Addenda la „Ioan Petru Culianu, Mircea Eliade și felix culpa. Supplementa”

Liviu Bordaș

Addenda I

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CORESPONDENȚA I. P. CULIANU – M. L. RICKETTS

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1

[= 5 bis]

M. L. Ricketts, convorbire cu I. P. Culianu^[1]

Visit with I. P. C[ulianu] in Chicago, 1986

Notes

May 18 – Dinner (noon) with Ioan P. Culianu

He is 36. Left Romania in 1972 on an Italian scholarship. Was not fully decided to seek political asylum until after he was in Italy awhile. Lived in a camp for five months, then got a job in Rome. (Gov[ernmen]t had hassled him about a visa in 1971 – had given him one first, then withdrew it.) He is married to a Rom[anian]-Dutch divorcée with a son, now 14. He loves teaching – and likes the students here best of any he has taught.

He will take to Groningen all the unpublished papers, leaving lists with Christinel and Library. (Eventually they will be returned to Regenstein.) There will be a collection of Eliade’s books at the Sorbonne, but not his papers. (They must be kept separate, he says – the library there is chaotic.) He will send me anything I want from the papers (copies).

The Romanian correspondence was virtually destroyed in the fire. (We will go Tues[day] a.m. to look at office, begin job of cataloging what survived. He was going to do this with Eliade’s secretary^[2] anyway.) He and Eliade were going to do it, but hadn’t gotten around to it.

He didn’t know what books Mircea had planned to give to the A[merican] R[omanian] A[cademy]. (Ion Manea^[3] recently telephoned.) I said I suspected they were the ones in Meadville library, in piles.^[4]

Christinel probably will stay here most of the time. She and Mircea had decided not to give up the apartment – the pace of life here is more relaxed, and the doctor who treated both of them is here.^[5] He thinks she may make a visit to Paris in fall.

Mircea had been having a pain in chest for about two weeks. But at hospital, the cancer was found to be advanced. Much fluid was taken from lungs.

About Histoire. Most of the chapters are written – all but two or three. Eliade left exten­sive notes for his chapter. Culianu proposes to publish the notes – not to try to write an essay based on them.

He thinks Gallimard has the rights to the autobiography, including all translations of it.

MLRP 11

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2

[= 7 anexa]

M. L. Ricketts către I. P. Culianu^[6]

Manuscrisele inedite

Romanul adolescentului miop (typed, 184 pp.)

Gaudeamus (typed, 211 pp.)

“Mister”, “Un vis”, “Istoria unui ban”, and “Taina” – short stories from 1919 (photoco­pies of originals)

Minunata călătorie a celor cinci cărăbuși în țara furnicilor roșii, Dec. 1921 (typed, 25 pp.)

“Apa din lighean” and “Cum a murit Fedora”, nuvele, 1922 (typed, 5 and 8 pp.)

caiet cartonat: Nuvele, schițe și încercări, 1922–1924 (photocopy, 47 pp.)

caiet de clasă: Încercările mele, date unknown. I have only part of it: “Cum a murit Ri, copilul sfânt”, incomplete (photocopy, nearly illegible, 49 pp.)

Memoriile unui soldat de plumb, undated (typed, 33 pp.)

“Journal de jour botanique”, Dec. 1920 – Feb. 1921 (typed, 5 pp.)

part of caietul: “Eu”, “Entomologie”, Dec. 1920 – April 1921 (typed, 14 pp.)

caiet: Jurnal, 9 April – 25 June 1921 (typed, 28 pp.)

caiet: [Jurnal], 1 July 1921 – October 1922 (typed, 22 pp.)

“Zoologie”, 1922 (typed, 5 pp.)

Viața și apucăturile furnicilor, undated (typed, 51 pp.); most published in Orizontul 1924–1925

Jurnalul tipilor din clasă, Feb. – Mar. 1923 (photocopy of original, 56 pp.)

Catalogul bibliotecii mele, 1922 (typed, 225 pp.)

Jurnal și memorii, 1923 (typed, 27 pp.)

Foi volante, December 1923 – January 1924 (typed, 12 pp.)

Jurnalul unui om sucit, 1921–1922 (typed, 25 pp.); nuvelă or pseudo-journal

“Gloria colegului Vojen”, about 1923, pp. 48–102 from a notebook (photocopy, almost illegible)

Romanul unui om sucit, May 1923 (typed, 38 pp.); like Romanul adolescentului miop in style

MLRP 11

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3

[= 38b]

I. P. Culianu către M. L. Ricketts^[7]

Feb[ruary] 26, 1989

Dear Mac,

Mrs Eliade just told me that she forgot to tell you, as I had asked her, not only my regards, but also that I had been unable to reach you, since I have been absent from Chicago for one month (on a lecturing tour in Italy).

Therefore I am very sorry that for all this time I was unable to thank you for the Eliade translations, which today have reached Wendy as well.^[8] In a few days we will decide when to start the whole operation.^[9]

In the meantime, Agora has accepted a lengthy review of your books by me^[10], and I also commented extensively on the two volumes in an article about M[ircea] E[liade] which I wrote for an Italian magazine.^[11] I will send you copies of both as soon as they will be in print. Review for J[ournal of] R[eligion] is pending.^[12]

With best regards,

Ioan Culianu

[mss] Yours sincerely, Ioan

MLRP 11

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4

[= 39a]

M. L. Ricketts către I. P. Culianu^[13]

2 June 1989

Dear Ioan,

Thank you for the article (manuscript) which seems to be a Forward to a new edition of The Secret of Doctor Honigberger (in Italian?).^[14] I found your remarks about how Eliade’s thinking (mind) changed over years intriguing. Your speculations about what Eliade really be­lieved certainly bear much reflection and examination. Of course, I hope that someday, when the Journal can be opened, that some of the mystery will be resolved definitively. I think that you are right in supposing that our best evidence for what he believed can be garnered from his fantastic novellas.

I need to thank you also for sending me some Italian articles awhile ago.^[15] I was able to read enough from them to understand what they were about, and I made copies to send to Handoca, the “great bibliographer”. A propos, from what periodical (and what date) were the two pages of “Orient–Occident” taken?^[16]

I have just finished reading the proofs of the English translation of Journal IV for 1979–85, and have returned them to the Press.^[17] I like very much Wendy’s “postscript” to the vol­ume.^[18] I hope it can be published soon. Now I am preparing a typescript of my translation of the first part of the Journal fragments for 1945–55, which Mr. Brent^[19] says he wants to publish next.^[20]

A few days ago I received a copy of Norman Girardot’s contribution to the volume that will (evidently) take place of the fourth volume of [A] History of Religious Ideas.^[21] What, exact­ly, are the plans for that book, and how soon may we expect it to appear? (Girardot did not ex­plain.)

Finally, what about plans for the book we talked about last November?^[22] Is it still “in the works”? Adriana’s^[23] book probably will appear this summer, and the controversy will erupt with renewed fury, I suspect.

With all good wishes I remain

most sincerely yours,

Mac Linscott Ricketts

MLRP 11

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5

[= 39 bis]

M. L. Ricketts către I. P. Culianu^[24]

5 Dec[ember] 1989

Dear Ioan,

I enclose an article recently published in the Jewish periodical Midstream, written by Seymour Cain of San Diego, whom you may know.^[25] I have corresponded with him for years. I thought you might not have seen his article, and I know you will be interested in it. I believe it is the most moderate and fair treatment of the subject that we can expect from a Jewish source. Cain has worried over this matter for years and has come out here. We can only hope that the article will have a moderating influence on the critics.

A propos, someone called me from Chicago about two weeks ago – a man who had lost relatives in the Holocaust – asking me, in effect, to defend Eliade’s conduct vis-à-vis the Jews in the late thirties and in his autobiography. I hope I was able to convey the idea that I am not de­fending Eliade’s conduct but only trying to ensure that the facts of the case will be known. Per­haps he has contacted you before now. I didn’t catch his name.

I still have heard nothing about Adriana’s book. Have you? I expected it to be out by now.

I have given my translation, Eliade’s Journal “fragments” to the University of Chicago Press – for 1945–55. This will be called “vol[ume] 1”. Volume 4, for 1979–85, should be ready to appear before very much longer.^[26]

I suppose there has been no change in Christinel’s attitude regarding the full Journal manuscript. Do you know if there is some legal document existing that restricts access to these papers until a certain date? I should like very much to be able to read the journal and even to make a translation of it – whether or not it would be published. I would be willing to begin such a task at any time, but in 1995 I will reach 65 and will be old enough to retire. I am thinking that such a large translation project would be a good activity to occupy my time in retirement. It might also lead to the writing of a second volume on the life and work of the Professor. (I would not undertake such a book unless I had read the Journal.) What do you think? What are my chances?… Or perhaps you are thinking of doing something like this yourself – in which case I would be glad to stand aside and cheer you on!

What are the prospects for publication of the fourth volume of the History?

I trust you are well and enjoying your work at the Divinity School.

With all good wishes,

yours sincerely,

Mac R.

MLRP 11

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6

[= 40a]

M. L. Ricketts către I. P. Culianu^[27]

Professor Ioan Culianu
The Divinity School
University of Chicago

1 December 1990

Dear Ioan

I believe it has been a year since I last wrote to you. I trust you have been well and have had a good year. I received a letter last week from Bryan Rennie (who came to see me in Octo­ber), and he mentioned having talked with you. I believe he is going to be an important scholar and interpreter of Eliade, and I like him very much.

I am writing to inquire how I may obtain a copy of a book about which Mircea Handoca has written, a Dictionnaire des religions, co-edited by Eliade and yourself.^[28] Do you have a copy that I could buy? If not, how may I order one?

I have another request also: do you have a copy of Revista scriitorilor români, number 23?^[29] If so, I would like to borrow it, in order to copy certain articles it contains pertaining to Eliade. I will, of course, return it to you promptly.

Do you know what has become of Adriana Berger and especially of her book that Harper & Row was supposed to publish? I have heard that she is in this country again (New York?), but happily she has not written to me. (I saw her “review article” [in] Annals of Scholarship…)^[30]

I haven’t heard directly from Christinel for some time now. Is she here or in Paris? I hope she is well; give her my warm regards if you see her.

With all good wishes I remain

sincerely yours,

Mac Linscott Ricketts

MLRP 11

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7

[= 40 bis]

M. L. Ricketts către I. P. Culianu^[31]

11 December [19]90

Dear Ioan,

You seem to lead a busy, even hectic life! Thanks for the information on your Diction­naire. I will order it. Let me know if there are any articles published in Romania that you may need. Handoca keeps me up-to-date with clippings and sometimes whole issues of reviews.

I enclose a copy of Adriana’s AAR paper^[32] and of the book review.^[33] The paper lacked a bibliography page. The work, as usual, is sub-standard: inferences and insinuations made on the basis of quotations taken out of context, in most cases. Am glad that Harper & Row isn’t pub­lishing her book.

I hope Christinel will “check out” all right at the hospital. Does she know about these lat­est attacks of Adriana? I hope she can be spared from knowing.

With best wishes for the great Holiday Season!

Sincerely yours,

Mac R.

MLRP 11

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ADDENDA II

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CORESPONDENȚA LUI I. P. CULIANU CU MIRCEA ȘI CHRISTINEL ELIADE

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1

Fernand Schwarz și I. P. Culianu către M. și C. Eliade^[34]

[Paris, 2 mars 1986]

M. et Mme Mircea Eliade
5711, S. Woodlawn Ave.
Chicago, Ill 60637

Cher Maître,

Vous étiez toujours présent avec Nous dans notre Colloque^[35],

Respectueusement,

[s.s. indescifrabil]

En vous évoquant au Colloque organisé par Fernand Schwartz [sic!], nous avons beau­coup pensé à vous,

Ioan

PS: Joyeux Anniversaire!

[s.s. indescifrabil]

MEP 99.8

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2

I. P. Culianu, contract cu C. Eliade^[36]

page 1 of 1 pages.

It is agreed between Mrs Georgette Eliade and Mr I. P. Culianu, both subscribers of this document, that Mr Culianu will take over the following unpublished notes of the late Professor Mircea Eliade in June 1986 and will make them available for publication to the best of his abili­ties. After publication, the original items will be turned to the Mircea Eliade Special Collection of the Regenstein Library, The University of Chicago.

1) Materials pertaining to [A] History of Religious Ideas vol. IV:

– 13 pages of manuscript, numbered 1–11 and 1–2, slightly damaged by water.

– 26 notes of very different formats, in French and in Roumanian, badly damaged by wa­ter.

– 2 pages sticking to one another, badly damaged by water.

– 67 notes of very different formats, going from simple scratches to half-full pages, badly damaged by water and sometimes undecipherable.

– 7 notes of very different formats, undamaged.

2) A collection of newspaper articles in Roumanian, meant to be published in Roumanian and/or in translation.

3) 12 typewritten pages in Roumanian and English. Preface to the German edition of Werke.

4) 18 pages of notes of very different formats, 1954–1956. Undamaged.

5) A small blue block-notes with only two pages written, slightly damaged by water.

6) 5 pages, badly damaged by water, containing the plan for his Complete Works.

7) 5 pages in English, slightly damaged by water. Text for the London exhibition of Mrs Loo, wife of Pierre Emmanuel.

8) 17 notes of very different formats, very badly damaged by water.

9) 5 pages of random notes from his desk. Undamaged.

Mr Culianu will bear the expenses for shipment from Chicago to Groningen. Mrs Eliade does not owe him any retribution for editorship of the papers, which he considers an honor and a labour of love for the late Professor M. Eliade.

Chicago, June 9, 1986

IPCP 2.6

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3

I. P. Culianu, dedicație pentru C. Eliade

Ioan P. Couliano, La collezione di smeraldi. Racconti, [traduzione Cristina Cozzi, Annalysa Di Lernia, Marco Grampa, Maria Teresa Pini], Milano, Jaca Book, 1989.

Pentru Christinel,
câteva mici smaragde,
cu cele mai calde urări de bine și sănătate
și cu dragostea autorului.
Bun venit la Chicago!

24 martie 1989,

Ioan

AM PC840.13.U39A5

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ADDENDA III

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CORESPONDENȚA LUI M. L. RICKETTS CU JOSEPH M. KITAGAWA

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1

M. L. Ricketts către J. M. Kitagawa^[37]

19 April 1989

Dear Joe,

Thank you very much for sending me an advance copy of your splendid review article for History of Religions of Eliade’s Autobiography II,^[38] and my own work on Mircea’s Romanian years.^[39]

I am delighted that it is you who are doing the review article on these books – you who knew Mircea so well and who have such keen insight into his life and thought. I have just fin­ished reading your article, and I want to thank you for the generous and appreciative words you have written, especially about my “monster” book. You have handled it in your review in just the way I hoped readers and reviewers would do: finding insights into Mircea’s mind and per­ceiving patterns that go beyond the explicit statements I myself made. Your “three worlds” outline or analysis of Eliade’s Romanian years (and later) is a marvellous way of interpreting his life in that period and all periods.

Your treatment of the sensitive matter of his relationship to the Iron Guard is exceptional­ly well done. This subject is sure to be the one most reviewers of both books will focus upon (as some have done already, in fact). There are, as you know, a number of persons eager to try to undermine Eliade’s reputation (for whatever motives) by making him out to have been an anti-Semite and near-Nazi. I hope my handling of the matter will be perceived to be open and honest (which it was), and that it will serve to persuade those whose minds are not made up in advance.

I quite agree with you that the book needs an index and that the price is too high. I had no control over the price, and did not even know what it would be until after it was on the market. I do not expect to receive any royalties from it (both Columbia University Press and East Europe­an Monographs will have to have expenses reimbursed first). The index would have boosted the price to astronomical heights, I can imagine; my editor did not even suggest it. However, if a second edition is made, I will request that an index be added, and I will try to eliminate the ty­pographical errors, of which there are far too many.

I hope that you are enjoying much better health now than you were a few years ago. I was sorry not to have been able to see you and others at the University of Chicago last November in connection with the AAR meeting,^[40] but unfortunately I had to return here for teaching duties (leaving Chicago at noon Sunday). I hope that another opportunity for us to meet will occur again soon.

Most sincerely yours,

[s.s.] Mac R.

Mac Linscott Ricketts

IPCP 3.3

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2

J. M. Kitagawa către redactorii revistei History of Religions^[41]

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

DATE         4/29/89

Following my conversation with Mr. Sullivan^[42] the other day, I almost had made up my mind to submit only the first half of my essay on Eliade (my review of Eliade’s Autobiography) to HR, discarding my review of Rickett’s work on Eliade’s Romanian years. I then received the enclosed letter from Ricketts himself, and now I don’t think I should separate the two. After all, Ricketts, being probably the most pro-Eliade person around, dealt with the touchy subject of the “Iron Guard” with extreme care and objectivity. For too long, we at the University of Chicago have been accused by many outsiders of “covering up” Eliade’s past. I think the best solution now is to be honest and deal with his own statements but interpret them sympathetically, as Ricketts has done (and I only reviewed his work).

But I can also understand that other editors might not share my view; and if the other edi­tors feel we should not touch Eliade’s own Autobiography and Ricketts work on him, I can live with such a decision. In that case, though, I hope you will write me a letter as to why HR should not print these reviews. Please understand that I will have to explain to Ricketts, who thought he was helping many undecided people to understand Eliade’s side of the issue, why these reviews will not appear in HR.

IPCP 3.3

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Addenda IV

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CORESPONDENȚA LUI FERNAND SCHWARZ CU MIRCEA ȘI CHRISTINEL ELIADE

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1

F. Schwarz către M. Eliade^[43]

[16 Janvier 1985]

Monsieur le Professeur,

Suite aux encouragements reçus par votre Elève Ioan Petru COULIANO, je me suis réso­lu à franchir le seuil de ma timidité et à vous envoyer le dernier numéro de notre Revue Nouvelle Acro­pole^[44], consacré au nouvel Esprit Anthropologique dont vous êtes, à mes yeux, le pionnier et l’exemple.

Nous nous sommes largement inspirés de votre oeuvre pour ce numéro qui ouvre la ru­brique dédiée à la Nouvelle Anthropologie, à laquelle nous consacrerons plusieurs numéros à venir, notamment sur la Nouvelle Anthropologie et l’Utopie, ou encore le Dogmatisme.

C’est dans cette optique que vos livres, comme La Nostalgie des origines^[45] ou Occul­tisme, Sorcellerie et modes culturelles^[46], sont des outils précieux, surtout pour notre jeune géné­ration de chercheurs qui se voit confrontée aux menaces que les idéologies rétrécissantes font planer sur elle.

Je me permets de vous réitérer mon admiration et de vous adresser mes meilleurs voeux pour l’année 1985, en souhaitant que cette humble revue soit un hommage à vos idées et à votre action.

Veuillez agréer, Monsieur le Professeur, l’expression de mes sentiments les plus respec­tueux.

[s.s. indescifrabil]

Fernand Schwarz

Prof. Mircea ELIADE
University of Chicago
Chicago – Illinois 60637
ETATS – UNIS

MEP 111.2

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2

M. Eliade către F. Schwarz^[47]

11 February 1985

Fernand Schwarz
5, rue Largilliere
75016 Paris

Dear Mr. Schwarz,

Please excuse my dictating this brief reply to you in English, but severe rheumatoid ar­thritis makes it all but impossible to write to you myself.

I want to thank you for your letter of 16 January and for the article devoted to my work. I am flattered to be called a pioneer and an example and most grateful for your generous words.

I wish you every possible success with your review and remain

Sincerely yours,

Mircea Eliade

ME: pc

MEP 111.2

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3

F. Schwarz către C. Eliade^[48]

Paris, le 8 juin 1988

Chère Madame Eliade,

J’ai été très heureux de notre rencontre du Vendredi 3 juin et, comme promis, je vous en­voie le texte original du Professeur Meslin, que j’espère intégrer dans la nouvelle édition du Cahier dédié à Mircea Eliade.^[49] Je vous envoie également le programme du Colloque qui s’est tenu au Luxembourg.^[50] Par rapport aux cassettes de ce Colloque, je vous précise que la cassette marquée « Riès » correspond à la séance d’ouverture du Jeudi 28 Avril^[51] ; la cassette marquée « Espace no. 1 » correspond à l’exposé de André Motte (c’est à la fin de cet exposé que se situe la comparaison entre Platon et Eliade)^[52] ; enfin, la cassette marquée « Espace no. 2 » correspond à la fin de la matinée du Samedi 30 Avril.

Je voudrais vous remercier pour tout ce que vous faites pour la publication du Cahier aux Etats-Unis. J’aimerais beaucoup que le Professeur Tracy^[53] me dise s’il a bien reçu les deux derniers articles que je lui ai envoyés et s’il a pu faire corriger le texte en anglais du Cahier. Il me serait très utile d’avoir une photocopie du texte corrigé dans le cas de rencontres avec des professeurs anglophones. Je vais envoyer un petit mot dans ce sens au Professeur Tracy.

Je vous souhaite un très bon retour à Chicago et dans l’attente de vos nouvelles, je vous prie d’agréer, chère Madame Eliade, l’expression de mes sentiments les plus dévoués et les plus cordiaux.

[s.s. indescifrabil]

Fernand Schwarz

MEP 134.3

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Addendum V

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Recenzia lui Joseph M. Kitagawa la cartea lui M. L. Ricketts^[54]

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Some Reflections on M. Eliade’s Vision of the History of Religions

Autobiography, Vol. II, 1937–1960: Exile’s Odyssey. By Mircea Eliade. Trans. by Mac Linscott Ricketts. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988, pp. 224.

Mircea Eliade: The Romanian Roots, 1907–1945, Vols I & II. By Mac Linscott Ricketts. Boulder: East European Monographs (Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York), 1988. pp. 1453 & photos.

Over the years many readers of our journal have inquired why Mircea Eliade’s numerous books have not been reviewed in History of Religions. Each one found out sooner or later that it was Eliade himself who with altruistic conviction insisted that our journal did not exist to review the writings of its own editors. We still share his conviction. Now that he is no longer with us, however, I hope our readers will understand the journal devoting space to Eliade’s vision of the history of religions upon the occasion of the publication of his Autobiography, vol. II, as it con­tains relevant accounts of many of his books which are familiar to us. We might also make some refer­ence here to the “biographical” work about Eliade by Professor Ricketts, who has translated many of his works, including Vols. I and II of his Autobiography, and whose works are de­signed to be read side by side with Eliade’s own autobiography, as a supplement as it were. Unfortunately, the price of Ricketts’ study of Eliade’s life and thought – $ 180 for two volumes – will most likely discourage most individuals from acquiring them for their personal libraries. In writing this reflec­tion, I am fully aware of the fact that ordinarily autobiography and biog­raphy are not considered appropriate genres for us to review in this journal, and I doubt whether we will discuss in this jour­nal other biographies of Eliade in the future. Eliade’s own autobio­graphical account of his works on the history of religions, however, may be taken as a happy exception.

Those who have read Eliade’s Autobiography, Vol. I (New York, Harper, 1981) are al­ready familiar with his upbringing as a son of a Romanian army officer, his precocious child­hood and youth, his exposure in his university days to the philosopher-writer Nae Ionescu, his adventurous trip – 1928-1931 – to India, his return to Bucharest to begin his career both as assis­tant to Nae Ionescu at the university and as an ambitious and productive writer, his marriage to his first wife Nina (who knew she did not have many years to live), etc. Eliade wrote in his Autobiography (Vol. I, pp. 320 and 324) that on March 7, 1937 (his thirtieth birthday) he sensed that he was about to begin a new stage of life. He also felt that the precariousness of the social, cultural and political realities of Romania and the outside world was such that he and other persons of his generation no longer had the time or the freedom to “make culture”. On both accounts his premonitions turned out to be accurate if we follow his own accounts in Autobiog­raphy, vol. II.

The motifs of “destiny” and “freedom”, implicitly stated throughout Vol. I of Eliade’s Au­tobiography, become dominant themes in Vol. II, especially in the uncanny ways in which they were interfused. Indeed, Eliade interprets his life, 1937-1960, as a constant and continuous struggle – by effectively utilizing his favorite “flash back” method – to express his freedom creatively through both scholarly and literary media against adverse personal, academic, social, cultural and political obstacles. To start with, Eliade from 1937 to 1940 – in spite of his self-consciousness of being a “universal man” (p. 7) – was caught up in a web of political intrigues in Romania, sand­wiched between its two powerful neighbors, Germany and the U.S.S.R. In those days, some of his anti-communist friends as well as his own mentor Nae Ionescu, became increasingly more friendly to the rightist Legion of the Archangel Michael (the “Iron Guard”), presumably because of its spiritual emphasis. In fact, Eliade himself was arrested, for – due partly to his “fidelity” to his teacher Nae Ionescu – he refused to denounce the Iron Guard. It is touching to read how Eliade through it all kept working on his manuscripts on the history of religions or his novels on the un­heated prison floor, in the make-shift hospital room, or in other equally inconceivable circumstan­ces. I also sense that behind his simple account of how he and three other friends carried Ionescu’s coffin to the grave lies deep feeling toward his teacher-and-friend: “I had stumbled and, with a great effort, had supported myself on one knee until someone had helped me to rise.” (p. 4).

As Eliade records on the same page, he felt that the hand of destiny was involved in Nae Ionescu’s death, in the sense that it was instrumental in his going to England in 1940 as cultural attaché to the Romanian royal delegation. Parenthetically, I might add that those who have read his major novel, The Forbidden Forest, will recall Eliade’s haunting accounts of the devastation caused by the “blitz” of London, which he was personally destined to experience. The following year he was reassigned to the Romanian legation in a more peaceful Lisbon. Unfortunately, his busy and productive life in Lisbon encountered a great personal crisis in 1944, namely, the death of his wife, Nina. He simply states, though obviously with deep emotion: “She passed away in her sleep… For a good part of the night I had stayed by her bedside, reading from the Gospel of St. John. The thought that she would suffer no more consoled me” (p. 106).

Following Nina’s death, and with the impending end of World War II, Eliade realized that a puppet communist regime would most likely be installed in Romania, and he seriously questioned whether he could return to his homeland. Ultimately, his senses of “freedom” and “destiny” were intermingled in such a way that he and Nina’s daughter, Adalgiza, settled in 1945 in Paris as émigrés. Although his French was excellent, to settle in Paris at the age of thir­ty-eight involved some difficult adjustments. Fortunately, he was invited to teach at the Sor­bonne through the intervention of Georges Dumézil, and he was warmly welcomed by E. M. Cioran, Eugène Ionesco and many other friends. As one might expect, Eliade was not well-off financially in his early days in Paris. Despite his poverty, however, he spent all his available time and energy on serious academic and creative writing. Undoubtedly, the most important event during his Paris days – another fortunate occurrence of the admixture of his freedom and destiny – was his marriage to Christinel in 1950, who subsequently devoted her whole life to him, giving him every encouragement and assistance as a person, as a scholar and as a writer. Indeed, Eliade’s mature and productive life would have been quite different if he had not met such an understanding and congenial companion. It is apparent too that Eliade’s Paris days propelled him forward as a leading historian of religions as well as a superb writer. Incidentally those who think that Eliade was simply “lucky” in producing so many volumes at the right time should read his accounts as to how he labored with constant and unremitting efforts, struggling against the limitations of time and energy. Evidently, many of Eliade’s now famous ideas, con­cepts and interpretations regarding myth, symbol, ritual, center of the world, heavenly proto­types and coincidentia oppositorum, were solidified during his Paris days, even though he had touched upon many of them in his Romanian days. As he became more widely known as a scholar, he received invitations to lecture at important European universities, and he was asked to participate in numerous seminars and conferences, all recorded succinctly in Vol. II.

Eliade deals with his life in America (only to 1960), which began in 1956, in the last two chapters of his Autobiography, Vol. II. He no doubt perceived that destiny had arranged many events of his life in America as well. Eliade’s chance meeting with Joachim Wach in Rome at the congress of the History of Religions in 1955 created the occasion for him to deliver the Haskell Lectures at the University of Chicago in 1956. Even the most casual readers of this volume would readily agree with him that destiny collaborated with the Eliades’ growing fond­ness of America, which resulted in their decision to live permanently in Chicago in spite of the inevitable adjustments such a decision required when they were no longer so young. Fortunately for him, many of his works in the history of religions began to be translated into English about that time; he had excellent colleagues and students; and fame and honor came deservedly to him from various quarters. He and his wife thoroughly enjoyed their participation in the Congress of the History of Religions in Japan in 1958. With great determination, he was also instrumental in embarking on the publication of History of Religions: An International Journal for Comparative Historical Studies (commenced in 1961). In its initial volume, Eliade said in part: “Despite the manuals, periodicals, and bibliographies today available to scholars, it is progressively more difficult to keep up with the advances being made in all departments of the History of Religions. Hence it is progressively more difficult to become a historian of religions. A scholar regretfully finds himself (or herself) becoming a specialist in one religion or even in a particular period of a single aspect of that religion…” (History of Religions, Vol. 1, No. 1, Summer, 1961, p. 1).

Clearly Eliade felt the calling to promote Allgemeine Religionswissenschaft, and not stud­ies of specific religious traditions, although the historians of religions must be sufficiently famil­iar with the latter. He felt keenly the importance of the history of religions at this juncture of world history when Asians and the so-called “primitive” peoples are appearing on the horizon of great history – “that is, they are seeking to become active subjects of history instead of its pas­sive objects, as they have been hitherto” (Ibid., p. 2). What concerned him particularly was the fact, as he stated elsewhere, that the “western world has not yet, or not generally, met with au­thentic representatives of ‘real’ non-Western traditions”, as usually the encounters with other peoples and traditions “have been made through their more westernized representatives, or in the mainly external spheres of economics or politics” (Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, Harper, 1960, pp. 8–9).

Unfortunately, the year 1960 marked the beginning of the arthritis attacks which haunted Eliade from that time until the end of his life. He candidly admits: “There were nights when, inca­pable of lifting my arms, I had to write on my lap… In that terrible winter and spring of 1960… I wondered if my health would allow me to finish what I had begun…” (Vol. II, p. 212). In spite of such debilitating physical conditions, Eliade courageously and cheerfully kept on teaching and working on many important projects, commuting back and forth between Europe and Chicago, and traveling to Argentina, Spain, Egypt, Mexico, Finland, Italy, etc. for another quarter of a centu­ry. Few if any suspected that behind the steady output of articles and books, epitomized by A His­tory of Religious Ideas (3 volumes) which he authored and the Encyclope­dia of Religion (16 vol­umes) which he edited, was the determined figure of Eliade, undaunted in spite of the constant torments of arthritis. To him, each day was a challenge to work toward his goal of achieving a total hermeneutics. In a real sense, his Autobiography is a valuable record of this remarkable person, an insatiably curious scholar who had the courage to formulate daring hypotheses. He never claimed that he had all the answers, but he asked, and pursued, the im­portant and the right questions. Many of us who were close to him, as colleagues, friends and students, share the sentiment of Northrop Frye, who once wrote to him: “What is so amazing is not the breadth of your erudition, but its unity, the consistency with which you can make alche­my, yoga, primitive religious beliefs, and so many other things come together and form a pat­tern” (Cited in Vol. II, p. 212).

***

The name of Mac Linscott Ricketts is familiar to many of us as the translator of Eliade’s Autobiography, Vols. I and II, as well as his Youth Without Youth and Other Novellas (Ohio State University Press, 1988), co-translator (with Mary Park Stevenson) of Eliade’s major novel, The Forbidden Forest (University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), and co-editor (with Norman Girardot) of Imagination and Meaning: The Scholarly and Literary Worlds of Mircea Eliade (The Seabury Press, 1982). Now he has produced an enormous, detailed, thorough and well-documented two-volume work of 1453 pages, including photographs and 237 pages of Notes, entitled Mircea Eliade: The Romanian Roots. 1907–1945. In his introduction, Ricketts states that Eliade’s writings are not properly understood and that some kind of introduction to his thought is needed. But, he goes on to say: “This is, not, however, that book. That book still remains to be written… [Yet,] this book is one which I discovered to be written first, because in order to understand rightly the thought of mature Eliade… it is necessary to know the young man of Bucharest… in those thrilling but all too fleeting years of Romanian freedom between the World Wars.” (p. 1)

Readers will soon discover that Ricketts (a graduate from Chicago with a Ph.D. in the his­tory of religions) was one of Eliade’s students, and although he does not agree with Eliade on many points, there is no question that he is generally captivated by Eliade’s thought and person­ality. His devotion to Eliade’s cause was such that he studied – “driven by some obscure de­mon”, in his own words – the Romanian language, read many of Eliade’s essays, newspaper articles and other writings in Romanian, visited Romania and talked to Eliade’s friends. Accord­ing to him: “My purpose in writing this book is to make available to students of Eliade’s thought the fruits of my research into his writings prior to his settlement in Paris in 1945” (p. 3). As stated before, he designed this book to be read in conjunction with, and as a supplement to, Eliade’s Autobiography. Ricketts also makes an important point when he states that Eliade wrote the earliest parts of his autobiography entirely from memory, whereas he says: “My book, in contrast, is based on documentation and I have not ‘passed over in silence’ anything I found that would shed light on Eliade’s life in those years. Also, I have been able to rectify a number of minor errors in fact that were inevitable in a memoir such as Eliade’s autobiography is (p. 5).

Ricketts’ book is divided into 30 more-or-less chronologically arranged chapters, each with an apt theme, e.g., “Year of Destiny” (1928), “India Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Romanian”, “Nationalism and the Primacy of the Spiritual”, “Ventures in the Realm of the Fantastic”, “Literary Works, 1938–1945” and “Experience for a Synthesis”. Obviously we can­not go into a detailed analysis of Ricketts’ huge book at this point, but a few impressions of his perspective may be pertinent. As far as Ricketts can discover, it is clear that from childhood Eliade had a keen and independent mind, strong intuitions and a determination to work hard, and that much of the structure of his later thought was already foreshadowed then. Although Ricketts would not use my terminologies, I think what he says about Eliade’s “Romanian years” seems to point to the fact that young Eliade lived simultaneously in three partially-overlapping, inter-related and yet differentiable worlds, i.e., (i) the world of unusually sophisticated and highly motivated scholar­ship, (ii) the fairly conservative “existential” world of elite young Romanians, an intricate admixture of Eastern orthodoxy, Latin culture, the traditional worldview of the Bal­kan peasantry and the aspiration for independence of Romania as an authentic expression of “cultural” and “national” life (referred to as “Romanianism”), and (iii) a very fertile mundus imaginalis, to borrow Henry Corbin’s favorite expression, the source of Eliade’s personal, emo­tional and literary creativity, which made it possible for him to maintain mental and psychologi­cal equilibrium.

(i) The ethos of Eliade’s world of “scholarship” was different from the usual practice of accumulating reference materials and foot-notes – “a rather tiresome way of proving one’s ‘scholarship’ ” as Erich Heller aptly stated in his In the Age of Prose (Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. xii). Rather early in life, Eliade evidently came to be convinced that the world was a repository of meanings and that it was his vocation to decipher those meanings hidden to us. This sense of vocation drove him to engage in the study of many subjects, e.g., physical science, philosophy, alchemy, metallurgy, folklore, mythology, symbology, magic, ecstasy and the history of religions, all of which together, so he believed, would enable us to uncover the secrets of the universe. Ricketts’ elaborate documentation leads us to believe that Eliade’s ap­proach to reality was formulated in two basic categories, the “sacred” in his work in the history of religions and “love” in his creative literary work, and that he found an inner connection be­tween them in his mundus imaginalis.

For Eliade, the value of scholarship lies in itself, but it should also simultaneously en­lighten and guide humanity. Such an orientation led him to examine the model of the human being articulated by the Italian Renaissance during his University days. He continued this quest in his journey to India, where he wanted to discover and experience the Indian ideal of the hu­man being through both his book learning and the practice of yoga, the ancient Indian technique of achieving immortality and freedom in the midst of one’s involvement in the world of time and space. The stay in India also opened his eyes to the existence of common elements in all peasant cultures throughout the world – the elements from which he would later derive the no­tion of “cosmic religion”. Such an outlook led Eliade to speculate on a synthesis for the cultural heritage of Dacians, which he believed had provided the “autochthonous base” of present-day Romanian tradition. (His speculation on this topic is well analyzed in Chap. 23, “The Hasdeu Edition”, of Ricketts book.) It was Eliade’s feeling – some say his “wishful thinking” or “ro­mantic dream” – that the substratum of peasant cultures of southeastern Europe has been pre­served to this day underneath the cultural overlayers of the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines and Christianity; he even went so far as to suggest that the peasant roots of Romanian culture could become the basis of a genuine universalism which would transcend political nationalism and cultural provincialism and help create a world in which the oppressed peoples of Asia, Afri­ca and elsewhere might take their rightful place in world history. “We, the people of Eastern Europe, would be able to serve as a bridge between the West and Asia.” Then he writes: “A good part of my activity in [Romania] between 1932 and 1940 found its point of departure in these intuitions and observations…” (Autobiography, Vol. I, p. 204). In so stating, Eliade re­vealed how his first world, i.e., the world of scholarship, was inwardly related to, or rather inter­nally but strongly colored by, his second world, i.e., the “existential” world of the elite young Romanians.

(ii) Most people who have known Eliade recognize his unusual ability in his first world (that of scholarship) and his third (mundus imaginalis) but they do not think that he had a great aptitude in his second world, namely, the existential, practical domain. Even Eliade himself recognized later that what he and his friends, the so-called “Criterion group”, wanted to accom­plish was not easily understood by many people. Ricketts astutely observes: “Eliade has been convinced since early youth that the destiny of his generation was to make culture, not politics. For him, politics was ‘sterile’ activity, unworthy of the talents of a true intellectual… Politics should be left to ‘political men’; the intellectual has more important things to do… He deplored the fact that all previous generations of intellectuals in modern Romanian history had become involved in politics, and that many of his own generation… ‘after a «spiritualistic» beginning, [have] become regimented in political struggles…’ Eliade strove with all his might to keep his generation true to the ideal of the primacy of the spiritual” (pp. 883–884).

Evidently Eliade felt strongly that there was a hiatus between the cultural and civic life of Romania and that he and his like-minded friends had to work for a transformation of Romania, “not by engaging in partisan politics” but by attempting to influence first the intellectual elites and through them, the people, by writing about what was then called “Romanianism”, which in Eliade’s interpretation was a non-political, cultural nationalism. He was persuaded that Romani­anism in this sense was possible only with “a rebirth of commitment to the spiritual values of the nation, a rebirth of pride in national character, the national destiny, the national mission” (p. 903). Ricketts is of the opinion that Eliade in the 1930’s readily acknowledged the existence of “messianism” in Romanianism, rooted as it was in Eastern orthodoxy. According to Ricketts’ in­ter­pre­tation of Eliade, “Romania was a divinely chosen nation, a country with a special mis­sion and destiny to fulfill” (p. 912). For that mission, Eliade recognized the need for a revolution which would help create the new Romanian. Curiously, at this juncture he turned to Frank Buchman’s Oxford Movement as a paradigm of revolutionary Christianity. Ricketts quotes Eliade: “The new, spiritual Christian man which the Oxford Group preaches is the only man capable of resolving the paradoxes of the modern world” (p. 918). But, as the Oxford movement was a Protestant phenom­e­non, Eliade looked for a Romanian Orthodox counterpart, emerging from the grassroots of the people; according to Ricketts: “By the fall of 1936 Eliade had begun to think that he had found such a movement in the Legion of the Archangel Michael [known popularly as the Iron Guard]” (p. 919). (On this score, I personally detect the strong influence of Nae Ionescu on Eliade.)

The foregoing makes it clear that Eliade and many of his friends and foes in the Romania of the 1930’s were caught in what Buddhists call karma, the inevitable process of previous actions compelling one’s present choices, which in turn serve as causes for one’s future choices and actions. I realize that those of us who were not in Romania during the 1930’s have no way of knowing the seemingly complex situation there, but I rather imagine Eliade must have been aware of the popular impression – as Ricketts reports – of Romanianism as a term “associated with ultra right-wing political philosophies and programs… Ordinarily it signified chauvinism, antisemitism, policies for the restraint of minorities, anticommunism, and enthusiasm for Italian Fascism and German National-Socialism” (p. 904); despite such associations, Eliade himself chose to interpret it to be above politics. Convinced as he was of the spiritual mission of Roma­nia, says Ricketts, “Eliade even dreams of a time when Orthodoxy, perfectly realized on a na­tional scale by Romania, could ‘dominate’ all Europe… It seemed to Eliade that the Legion was the fulfillment of all his hopes… If the Legion were to succeed in winning the allegiance of the whole nation – as it seemed, in 1937, on its way to doing it – it would mean the triumph of the spiritual Romanianism [and]… the appearance of the Christian ‘new man’, the fulfillment of Romania’s holy mission” (p. 925).

I have great sympathy with Eliade’s notion that the mission of the intellectual is to realize his or her talents without getting involved in politics, which will inevitably compromise his or her freedom. I can also understand why he was against “the major political ideologies contend­ing for power in the world of that time: Marxism, Fascism (including ‘Hitlerism’) and Liberal­ism (or Democracy)…, not only because they were political ideologies, but also because they were foreign creations and therefore, ipso facto, unsuited to Romania, not having any organic relationship to the national ethos” (p. 892). But by differentiating political philosophy so sharply from participation in any practical political programs, Eliade in effect destroyed all available options and was accused of being the “political” (despite his protest) ally of the Iron Guard and dictatorship.

Significantly, shortly after the death of Nae Ionescu, Alexandru Rosetti recommended Eliade to C. C. Giurescu, the recently appointed Minister of Propaganda, that he try to find a post for Eliade at some foreign embassy – I think he correctly sized up Eliade in his second world – as Eliade “had rightist sympathies, without having engaged in any effective action like others” (quoted in pp. 1093–1094). We all know that this is how Eliade was appointed as cultur­al attaché in London. I was also interested in Giurescu’s reminiscence of Eliade’s letter to him: “he had been on the verge of despair and that I had ‘saved him from death’ ” (cited in p. 1094). According to Ricketts, in 1972 Eliade was instrumental in bringing Giurescu to the University of Chicago for a lecture; as they were parting, Eliade reminded him that “he owed to him and Alexandru Rosetti the fact that ‘for the past 38 years I’ve been free and able to work’ ” (p. 1429, fn. 54). Undoubtedly, Eliade’s going to London liberated him from his “karmic” entanglement in his second “existential” world, but I am equally convinced that ultimately the rich mental sources of his mundus imaginalis (his third world) were just as important for his “freedom” as the fact of his physical departure from Romania.

(iii) I think it is worth stating that Ricketts’ book is very helpful in unfolding Eliade’s mundus imaginalis. Unfortunately, space does not allow us to discuss his translations and anal­yses of many of Eliade’s novels. It is well to remember that from his youth Eliade did not think of creative writing as an avocation. Rather, as he often stated, it was important for him to pre­serve his spiritual equilibrium by balancing, and oscillating between, the diurnal (the rational mode of scholarship, his first world in my analysis) and nocturnal modes of the spirit (the myth­ological modes of imagination and fantasy, his third world). Eliade was convinced that such a dual vocation was an essential part of his destiny. In this connection, it might be interesting to point out that while in India, he learned the important lesson that the object d’art was not some­thing to be hung on the wall but something to be integrated into one’s everyday life. Also, ac­cording to him, human beings live in a universe which is always a religious universe of imagina­tion and symbolism. At the same time, human beings are also destined to live with the experi­ences of the miraculous, the mysterious and the fantastic.

Those who read Ricketts’ work will soon realize that to Eliade the world of literary imag­ination was very real although of a different nature than the world of everyday life. He could actually “see” the texture of human relations and the plot which characterized the labyrinth of life on earth. On the one hand, Eliade the scholar insisted on the reality of the sacred in spite of its disguise as the profane, while on the other hand, Eliade the writer sensed the reality of love as a “souvenir of Paradise”, to borrow Virgil Ierunca’s expression. Thus in many of his novels studied by Ricketts, love cannot be fulfilled on earth, and is very closely related to death. Eliade was persuaded that just as the recognition of the sacred enables human beings to understand the structure of primary revelation, genuine love purifies sensual eroticism, and enables human beings to catch a glimpse of the transhuman meaning of life.

But the most important thing which his mundus imaginalis did for Eliade was to serve as a link between his Romanian years (up to 1945, as Ricketts follows) and the next phase of his life (starting with his settling in Paris as an émigré), in which the rootless émigré was now to replace the ideal Romanian and become the paradigm for all human beings, including modern Romanians; but this is beyond the scope of Ricketts’ present study.

At any rate, we should all be extremely grateful to Professor Ricketts for his thorough study of Mircea Eliade: The Romanian Roots, 1907–1945, which serves as an important sup­plement, and often a corrective, to Eliade’s own autobiography. I personally miss the index, however. Of course this book is already very bulky, and there are too many personal and place names cited in the book. But a brief, very select index would have helped readers, who most likely would be confused with Romanian names anyway. The book is particularly useful to those who already know something about Eliade’s life and thought. A much heavier book would not have been very practical. Such is the dilemma of the author!

[Joseph M. Kitagawa]

MLRP 21

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Note

[1] Text scris cu pix albastru pe patru file desprinse dintr-un carnet dictando.

[2] Peter C. Chemery (n. 195?), student al lui Eliade și ultimul său asistent în redacția revistei History of Religions, dar ocupându-se, de fapt, de aproape toată corespondența lui și de alte chestiuni.

[3] Ion Manea (1924–1995), jurnalist și publicist emigrat în S.U.A., în anul 1978, împreună cu soția sa, Maria Manoliu-Manea (n. 1934), care a devenit președinta Academiei Româno-Americane de Științe și Arte în anul 1982.

[4] E vorba de biblioteca lui Eliade din biroul său situat în Meadville Lombard Theological School. (Clădirea gotică a seminarului – construită între 1929 și 1933 – a fost vândută în 2011 Universității din Chicago și a devenit, în 2012, sediul unui centru educațional, numit Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.)

[5] Profesorul Louis Cohen (1928–2018), cardiolog, mai întâi la Billings Hospital, iar apoi la Mitchell Hospital, amândouă aparținând sistemului medical al Universității din Chicago.

[6] Anexă a scrisorii lui M. L. Ricketts din 21 mai 1986 (nr. 7). O filă dactilografiată pe o singură parte. Am editat lista cu următoarele intervenții: corectarea cuvintelor în limba română, uniformizarea punctuației și uniformizarea manierei de descriere a materialelor (întâi tipul, apoi numărul paginilor – toate puse în paranteze).

[7] Răspuns la scrisoarea lui M. L. Ricketts din 19 ianuarie 1989 (nr. 38[a]). Filă cu antet, dactilografiată pe o singură față.

[8] Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty (n. 1940), indianistă americană și specialistă în istoria religiilor. Din 1978, profesoară la Universitatea din Chicago, un apropiat colaborator al lui Eliade, iar, din 1985, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions.

[9] Un volum editat de Wendy Doniger (împreună cu I. P. Culianu și Matei Călinescu ca „silent editors”), care cuprindea traducerea articolelor politice ale lui Eliade din anii ’30, făcută de M. L. Ricketts, împreună cu mai multe studii semnate de diverși specialiști. Ar fi urmat să apară la editura Macmillan din New York.

[10] Peste vreo trei luni a fost retrasă de Culianu, pe când tânăra revistă condusă de Dorin Tudoran se afla deja sub tipar. Vezi scrisoarea sa din 7 iunie 1989 (nr. 39[b]).

[11] I. P. Culianu, „Invito alla lettura di Mircea Eliade”, Abstracta (Roma), nr. 35, marzo 1989, pp. 38–49; MLRP 26 (cu dedicație autografă).

[12] Va fi scrisă cândva în cursul anului următor și va apărea postum. I. P. Culianu, „Mircea Eliade, Journal I, II, III, IV; Autobiography vol. 1, 2; Mac Linscott Ricketts, Mircea Eliade. The Romanian Roots, 1907–1945”, The Journal of Religion (Chicago), 72, nr. 1, January 1992, pp. 157–161.

[13] O nouă scrisoare, după schimbul lor din lunile ianuarie–martie, încheiat probabil tot de Ricketts. Filă scrisă pe o singură parte; copie la indigo după dactilogramă, cu corecturi manuscrise. Culianu va răspunde la 7 iunie 1989 (nr. 39[b]).

[14] I. P. Culianu, „The secret of doctor Eliade”, 4 ff. dactilo; MLRP 26 (cu dedicație autografă). A fost publicată doar o traducere românească, „Secretul doctorului Eliade”, în I. P. Culianu, Studii românești, I. Fantasmele nihilismului. Secretul doctorului Eliade, ed. a II-a, traduceri de Corina Popescu și Dan Petrescu, Iași, Polirom, 2006, pp. 384–388. Conform editorilor, ar fi vorba de „prefața ediției în limba greacă, din 1988, a unei antologii din nuvelistica lui Eliade”. Nu cunoaștem o traducere în greacă a „Secretului doctorului Honigberger”, nuvela la care se referă acest text. În acea perioadă (mai precis, în iunie 1988) a apărut o singură antologie: M. Eliade, Ston ēskio henos krinolouloudou, metaphrasē Lēdas Pallantiou, Athēna, Chatzēnikolē, 1988 (cuprinde „Fata căpi­tanului”, „Ghicitor în pietre”, „Șanțurile”, „O fotografie veche de 14 ani” și „La umbra unui crin”, care dă și titlul volumului). Aceeași editură a mai publicat câteva lucrări de și despre Eliade, inclusiv Dicționarul religiilor (în 1992).

[15] Pentru unul dintre ele, vezi supra, n. 11. În dosarul cu publicațiile lui Culianu din MLRP 26 nu există alt articol italian despre Eliade. Probabil e vorba de articole scrise de alții, precum cel la care face referire în continuare; vezi infra n. 16.

[16] Sub rubrica „Oriente-Occidente” au apărut în ziarul La Nazione două articole: Grazia Marchiano, „Il Maestro Eliade. Lungo viaggio con Mircea fino al cuore del mistero”, și I. P. Culianu, „Così quei trecento monaci persero le loro visioni”, La Nazione (Firenze), 4 marzo 1989; MLRP 26 și 31.

[17] M. Eliade, Journal, IV. 1979–1985, translated from the Romanian by M. L. Ricketts, Chicago – London, The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

[18] Wendy Doniger, „Epilogue”, ibidem, pp. 149–155.

[19] T. David Brent (n. 1948), fost student al lui Eliade și redactor la University of Chicago Press.

[20] M. Eliade, Journal, I, 1945–1955, translated from the Romanian by M. L. Ricketts, Chicago – London, The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

[21] Volumul al patrulea nu a mai fost publicat în forma gândită de Eliade.

[22] Vezi supra, n. 9. Culianu i-a vorbit despre carte la telefon, la 6 noiembrie 1988 (nr. 36), iar apoi au discutat proiectul la 19 noiembrie, cu ocazia vizitei lui Ricketts la Chicago (Addendum I.1).

[23] Adriana Berger (1953–2008) semnase, în martie 1987, un contract cu editura Harper & Row din New York, pentru un volum intitulat Mircea Eliade. The Inner Quest of a Radical Traditionalist, o versiune revizuită a tezei ei doctorale. În august 1988, publicarea lui a fost programată pentru mai 1989, sub un titlu diferit (lucru despre care Berger îi scrie lui Ricketts). Totuși, în anul următor editura va abandona proiectul.

[24] Ciornă, două file scrise pe o singură față. Culianu nu a răspuns, din motive pe care le explică în scrisoarea sa din 4 decembrie 1990 (nr. 40[b]).

[25] S. Cain, „Mircea Eliade, the Iron Guard, and Romanian Anti-Semitism”, Midstream. A monthly Jewish review (New York), 35, nr. 8, November 1989, pp. 27–31.

[26] Vezi supra n. 20 și, respectiv, n. 17. Volumul I va apărea în ianuarie, iar volumul IV în martie 1990.

[27] Filă scrisă pe o singură față; copie la indigo după dactilogramă, cu corecturi manuscrise. Culianu va răspunde la 4 decembrie 1990 (nr. 40[b]).

[28] M. Eliade – I. P. Couliano, Dictionnaire des religions, avec la collaboration de H.S. Wiesner, Paris, Plon, 1990.

[29] Conține trei articole despre Eliade, care se regăsesc – în xerocopii – în MLRP. Titus Bărbulescu, „Cu Mircea Eliade prin Paris”, Revista scriitorilor români (München), 23, 1986, pp. 198–201; Emil Cioran, „Mircea Eliade”, ibidem, pp. 202–204; Ilie Olteanu, „Amintiri despre Mircea Eliade”, ibidem, pp. 205–206.

[30] A. Berger, „Fascism and Religion in Romania”, Annals of Scholarship (New York), VI, nr. 4, 1989, pp. 455–465. Este o recenzie a cărții lui M. L. Ricketts, Mircea Eliade. The Romanian Roots, împreună cu cel de-al doilea volum al memoriilor lui Eliade, tradus de el.

[31] Răspuns la scrisoarea lui Culianu din 4 decembrie 1990 (nr. 40[b]). Ciornă, o filă scrisă pe o singură față. Culianu va răspunde abia la 4 martie 1991 (nr. 41).

[32] A. Berger, „Anti-Judaism and Anti-Historicism in Eliade’s Writings”, 13 ff. dactilo, comunicare la conferința anuală a American Academy of Religion, New Orleans, 17–20 noiembrie 1990; rezumat în Abstracts. American Academy of Religion, Society of Biblical Literature, Annual Meeting 1990, Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1990, p. 144. Un articol în ebraică, cu același titlu, va apărea în Hadoar. The Jewish Histadruth of America (New York), 70, nr. 25, 21 June 1991, pp. 14–17.

[33] Vezi supra n. 30.

[34] Carte poștală ilustrată cu un detaliu dintr-un basorelief zodiacal și legenda „Basilique de Vézelay, Gémeaux (21 mai – 22 juin)”. Netimbrată.

[35] Colocviul de antropologie religioasă „L’Homme et la Cité”, organizat la Paris în zilele de 1 și 2 martie 1986, sub egida Institut International d’Anthropologie.

[36] Filă dactilografiată pe o singură față.

[37] Filă cu antet, dactilografiată pe o singură față (xerocopie).

[38] M. Eliade, Autobiography, vol. II, 1937–1960. Exile’s Odyssey, translated from the Romanian by M. L. Ricketts, Chicago – London, University of Chicago Press, 1988.

[39] M. L. Ricketts, Mircea Eliade. The Romanian Roots, 1907–1945, vol. I–II, Boulder, East European Monographs / New York, Columbia University Press, 1988.

[40] American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Chicago, 19–22 noiembrie 1988. Ricketts a plecat în data de 20 noiembrie.

[41] Filă tipizată pentru comunicările intra- și inter-departamentale ale Universității, dactilo­grafiată pe o singură față (xerocopie). În partea superioară, o notă manuscrisă, cu creion albastru, care se referă – în mod evident – la ambele scrisori: „Copy for your ref[erence]. Joe”.

[42] Lawrence E. Sullivan (n. 1949) și-a făcut doctoratul în istoria religiilor la Universitatea din Chicago, sub îndrumarea lui Eliade, și era profesor la Divinity School din anul 1984.

[43] Filă dactilografiată pe o singură față. Partea superioară, arsă, cuprindea data și, foarte probabil, antetul.

[44] Ar putea fi primul număr din acel an în care I. P. Culianu publicase două articole: „Mircea Eliade et le long combat contre le racisme”, Nouvelle Acropole (Paris), nr. 81, janvier–février 1985, pp. 3–4; „L’offense raciste”, ibidem, pp. 7–8. În acest caz, scrisoarea de răspuns a lui Eliade se referă la cel dintâi.

[45] M. Eliade, La nostalgie des origines. Méthodologie et histoire des religions, Paris, Gallimard, 1971.

[46] M. Eliade, Occultisme, sorcellerie et modes culturelles, Paris, Gallimard, 1978.

[47] Filă dactilografiată pe o singură față, copie la indigo. Partea superioară, arsă, lasă să se vadă doar o parte a antetului revistei History of Religions.

[48] Filă dactilografiată pe o singură față. Alături de ea, două file dactilografiate pe o singură parte, cuprinzând cuvântul lui Michel Meslin, datat „19 Mai 1988, à 17 heures”.

[49] Mircea Eliade. Dialogues avec le sacré, dossier conçu et présenté par Fernand Schwarz, Paris, Editions N.A.D.P., avril 1987, 60 pp. (colecția „Homo religiosus – Cahiers d’études pour la redecouverte du sacré”). Noua ediție nu s-a mai materializat.

[50] Colloque international „Éliade – Dumézil”, ținut între 28 și 30 aprilie 1988, în Luxemburg, sub egida Centre Alexandre Wiltheim (Luxemburg) și Centre d’Histoire des Religions (Louvain).

[51] Conferința inaugurală a lui Julien Ries se intitula „La méthode comparée en histoire des religions, selon Georges Dumézil et Mircea Eliade”.

[52] Conferința lui André Motte se intitula „Mircea Eliade et la religion grecque”.

[53] David Tracy (n. 1939), profesor de teologie contemporană la Divinity School a Universității din Chicago și un apropiat al lui Eliade.

[54] 20 pp. dactilo, scrise pe o singură față. Numele autorului a fost adăugat – pe prima pagină – de către M. L. Ricketts. Tot el a subliniat sau marcat vertical cu creion roșu mai multe pasaje.

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Ioan Petru Culianu, Mircea Eliade și felix culpa. Supplementa | Liviu Bordaș

[Studii de istorie a filosofiei româneşti, vol. XVIII: Știință și metafizică. Ion Petrovici, Bucureşti, Editura Academiei Române, 2022, pp. 161–199]