Mircea Eliade

Describes the Romanian period in the intellectual life of Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Analyzes his involvement in Romania's social and political debates in the 1930s, and his changing attitudes toward fascism and antisemitism. Relates the influence exercised on Eliade by Nae Ionescu, after 1933 a strong supporter of the fascist Iron Guard. Pp. 727-741 present Ionescu's antisemitic preface to the 1934 novel by the Romanian Jewish writer Mihail Sebastian, "De doua mii de ani" ("For Two Thousand Years"), a literary depiction of the condition of a Jewish intellectual confronting antisemitism in Romania. Ionescu's preface, justifying antisemitism with theological arguments, provoked a passionate controversy in the Romanian and Jewish press. In his articles, Eliade contested some of Ionescu's arguments, but absolved him from charges of antisemitism. Discusses, also, on pp. 903-929, Eliade's xenophobic and pro-Iron Guard articles published in 1936-37, claiming, however, that he did not share the Guard's antisemitism.