writings in German or English, but Hasdeu made no translations (see Ciurtin1998–99, p. 372). Although he was a ‘comparativist’ in several fields (history, languistics,folklore), religion was not one of them. Eliade describes him as a romantic, with a ‘thirstfor ‘‘beginnings’’, a passion for collective structures (institutions, customs, legends), forthe global, the organic, the concrete’ (cited in Hasdeu 1937, p. lxxix).

Interest in gathering Romanian folklore had begun in the middle of the nineteenthcentury with collections of ballads (1849), Christmas carols (1859), folktales (1860), andproverbs (1877) (see Fochi 1972, p. 12; Ciurtin and Oisteanu, forthcoming). The major

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work in these fields was done towards the end of the century and later by Hasdeu andtwo Jewish-Romanian savants, Moses Gaster (1856–1939) and Lazar Sqaıneanu (1859–1934). Gaster’s first publications were in Hasdeu’s paper, Columna lui Traian (1876–77),and from a long and close association with him he learned many languages. Addingthese to his knowledge of Talmudic legends, Gaster was uniquely equipped to makecomparative folkloric studies. However, in 1885, despite his devotion to Romanianfolklore, he was expelled from the country for advocating Zionism and for protestingthe treatment of Romanian Jews. He settled in London, where he continued hisresearches into Romanian and comparative folklore. Near the end of his life, he donatedhis library to the Romanian Academy. Sqaıneanu, a student of Hasdeu who laterbecame his teaching assistant, likewise was banished in 1901. In the 1930s Eliade woulddeplore these expulsions of distinguished Romanian scholars (see Ricketts 1988, II,p. 944; Eliade 2001, pp. 144–7, 150–5; Ciurtin 1988–89, pp. 366–7, 370–2; Eskenasy1987).

Another notable folklorist of this era was Ovid Densusianu (1873–1938), himself apoet, who attempted to compare Vedic hymns with Romanian carols and whopublished a two-volume work on Romanian folk poetry in 1922–23 (see Eliade 1927a;Chitimia and Dima 1979, p. 398; Ciurtin 1998–99, p. 351). The name of NicolaeCartojan (1883–1944) stands out as a leader in the field in the early twentieth century.His major works, Cartile populare în literatura româna (2 vols, 1929–38) and Istorie literaturiiromâne vechi (3 vols, 1940–45), remain as monuments to his life (see Anghelescu,pp. 133–5). A large number of folklorists flourished in twentieth-century Romania.Several of them, as we shall see, contributed to Eliade’s journal of religious studies,Zalmoxis.

Mircea EliadeNone of the individuals discussed so far meets the criteria of ‘historian of religions’, nordid any of them aspire to this title. This state of affairs in Romania continued until thethird decade of the twentieth century. The arrival of HR there awaited the publicationsof the eighteen-year-old Mircea Eliade in 1925–26. His first articles in the area of HR(ancient near Eastern legends, Mystery religions, alchemy, etc.), published during his lastsemester of lycée, were based on the limited resources available to him (e.g., Maspero,Jensen, Dhorme, Jastrow) (see Eliade 1981, p. 84; 1996, pp. 203–93; Ricketts 1988, I,pp. 79–83). However, in the fall of 1925, having entered the University of Bucharestand gained access to larger libraries, he discovered the works of James Frazer—first hisFolklore of the Old Testament, and soon after, The Golden Bough (see Eliade 1996,pp. 346–50; 1981, p. 85). Reading further in Jensen, he learned and approved Frazier’smethod of comparative mythology, ‘used today by all mythographers’ (Eliade 1996,pp. 358–9).

But the real ‘breakthrough’ occurred when Eliade discovered the work of RaffaelePettazzoni. In February 1926 he reviewed the Italian scholar’s I Misteri (see Eliade 1998,pp. 58–60). In his journal (3 February 1964) he recalled (inaccurately) that he had readthe book in the fall of 1924: ‘More than any other book read up until then, that volumewas decisive for my vocation as Historian of Religions’ (Eliade, Journal, 10 February1949, 2 January 1950). In his article he identified Pettazzoni as Professor of History ofReligions at Bologna. Eliade wrote to him immediately, asking for four other books ofhis which he lacked, and citing two more that he already had read. Professor Pettazzoni,who by now had moved to Rome as the first to occupy a full professorship in history


of religions in Italy, replied promptly, sending him what he had available and promisingmore. With this exchange, the two scholars entered upon a correspondence that wouldend only with the death of the elder in 1959. These letters, of inestimable biographicalvalue, have been collected and published with admirable annotations by Natale Spineto(see Eliade and Pettazzoni 1994).

Eliade quickly produced a long article on ‘Raffaele Pettazzoni’, locating him now atRome and calling him ‘one of the most erudite and capable historians of religions’ (seeEliade 1998, pp. 123–31). This article is important for the definition that Eliade gives ofHR: ‘a young science: barely 70–80 years old’. It was established, he writes, by MaxMüller and Edward Tylor, the one a philologist, the other an anthropologist, and fromthe merger of these two disciplines the history of religions was born. Pettazzoni followsin that tradition, explains Eliade. The source of Eliade’s information, although he doesnot acknowledge it, was Pettazzoni’s inaugural lecture, which the author had sent him(see Pettazzoni 1924).

In years to come, Eliade would learn much more about the discipline that he wouldalways call the history of religions (invariably capitalising the words from 1952 on), andhe would develop his own unique methodology, but he never ceased to acknowledgethe influence of Pettazzoni. In a seminar in Chicago in 1977, he told his students, ‘in away, Pettazzoni was my model. . . . By ‘‘model’’, I mean what a historian of religionsdoes, not how he does it. Pettazzoni was a historicist, and I am not. . . . Pettazzoni wasthe last savant who did his utmost to investigate and understand the History of Religionsin its totality’ (Eliade Journal 1 December 1977; cf. Eliade 1999, p. 211).

Spineto emphasises Eliade’s assumption of the role of ‘disciple’ to Pettazzoni as‘master’ (Mâitre), as expressed most explicitly in a letter of 10 February 1949: ‘I haveconsidered you, from the beginning of my historico-religious studies, as my onlyMâitre’ (quoted in Eliade and Pettazzoni 1994, p. 200; cf. p. 40).

Other Italians who were of major importance to Eliade in these formative years wereVittorio Macchioro, specialist in Orphism (see Handoca 2000a, pp. 60–80; Mincu andScagno 1986/87, pp. 238–44), Ernesto Buonaiuti, historian of early Christianity (seeHandoca 1993; pp. 129–52; Mincu and Scagno 1986/87, pp. 235–3), Carlo Formici,Buddhism scholar (see Eliade 1998, pp. 166–70, 209–14), and Giuseppe Tucci,Tibetanist (see Eliade 1999, p. 506). Although Eliade did not study formally under anyof these scholars, it was from Italy rather than from Germany or France that he receivedhis orientation in history of religions.

While in India (1929–31), Eliade studied Sanskrit and Yoga-Samkhya withSurendranath Dasgupta, Cambridge-educated specialist in Indian philosophy, for aboutone year and nine months. But his romance with Dasgupta’s daughter, Maitreyi,resulted in an end to his ‘formal education’. There ensued six months of immersion inyoga practice in Shivananda’s ashram. In March 1931 Eliade returned to Calcutta andworked seriously at the writing of his dissertation (see Ricketts 1988, I, pp. 338–62).

During his sojourn in India, Eliade expanded his circle of correspondents to includeRudolf Otto, J. W. Hauer, Stcherbatsky and Vostrikoff. Of this correspondence, onlythree letters from Otto survive, including one in which he gives Eliade permission tomake a translation of Das Heilige (7 May 1929, in University of Chicago RegensteinLibrary files).

The first evidence of any exchange of letters with Julius Evola dates from the Indianperiod. This was to be the start of a sporadic correspondence extending down to 1954(see Handoca 1993, pp. 275–80; Mincu and Scagno 1986/87, pp. 252–7). Eliade mayhave met Evola on one of his two trips to Italy: in his first letter Evola says he

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remembers him well. The Italian was a ‘Traditionalist’, that is, one who adhered toRené Guénon’s doctrine of a ‘Primordial Tradition’, or a ‘perennial philosophy’. Muchhas been written, especially in the last decade, alleging a cryptic influence on Eliade’sthought by esoterists of Guénon’s school (see Fiore 1986, pp. 49–56; Mutti 1999,pp. 31–45; Tolca 1999, 2001; Tolcea 1997; Pisi 1998; Dubuisson 1995, 1999;Wasserstrom 1999, pp. 38, 44–7, 143, 161). The principal sources of this influence,besides the writings of Guénon himself (whom Eliade never met or corresponded with),would have been Evola (specialist in Hinduism and Tantrism), Ananda Coomaraswamy(with whom Eliade did correspond, 1936–47), and Henry Corbin, a Parisian friend andan esoteric Muslim like Guénon. Eliade also knew several Romanian Traditionalists:Marcel Avramescu, Vasile Lovinescu and Mihai Vâlsan, the last of whom resided in Parisafter the war (see Mutti 1999). Eliade first mentions Guénon, but only in passing, in1926 and 1927 (see Eliade 1998, pp. 131–44; 1990, pp. 48–51), lauding him for his1921 critique of Theosophy. Reviewing the Italian religion periodical Bilychnis in 1926,Eliade lists Evola as a contributor (see Eliade 1998, p. 65). In 1927 he devoted a wholecolumn in Cuvântul—not entirely favourable—to something Evola had written onoccultism (see Eliade 1927b). During the Thirties Eliade wrote several times aboutGuénon or Evola, generally in a positive way, though once calling them ‘dilettantes’ (seeRicketts 1998, II, pp. 847–50), but he cites neither in his doctoral thesis on Yoga.When he reviewed Evola’s famous Rivolta contro il mondo moderne in 1935, he gave itgood marks, but he either ignored or failed to grasp some of its salient points. Evola isnever cited in Eliade’s postwar bibliographies, and Guénon is cited only once—inTraité/Patterns (see Eliade 1949, p. 384/1958, p. 458). When, on Evola’s initiative, theircorrespondence was renewed in 1949, it was always very formal (see Handoca 1993,pp. 275–81). Despite the fact that Eliade was often in Rome, he visited Evola only twice(see Eliade, Journal, July 1974).

There was one ‘perennial philosopher’ whom Eliade held in high regard: the learnedSinhalese scholar and art curator Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Eliade enjoyed a cordialrelationship with him, through correspondence, from 1936 until Coomaraswamy’sdeath in 1947, and he was the only Traditionalist invited to contribute to Zalmoxis. Hesubmitted two articles plus a book review for volumes I and II. It seems more thancoincidental that about this time such terms as archetypes, Axis Mundi, Centre of theEarth and Tree of Life—all terms used by Coomaraswamy—begin to appear in Eliade’swritings (see Ricketts 1988, II, p. 845). But Eliade never accepted the basic premises ofthe Traditionalists, such as the existence of ‘one original and perennial Tradition’ (seeSpineto 2001). Even so, he respected Coomaraswamy’s meticulous scholarship andnever ceased to admire him (see Quinn 1997, 1999).

It is impossible within the limits of this survey article to examine all the ‘influences’that might have borne upon Eliade’s unique concept of history of religions, but oneother possible ‘source’ should be considered: Carl Jung, and in particular his concept of‘archetypes’ of the collective unconscious. Even though both men were associated withEranos, neither Eliade nor many others who gathered there were ‘Jungians’. Eliade livedto regret that he had ever begun using the term ‘archetype’, since so many peopleassumed he had adopted it from Jung. On 21 August 1951 he wrote in his journal,‘Jung’s archetypes horrify me. Actually, how well I did, what an excellent instinct I had,not to read Jung while working on my ‘‘theory’’ of archetypes. Jung set out fromdreams and psychoses, and afterward he discovered mythology. I had the good luck towork directly on ‘‘great mythology’’ and always in relation to the History of Religions’(Eliade, Journal manuscript; cf. Eliade 1978, p. 187.


What can be said about Eliade’s influence on the development of history of religionsin Romania? While studying in India, he had great expectations for his career in HRand Orientalistics when he returned home. He wrote to his parents in 1929, promisingto publish ‘several works’ that would make him known in Western Europe, therebyobliging the University of Bucharest to establish a chair in the History and Philosophyof Religions for him and to establish an Oriental Institute where he could teach Sanskritand Pali (see Eliade 1999, pp. 282, 300; cf. p. 78; Ricketts 1988, I, p. 340). In fact, afterhe was granted a doctorate by the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Bucharest(with his thesis on Yoga), the only opportunity given him to teach was as an assistant toNae Ionescu, Professor of Metaphysics and Logic. Even within these constraints, hemanaged, with Ionescu’s encouragement, to teach history of religions, while still hopingfor the creation of an Institute of Oriental Studies (see Eliade 1999, p. 24). He continuedworking until the arrest of Ionescu in the spring of 1938 ended his university career.Apparently, from these years, the philosopher Mihai Sqora was Eliade’s only formerstudent to have gained prominence (see Handoca 1998, pp. 307–12; Vlasin 2001, p. 2;Ricketts 1988, II, pp. 715, 717, 1094, 1040; Eliade 1988, p. 76).

In addition to his dissertation, revised and pubished in French in 1936, Eliade broughtout five other ‘scientific’ volumes between 1934 and 1944, all in Romanian: Chinese andIndian Alchemy (1934); Babylonian Cosmology and Alchemy (1937); The Myth of Reintegra-tion (1942); Comments on the Legend of Master Manole (1943); and Euthanasius’ Island(1943), a compendium of articles, mostly on the history of religions.

In the fall of 1937 Eliade, in consultation with the folklorist Ioan Coman, decided tostart a journal in major languages that would promote Romanian folklore studies abroadand that would ‘make Romanian folklorists somehow take seriously the historico-religious value of the materials they were using’ that is, to go beyond philology tohermeneutics (see Eliade 1988, p. 9; Ricketts 1988, II, pp. 790–2). Coman, who hadstudied under the great Romanian prehistorian Vasile Pârvan (1882–1927), suggested itbe named for the ancient Dacian God Zalmoxis (see Handoca 1998, pp. 135–42). Inpractice, Eliade broadened the scope of the journal, which was subtitled Revue des étudesreligieuses, and invited foreign scholars to contribute according to their specialities,especially to the inaugural issue. Of the ten major articles in the first volume, five wereby non-Romanians (Pettazzoni, Coomaraswamy, J. Przyluski, C. Henze and BenjaminRowland), three by Eliade, and one each by Coman and Petru Caraman (Romanianfolklorists). Caraman was a specialist in Slavic ethnography and was probably closer inhis thinking to Eliade than Coman (see Ciurtin 2000a, pp. 26–7). Half the articles werein English and half in French (cf. Eliade 1993, pp. 165–77, 206, 219–21).

The journal was beset with difficulties from the start. Eliade had planned to bring outthe first issue in 1938, and he was proofreading the articles when he was arrested in Julyand interned until November. Finances were a problem, too: unlike other scholarlyperiodicals, this one had no University Faculty sponsoring it. Eliade contributed part ofthe costs out of his own pocket, and other funding came from the Royal Foundation.In March 1939 volume I appeared from Librarie Paul Geuthner, Paris, where Yoga hadbeen published in 1936. Some 3000 copies were printed and distributed to bookstoresand libraries in the U.S.A., England (where Eliade saw it in 1940), France, Germany andelsewhere (see Eliade 1993, p. 233; Eliade 1999, pp. 140, 180, 220–1). Assisted byConstantin Noica, a philosopher and trusted friend, volume II (dated 1938) came out in1940, after Eliade had left the country on diplomatic service in London, and volume III(1940–42), in 1943, while Eliade was in Portugal (see Eliade 2001). Volume II containsonly six major articles, with Coomaraswamy, Caraman, Coman and Eliade reappearing.

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The one new contributor of a major article was Carl Clemen, German historian ofreligions. The third volume had just four major articles, three by Romanian folklorists:Coman, Ovidiu Papadima, and Gheorghe Fosca, plus one by Eliade (see Eliade 2000,pp. 7–55; Handoca 2000a, pp. 75–83).

As a postscript to this account of Eliade as a historian of religions in Romania, itshould be recalled that he was much better known in his homeland in the Thirties as aliterary figure (ten novels, 1930–40) and journalist (hundreds of articles on a widevariety of subjects, including a few political). After the war, all his writings were put onthe Communist Government’s ‘Index’. Restraints were lifted somewhat in the earlyyears of the Ceausescu regime, and articles about Eliade, mainly as a writer, began toappear in 1967 (see Handoca 1999b, pp. 215–7). Two volumes of his literary workswere published in 1969 (Eliade 1969a and b), but the first book of a history of religionsnature, Aspecte ale mitului (Myth and Reality) was released only in 1978 (see Handoca1997, p. 315).

An important contemporary of Eliade was Lucian Blaga (1895–1961), philosopher,poet and playwright. While he was not a historian of religions, his extensivephilosophical works were admittedly influenced by Indian metaphysics, especially by theteachings of Shankara and Nagarjuna (see Itu 1996; Itu 2000, pp. 52–4; S. Al-George1981, pp. 221–68). Eliade, who had met him in 1937, regretted all his life that Blaga’ssystematic philosophical writings, his famous ‘Trilogies’, had never been published in amajor language so that the originality of his thought could be universally appreciated(see Eliade, Journal, 29 August 1985).

The Era of Darkness, 1945–90During the long Communist night in Romania, religion studies as such were not to befound in universities. Ethnology, folklore, philosophy, classics, linguistics, history andarchaeology offered some opportunities for continuity with the history of religionslegacy of Eliade, but essentially the subject was in eclipse. Nevertheless, three scholars ofa younger generation were inspired from reading Eliade’s scholarly writings in theirearly youth, before the war, to become Indologists: Sergiu Al-George (1922–81), AntonZigmund-Cerbu (1923–64) and Arion Rosu (b. 1924). A fourth person, also an admirerof Eliade, became a comparative linguist: Cicerone Poghirc (b. 1928) (see Eliade,Journal, 17 February 1965; Handoca 1998, p. 38). Of these, only the first remained inRomania for his entire career, and at great personal cost.

Cerbu, who left his homeland in 1947, when it was still easy to do so, studiedSanskrit, Tibetan and other Oriental languages at Collège de Paris. After 1960 he taughtat Columbia University but died before having published anything significant. Eliadewas fond of him and called him one of his ‘disciples’ (see Eliade 1966; Journal, 3 July1960, 25 October 1961, 10 March 1964; Rosu 2000).

Arion Rosu, with the aid of relatives living abroad, was able to purchase his ‘release’from Romania in 1965. Having been a member of Noica’s circle (see below), hesuffered imprisonment from 1959 to 1964. On reaching Italy, he contacted Eliade forhelp, and Eliade advised him to go to Paris, where he could obgain a stipend for study,since he had at that time only a bachelor’s degree in classical linguistics (see Eliade,Journal, 17 February and 18 April 1965). At Paris, Rosu has distinguished himself inIndian studies, particularly in Indian medicine and alchemy. Currently, he is Chargés derecherche honoraire at Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris.

Dr Sergiu Al-George, who obtained a medical degree, was self-educated in Sanskritand Tibetan. He began publishing articles in 1947 on Indian philosophy, culture and


linguistics. Learning of his interests, Eliade instructed his mother to give him (throughNoica) the remnants of his Indian library, which she had preserved during the war (seeEliade, Journal, 15 July 1947, 20 October 1961, 8 April 1965).

In the Fifties Al-George joined a small group of intellectuals known as the ‘NoicaCircle’, which became suspect in the eyes of the authorities. Noica and his associateswere arrested in December 1958, tried, and sentenced as ‘conspirators’ for a list of‘crimes’, including that of having read Eliade’s books (see Eliade, Journal, 19 July 1962).They received varying sentences. Al-George received seven years. In prison, he wassubjected to beatings and other physical and mental tortures. In April 1964, as part of ageneral amnesty for political prisoners, he and the others were released (see DorinaAl-George, pp. 19–20, 51–7). From that time until his death, he practised his dualprofessions of medicine (phonology) and Indology, publishing and lecturing at homeand abroad in both fields. At the University of Bucharest in 1971–72, he was Lecturerin Indian Philosophy within the Faculty of Oriental Languages, and in 1972 he visited,on invitation, several centres for advanced study of philosophy in India. The Govern-ment allowed him to travel to Paris in 1973, where he met Eliade. He presented a paperin the year of his death before the International Sanskrit Congress in Benares. Eliadetried, in the fall of that year, to find a place for him in the Committee on South AsianStudies at the University of Chicago (see Eliade 1999, pp. 18–19), and he was distressedin December to hear of his sudden death. Eliade had intended to ask him to write a longchapter for A History of Religious Ideas on mediaeval and post-mediaeval India: ‘No oneelse could have . . . presented the material with competence and interpretations soclose to my own’ (Eliade, Journal, 10 December 1981). In 1990 an Institute forOriental Studies, a dream that Eliade had voiced while still in India, was established inBucharest on the initiative of Andrei Plesu, then Minister of Culture, named forAl-George (see Ciurtin and Timotin 2000, p. 8). Eliade’s widow, Christinel, made adonation to the institute of her husband’s Parisian library, some 1400 items, in 1997 (seeBercea 1997).

Another man of the postwar Romanian ‘younger generation’ upon whom Eliade’sshadow fell was Cicerone Poghirc. He received a doctorate in Indo-European languagesfrom the University of Leningrad in 1958, and another from the University of Bucharestin 1959 in Old Greek and Macedonian. As a faculty member at the University ofBucharest, Poghirc taught linguistics until 1979. Fluent in a large number of languages,he achieved many noteworthy accomplishments, including the founding of a section onIndology at the University. Visiting professorships in 1972–74 and 1976–79 took him tothe U.S.A. and Italy. As was customary, he was required to travel alone, leaving hisfamily behind to ensure his return. His patience with the Romanian Government wasexhausted in 1979, when it refused to allow his wife and son to visit him in Padova. Hedecided not to return (see Eliade, Journal, 23 July 1979). In the West, he has taught atRhur-Universitat, Bochum, and now is Secretary General of the Centre for RomanianStudies at Paris. He has written on ancient cultures, archaeology, and early Geto-Dacianand Albanian religion (see Itu 1999b, pp. 50–2).

A figure of major importance in Romanian Indology from the Seventies until herdeath in 1992 was Amita Bhose, who came to Bucharest as the wife of a commercialattaché to the Indian Embassy. A cousin of Maitreyi, she acquired a fascination for thepoetry of Eminescu and made Romania her home thereafter. She obtained a doctorateat Iasi with a thesis comparing Eminescu and Tagore (see Bhose 1977b). From 1989 to1992 she taught Sanskrit and Bengalı at the University of Bucharest and became apopular personage in Bucharestian society (see Dorina Al-George 1994, pp. 116–8).

80 M. L. Ricketts

The most prominent historian of religions to emerge out of the Communist era inRomania was Ioan Petru Culianu (1950–91), whose murder in a men’s toilet at theUniversity of Chicago Divinity School still remains a matter of speculation andcontroversy (see Anton 1996, pp. 245–79; Antohi and Petrescu 2001). Eliade clearlyregarded him as the man most suited and best equipped to carry on his work. Brilliant,if somewhat bizarre, and a prolific writer in many fields besides history of religions(including fantasy short-stories, Renaissance esoteric philosophy and Romanianpolitics), he was indeed in many respects the spiritual son of Mircea Eliade. But heshould not by any means be viewed as a clone of the elder.

After obtaining a master’s degree at the University of Bucharest in 1972 with a thesison Marsilio Ficino and Platonism in the Renaissance, he won a coveted scholarship forstudy abroad, in Perugia, Italy. With the help of his teacher, C. Poghirc, now Dean ofthe Faculty, he was granted an exit visa. Thus began his self-exile. Three years later, hewas befriended by Ugo Bianchi of the Catholic University in Milan, whose universitygave him a teaching fellowship while he studied for a Ph.D. (see Anton 1996,pp. 61–80).

In the summer of 1974 through the intermediation of a friend, Culianu secured along-desired meeting with Eliade in Paris. ‘Young historian of religions, very gifted (shyand bold at the same time)’, were Eliade’s initial impressions (Eliade, Journal,6 September 1974). Eliade invited him to work at the University of Chicago for thewinter and spring quarters of 1975. Thereafter, their friendship would grow and deepen,and Eliade would come to look upon him as his protegé. Between 1976 and 1985Culianu taught at Groningen, but in March 1986 he returned to Chicago as guestlecturer. The next month (22 April) Eliade died, and in the year following Culianu wasappointed to the Divinity School faculty. Four years later, he too would be dead (seeAnton 1996, pp. 85–161, 10–21). While his professional career was carried on entirelyoutside his homeland, through his writings he has had an important influence on thecurrent generation. The publishing house Editura Nemira (Bucharest) began in 1994the collection and publication in Romanian, of the complete works of Culianu, ofwhich at least eleven volumes have already appeared.

After the ‘Revolution’Since the bloody overthrow of the Ceausescu regime on 22 December 1989, thehistory of religions has flourished as never before in Romania. There have appeared,first of all, new editions of Eliade’s books, including ones on the history of religionsfrom before and during the Second World War, new anthologies of articles by himpublished originally in Romania or in the diaspora, and eventually Romaniantranslations of volumes by him from the French and English (only five such translationshad been allowed prior to 1990) (see Handoca 1997, pp. 53–60, 315–7). A flood ofarticles about Eliade appeared, including some discussing his ‘scientific’ works, thoughfew persons were professionally prepared to evaluate Mircea Eliade as historian ofreligions.

One man who was possessed of such preparation was Professor Andrei Oisteanu (b.1948), cultural anthropologist, today attached to the Centre for Jewish Studies of theUniversity of Bucharest and a member of the Commission on Folklore and Ethnologyof the Romanian Academy. Though he has not written a book or article devotedspecifically to Eliade, one senses strong ‘Eliadean influence’ in his writings. He regularlycites Eliade in his works, which deal with cross-cultural mythology and symbolism. His


studies are less global in scope, but more intensively researched and more systematicallypresented than Eliade’s (cf. Oisteanu 1998, 1999). It was he who wrote the prefacesto the Romanian version of Anton’s book about Culianu (see Anton 1997) and toCulianu’s Out of this World, which consists in a perceptive comparison of Culianu andEliade (see Oisteanu 1994, pp. 350–67; cf. Anton 1996, pp. 118–9, 122–3).

Among a new generation of historians of religions in Romania is Mircea Itu (b. 1968)of Brasov. He studied Sanskrit, Bengalı and Hindı for five years at the University ofBucharest under Amita Bhose, then studied for a year (1992–93) at Agra. For hismaster’s degree, he wrote Brahman and Maya in the Vision of Shankaracarya. Work for hisdoctorate was initiated at the Sorbonne in 1996 under Jean Haudry. As visiting lecturerat Delhi University (1997–98; cf. Itu 1999a), he taught Romanian, passed exams inSanskrit and travelled extensively in the subcontinent. He was granted the doctorate in1999 with the thesis Mircea Eliade’s Indianism. His publications include six books, one ofthem a novel, Lila (Itu 1999c), which is reminiscent of Eliade’s Maitreyi. Itu was oneof two Romanians invited to participate in an Eliade symposium at the InternationalAssociation for the History of Religions Congress in Durban 2000 (see Itu 2000,pp. 25–6). Currently, he is a Fellow of the Romanian Academy, Institute of Philosophy,and Lecturer at the University of Bucharest.

The other Romanian participant in the Eliade symposium at Durban was WillhelmDanca (b. 1959). He holds a master’s and a doctorate from the Gregorian PontificalUniversity (1993 and 1996). His dissertation, Mircea Eliade, Definitio Sacri (Danca 1998),emphasises what he sees as the dominant influence of Nae Ionescu’s philosophy onEliade’s thought. Currently, he teaches at the Roman Catholic Institute at Iasi and at theSt Theresa Theological Institute in Bucharest. His work seems to fall into the categoryof philosophical theology more than history of religions.

Courses called ‘history of religions’ are taught at several universities in Romania,typically within faculties of theology, but in fact they are presentations made from aChristian viewpoint (see Itu 2001). Even today at the University of Bucharest there isno faculty of religion.

At the end of 1997 there appeared suddenly in Bucharest a new journal called ArchaeusStudii de istorie a religiilor. Published under the aegis of ‘The Association Archaeus’, withthe support of the SOROS Foundation for an Open Society, it listed five names as theeditorial staff: Andrei Timotin (Editor in Chief), Teodor Baconsky, Dan Slusanchi,Eugen Ciurtin and Bogdan Tataru-Cazaban. All of these figures were associated with theUniversity of Bucharest, but in fact the journal had come into being through theinitiative of two young men, Timotin (b. 1976) and Ciurtin (b. 1975), the one witha fresh Ph.D. in Social History from the Institute of Southeast European Studies,Bucharest (thesis: Eschatalogical Apocrypha and Beliefs in Southeastern Europe, 17th–19thCenturies), the other still working towards his doctorate at the Nicolae Iorga AcademicInstitute (thesis: The Historical Genesis of the Frontier Between Europe and Asia). The rangeof interests and expertise in history of religions of these two men is much wider thantheir theses would suggest, as they have demonstrated in their articles and book reviewsin the first and subsequent fascicles of Archaeus.

Beginning with the third, combined issue (II, 2, 1998-III, 1, dated 1999), thejournal has been produced by Asociatia Româna de Istorie a Religiilor/AssociationRoumaine d’Histoire des Religions, affiliated with the Faculty of History, University ofBucharest, founded in November 2000 (see Ciurtin 2000d, p. 5). Of the originaleditorial committee, only Timotin, Ciurtin and Dan Slusanschi (Professor, Faculty ofForeign Languages, Department of Classical Studies) remained through volume IV.

82 M. L. Ricketts

With volume IV, 1–2 (2000) Andrei Oisteanu joined these three and began contribut-ing articles. Also with this volume, the journal began to be published in major languages(French, English, Italian), whereas formerly all articles had been in Romanian, withresumés in French. The ‘Collège de Rédaction’ was further enlarged to include twoothers (G. Casadio, Salermo, and C. Neagu, Oxford) with volume IV, issues 3 and 4.In late 2000 Mihaela Timus, a doctoral student at the University of Bucharest in Iranianreligions and languages, began collaborating with the Association, and she and Ciurtinassumed editorial responsibilities in 2001.

The sheer quantity of the material published in the nine fascicles that have been issuedto date—totalling approximately 2000 pages—is astonishing, as is likewise the varietythe subject matter. Space does not permit a listing of these articles here, but suffice ti tosay they are in no way inferior to those found in other scholarly journals. In addition,the Association has published the entire contents of Eliade’s journal Zalmoxis (1938–42),translated into Romanian, in a handsome, hard-backed edition, with an excellentfifty-page introduction and three addenda (see Eliade 2000).

The ambitious pair of young men had announced two additional journals: StudiaAsiatica and Studia Indo-Europ›a (see Ciurtin and Timotin 2000), but in 2001 Timotinwithdrew from the Association, and plans for Studia Indo-Europ›a, which was to be hisresponsibility, were dropped. Studia Asiatica made its debut in 2001–02. In 2000 theAssociation became a corresponding member of the European Association for the Studyof Religions, and it has applied for membership in the International Association of theHistory of Religions.

In short, with these recent developments promoted by the ‘Archv*s group’, the study ofthe history of religions has reached a stage of maturity never before attained in Romania,a field eager to take its place alongside HR studies in other European and in NorthAmerican universities. And now that Archv*s is being published in major languages, itshould be made available in libraries where other periodicals of its type are found.

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MAC LINSCOTT RICKETTS is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion,Louisburg College, North Carolina. He is the author of, notably, Mircea Eliade: TheRomanian Roots (East European Monographs, 1988).

212 West Main Street, Independence, VA 24348, U.S.A.

the history of the history of religions in romania

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