Mircea Eliade

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= "Eliade was one of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and one of the world’s foremost interpreters of religious symbolism and myth". [1]


Bio

1. From the very long and detailed bio and discussion in the Wikipedia:

"Mircea Eliade (Romanian: [ˈmirt͡ʃe̯a eliˈade]; March 13 [O.S. February 28] 1907 – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential. One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them.

His literary works belong to the fantastic and autobiographical genres. The best known are the novels Maitreyi ('La Nuit Bengali' or 'Bengal Nights'), Noaptea de Sânziene ('The Forbidden Forest'), Isabel și apele diavolului ('Isabel and the Devil's Waters'), and Romanul Adolescentului Miop ('Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent'); the novellas Domnișoara Christina ('Miss Christina') and Tinerețe fără tinerețe ('Youth Without Youth'); and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger ('The Secret of Dr. Honigberger') and La Țigănci ('With the Gypsy Girls').

Early in his life, Eliade was a journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and a member of the literary society Criterion. In the 1940s, he served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a Christian fascist political organization. His political involvement at the time, as well as his other far right connections, were frequently criticised after World War II.

Noted for his vast erudition, Eliade had fluent command of five languages (Romanian, French, German, Italian, and English) and a reading knowledge of three others (Hebrew, Persian, and Sanskrit). He was elected a posthumous member of the Romanian Academy."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade)


2. Brittanica:

"Eliade studied philosophy at the University of Bucharest, receiving an M.A. in 1928 with a thesis on Italian Renaissance philosophy from Marsilio Ficino to Giordano Bruno. After studying in Calcutta primarily under the Sanskrit scholar Surendranath Dasgupta (1928–30), he spent six months practicing Yoga at Rishikesh under the direction of Swami Shivananda (1930–31). Returning to Bucharest, he wrote a dissertation on the comparative history of techniques of Yoga, for which he received a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1933. Appointed assistant to Nae Ionescu, the scholar he most admired, Eliade joined the faculty of the University of Bucharest and taught courses in philosophy, religion, and Hinduism and Buddhism. In the 1930s he became an influential literary figure in Romania, especially after publication of his hugely successful novel Maitreyi (1933; Bengal Nights). During World War II, Eliade served as cultural attaché with the Royal Legation of Romania in London (1940) and in Lisbon (1941–45).

...

n the decade after the war Eliade lived in Paris, where he established his international reputation as a historian, morphologist, and phenomenologist of religion. In 1956–57 he was appointed visiting professor and then professor and chairman of the history of religions department at the University of Chicago, where he taught until his retirement in 1983.

An extremely prolific writer, Eliade spoke of his “dual vocation” as a fiction writer and scholar. He viewed his literary and scholarly concerns as autonomous but complementary and as necessary for his spiritual equilibrium and artistic creativity. His works of fiction were written in Romanian, and his major scholarly works were written in French; some 35 of his books have been published in English.

While in Paris Eliade wrote four major scholarly works: Traité d’histoire des religions (1949; Patterns in Comparative Religion), which signalled his arrival as a major scholar of religion; Le Mythe de l’éternel retour (1949; The Myth of the Eternal Return, also translated as Cosmos and History), which he described as his favourite book; Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaïques de l’extase (1951; Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy); and Le Yoga: Immortalité et liberté (1954; Yoga: Immortality and Freedom). His three-volume Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses (1978–85; A History of Religious Ideas) was another major scholarly achievement. Eliade also founded and coedited the journal History of Religions (1961) and served as editor in chief of the 16-volume The Encyclopedia of Religion (1987)."

(https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mircea-Eliade)