Mircea Eliade, the Romanian historian

Mircea Eliade was a distinguished philosopher, novelist, and historian of religions who set up the basis of a new science – the history of religion. His studies represent a thorough investigation of the religious attitude of human beings from prehistoric times up to the present. “The History of Religious Ideas” is the most complex work written by Eliade; based on minute documentation with hundreds of bibliographical references, Eliade is called «the seeker of things sacred and profane».

Mircea Eliade was born and spent his early years in Bucharest. Attracted by supernatural, occult and esoteric aspects, Eliade populated his creation with fantastic elements inspired by folklore or personal experience. Among his most renowned novels, Maitreyi (or Bengal Nights) describes the love story between the daughter of the Indian philosopher Surendranath Dasgupta and the author during his stay in India. In light of the plot, the novel belongs to the array of impossible love stories illustrated by universal literature.

Despite being the most widely-translated Romanian author, in his native country, Eliade’s work was banned by the Romanian communist regime. Immediately after World War 2, when communists rose to power, Eliade was forced to go into exile in Paris. In 1957, he moved to the United States, where he lived and worked until his death in 1986.

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