Editing Mircea Eliade (section)

==Controversy: antisemitism and links with the Iron Guard==

===Early statements===
The early years in Eliade's public career show him to have been highly tolerant of Jews in general, and of the [[History of the Jews in Romania|Jewish minority in Romania]] in particular. His early condemnation of [[Nazism|Nazi]] [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]] policies was accompanied by his caution and moderation in regard to [[Nae Ionescu]]'s various anti-Jewish attacks.<ref name="aoamniotica" /><ref>Ornea, pp. 408–409, 412.</ref>

Late in the 1930s, Mihail Sebastian was marginalized by Romania's antisemitic policies, and came to reflect on his Romanian friend's association with the far right. The subsequent ideological break between him and Eliade has been compared by writer [[Gabriela Adameşteanu|Gabriela Adameșteanu]] with that between [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Albert Camus]].<ref name="admestmeanea" /> In his ''Journal'', published long after his 1945 death, Sebastian claimed that Eliade's actions during the 1930s show him to be an antisemite. According to Sebastian, Eliade had been friendly to him until the start of his political commitments, after which he severed all ties.<ref name="aoamniotica"/><ref>Sebastian, ''passim''</ref> Before their friendship came apart, however, Sebastian claimed that he took notes on their conversations (which he later published) during which Eliade was supposed to have expressed antisemitic views. According to Sebastian, Eliade said in 1939:

<blockquote>The [[Polish resistance movement in World War II|Poles' resistance]] in [[Warsaw]] is a Jewish resistance. Only yids are capable of the blackmail of putting women and children in the front line, to take advantage of the [[Nazi Germany|Germans]]' sense of scruple. The Germans have no interest in the destruction of Romania. Only a pro-German government can save us... What is [[Bukovina#Second World War|happening on the frontier with Bukovina]] is a scandal, because new waves of Jews are flooding into the country. Rather than a Romania again invaded by kikes, it would be better to have a German protectorate.<ref>Sebastian, p. 238.</ref></blockquote>

The friendship between Eliade and Sebastian drastically declined during the war: the latter writer, fearing for his security during the pro-Nazi [[Ion Antonescu]] regime (''see [[Romania during World War II]]''), hoped that Eliade, by then a diplomat, could intervene in his favor; however, upon his brief return to Romania, Eliade did not see or approach Sebastian.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo" /><ref name="aoamniotica" />

Later, Mircea Eliade expressed his regret at not having had the chance to redeem his friendship with Sebastian before the latter was killed in a car accident.<ref name="pcommare" /><ref name="in Handoca" /> [[Paul Cernat]] notes that Eliade's statement includes an admission that he "counted on [Sebastian's] support, in order to get back into Romanian life and culture", and proposes that Eliade may have expected his friend to vouch for him in front of hostile authorities.<ref name="pcommare" /> Some of Sebastian's late recordings in his diary show that their author was reflecting with nostalgia on his relationship with Eliade, and that he deplored the outcome.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo" /><ref name="aoamniotica" />

Eliade provided two distinct explanations for not having met with Sebastian: one was related to his claim of being followed around by the [[Gestapo]], and the other, expressed in his diaries, was that the shame of representing a regime that humiliated Jews had made him avoid facing his former friend.<ref name="aoamniotica" /> Another take on the matter was advanced in 1972 by the Israeli magazine ''Toladot'', which claimed that, as an official representative, Eliade was aware of Antonescu's agreement to implement the [[Final Solution]] in Romania and of how this could affect Sebastian (''see [[Holocaust in Romania]]'').<ref name="aoamniotica" /> In addition, rumors were sparked that Sebastian and Nina Mareș had a physical relationship, one which could have contributed to the clash between the two literary figures.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo" />

Beyond his involvement with a movement known for its antisemitism, Eliade did not usually comment on Jewish issues. However, an article titled ''Piloții orbi'' ("The Blind Pilots"), contributed to the journal ''Vremea'' in 1936, showed that he supported at least some Iron Guard accusations against the Jewish community:

<blockquote>Since the war [that is, [[World War I]]], Jews have occupied the villages of [[Maramureş historical region|Maramureș]] and [[Bukovina]], and gained the absolute majority in the towns and cities in [[Bessarabia]].{{NoteTag|It was popular prejudice in the late 1930s to claim that [[History of the Jews in Ukraine|Ukrainian Jews]] in the [[Soviet Union]] had obtained Romanian citizenship illegally after crossing the border into [[Maramureş historical region|Maramureş]] and Bukovina. In 1938, this accusation served as an excuse for the [[Octavian Goga]]-[[A. C. Cuza]] government to suspend and review all Jewish citizenship guaranteed after 1923, rendering it very difficult to regain (Ornea, p.391). Eliade's mention of Bessarabia probably refers to an earlier period, being his interpretation of a pre-[[Greater Romania]] process.}} [...] It would be absurd to expect Jews to resign themselves to become a minority with certain rights and very many duties—after they have tasted the honey of power and conquered as many command positions as they have. Jews are currently fighting with all forces to maintain their positions, expecting a future offensive—and, as far as I am concerned, I understand their fight and admire their vitality, tenacity, genius.<ref>Eliade, 1936, in Ornea, pp. 412–413; partially in the ''Final Report'', p. 49.</ref></blockquote>

One year later, a text, accompanied by his picture, was featured as answer to an inquiry by the Iron Guard's ''[[Buna Vestire]]'' about the reasons he had for supporting the movement. A short section of it summarizes an anti-Jewish attitude:

<blockquote>Can the Romanian nation end its life in the saddest decay witnessed by history, undermined by misery and [[syphilis]], conquered by Jews and torn to pieces by foreigners, demoralized, betrayed, sold for a few million [[Romanian leu|lei]]?<ref name="aoamniotica"/><ref>Eliade, 1937, in Ornea, p. 413; in the ''Final Report'', p. 49</ref></blockquote>

According to the literary critic [[Z. Ornea]], in the 1980s Eliade denied authorship of the text. He explained the use of his signature, his picture, and the picture's caption, as having been applied by the magazine's editor, [[Mihail Polihroniade]], to a piece the latter had written after having failed to obtain Eliade's contribution; he also claimed that, given his respect for Polihroniade, he had not wished to publicize this matter previously.<ref>Ornea, p. 206; Ornea is skeptical of these explanations, given the long period of time spent before Eliade gave them, and especially the fact that the article itself, despite the haste in which it must have been written, has remarkably detailed references to many articles written by Eliade in various papers over a period of time.</ref>

===Polemics and exile===
Dumitru G. Danielopol, a fellow diplomat present in London during Eliade's stay in the city, later stated that the latter had identified himself as "a guiding light of [the Iron Guard] movement" and victim of [[Carol II of Romania|Carol II]]'s repression.<ref name="oscaderea"/> In October 1940, as the [[National Legionary State]] came into existence, the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office|British Foreign Office]] [[blacklist]]ed Mircea Eliade, alongside five other Romanians, due to his Iron Guard connections and suspicions that he was prepared to spy in favor of [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name="zfscriit"/> According to various sources, while in [[Portugal]], the diplomat was also preparing to disseminate propaganda in favor of the Iron Guard.<ref name="oscaderea"/> In ''Jurnal portughez'', Eliade defines himself as "a Legionary",<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/><ref name="pcommare"/> and speaks of his own "Legionary climax" as a stage he had gone through during the early 1940s.<ref name="pcommare"/><ref name="aoamniotica"/>

The depolitisation of Eliade after the start of his diplomatic career was also mistrusted by his former close friend [[Eugène Ionesco]], who indicated that, upon the close of [[World War II]], Eliade's personal beliefs as communicated to his friends amounted to "all is over now that Communism has won".<ref>Ionesco, 1945, in Ornea, p. 184</ref> This forms part of Ionesco's severe and succinct review of the careers of Legionary-inspired intellectuals, many of them his friends and former friends, in a letter he sent to [[Tudor Vianu]].<ref name="oscaderea"/><ref>Ornea, pp. 184–185</ref> In 1946, Ionesco indicated to [[Petru Comarnescu]] that he did not want to see either Eliade or Cioran, and that he considered the two of them "Legionaries for ever"—adding "we are [[hyena]]s to one another".<ref>Ionesco, 1946, in Ornea, p. 211</ref>

Eliade's former friend, the communist [[Belu Zilber]], who was attending the [[Paris Peace Treaties, 1947|Paris Conference]] in 1946, refused to see Eliade, arguing that, as an Iron Guard affiliate, the latter had "denounced left-wingers", and contrasting him with Cioran ("They are both Legionaries, but [Cioran] is honest").<ref>[[Stelian Tănase]], [http://www.revista22.ro/html/index.php?art=575&nr=2003-08-25 "Belu Zilber" (III)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927011339/http://www.revista22.ro/html/index.php?nr=2003-08-25&art=575 |date=2007-09-27 }}, in ''[[22 (magazine)|22]]'', Nr.702, August 2003; retrieved October 4, 2007 {{in lang|ro}}</ref> Three years later, Eliade's political activities were brought into discussion as he was getting ready to publish a translation of his ''Techniques du Yoga'' with the left-leaning Italian company ''[[Giulio Einaudi Editore]]''—the denunciation was probably orchestrated by Romanian officials.<ref name="Ornea, p.210">Ornea, p. 210</ref>

In August 1954, when [[Horia Sima]], who led the Iron Guard during its exile, was rejected by a faction inside the movement, Mircea Eliade's name was included on a list of persons who supported the latter—although this may have happened without his consent.<ref name="Ornea, p.210"/> According to exiled dissident and novelist [[Dumitru Ţepeneag]], around that date, Eliade expressed his sympathy for Iron Guard members in general, whom he viewed as "courageous".<ref>Constantin Coroiu, [https://web.archive.org/web/20090115020500/http://www.evenimentul.ro/articol/un-roman-la-paris-0.html "Un român la Paris"], in ''[[Evenimentul]]'', August 31, 2006; retrieved October 4, 2007 {{in lang|ro}}</ref> However, according to Robert Ellwood, the Eliade he met in the 1960s was entirely apolitical, remained aloof from "the passionate politics of that era in the United States", and "[r]eportedly [...] never read newspapers"<ref name="Ellwood, p.83">Ellwood, p. 83</ref> (an assessment shared by [[Sorin Alexandrescu]]).<ref name="scnostal"/> Eliade's student [[Ioan Petru Culianu]] noted that journalists had come to refer to the Romanian scholar as "the great recluse".<ref name="ipcmahapar"/> Despite Eliade's withdrawal from radical politics, Ellwood indicates, he still remained concerned with Romania's welfare. He saw himself and other exiled Romanian intellectuals as members of a circle who worked to "maintain the culture of a free Romania and, above all, to publish texts that had become unpublishable in Romania itself".<ref>Eliade, ''Ordeal by Labyrinth'', in Ellwood, p. 115</ref>

Beginning in 1969, Eliade's past became the subject of public debate in Israel. At the time, historian [[Gershom Scholem]] asked Eliade to explain his attitudes, which the latter did using vague terms.<ref name="aoamniotica"/><ref name="oscaderea"/><ref name="Oişteanu, Angajamentul...">Oişteanu, "Angajamentul..."</ref> As a result of this exchange, Scholem declared his dissatisfaction, and argued that Israel could not extend a welcome to the Romanian academic.<ref name="oscaderea"/> During the final years of Eliade's life, his disciple Culianu exposed and publicly criticized his 1930s pro-Iron Guard activities; relations between the two soured as a result.<ref>[[Sorin Antohi]], [http://www.iwm.at/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=306&Itemid=478 "Exploring the Legacy of Ioan Petru Culianu"], in the [http://www.iwm.at/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=231 ''Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen Post''], Newsletter 72, Spring 2001; retrieved July 16, 2007; Ted Anton, [http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9209/culianu.html "The Killing of Professor Culianu"], in ''[[Lingua Franca (magazine)|Lingua Franca]]'', Volume 2, No. 6, September/October 1992; retrieved July 29, 2007; Oişteanu, "Angajamentul..."</ref> Eliade's other Romanian disciple, [[Andrei Oişteanu]], noted that, in the years following Eliade's death, conversations with various people who had known the scholar had made Culianu less certain of his earlier stances, and had led him to declare: "Mr. Eliade was never antisemitic, a member of the Iron Guard, or pro-Nazi. But, in any case, I am led to believe that he was closer to the Iron Guard than I would have liked to believe."<ref>Culianu, in Oişteanu, "Angajamentul..."</ref>

At an early stage of his polemic with Culianu, Eliade complained in writing that "it is not possible to write an objective history" of the Iron Guard and its leader [[Corneliu Zelea Codreanu]].<ref name="Eliade, in Ellwood, p.91"/> Arguing that people "would only accept apologetics [...] or executions", he contended: "After [[Buchenwald concentration camp|Buchenwald]] and [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]], even honest people cannot afford being objective".<ref name="Eliade, in Ellwood, p.91">Eliade, in Ellwood, p. 91; in Oişteanu, "Angajamentul..."</ref>

===Posterity===
Alongside the arguments introduced by Daniel Dubuisson, criticism of Mircea Eliade's political involvement with antisemitism and fascism came from Adriana Berger, [[Leon Volovici]], Alexandra Lagniel-Lavastine, Florin Țurcanu and others, who have attempted to trace Eliade's antisemitism throughout his work and through his associations with contemporary antisemites, such as the Italian fascist [[occultist]] [[Julius Evola]]. Volovici, for example, is critical of Eliade not only because of his support for the Iron Guard, but also for spreading antisemitism and [[anti-Masonry]] in 1930s Romania.<ref>Leon Volovici, ''Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s'', [[Pergamon Press]], Oxford, 1991, pp. 104–105, 110–111, 120–126, 134</ref> In 1991, exiled novelist [[Norman Manea]] published an essay firmly condemning Eliade's attachment to the Iron Guard.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/>

Other scholars, like [[Bryan S. Rennie]], have claimed that there is, to date, no evidence of Eliade's membership, active services rendered, or of any real involvement with any fascist or totalitarian movements or membership organizations, nor that there is any evidence of his continued support for nationalist ideals after their inherently violent nature was revealed. They further assert that there is no imprint of overt political beliefs in Eliade's scholarship, and also claim that Eliade's critics are following political agendas.<ref>[[Bryan S. Rennie]], ''Reconstructing Eliade: Making Sense of Religion'', [[State University of New York Press]], Albany, 1996, pp. 149–177. {{ISBN|0-7914-2763-3}}</ref> Romanian scholar Mircea Handoca, editor of Eliade's writings, argues that the controversy surrounding Eliade was encouraged by a group of exiled writers, of whom Manea was a main representative, and believes that Eliade's association with the Guard was a conjectural one, determined by the young author's Christian values and conservative stance, as well as by his belief that a Legionary Romania could mirror Portugal's ''[[Estado Novo (Portugal)|Estado Novo]]''.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/> Handoca opined that Eliade changed his stance after discovering that the Legionaries had turned violent, and argued that there was no evidence of Eliade's actual affiliation with the Iron Guard as a political movement.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/> Additionally, Joaquín Garrigós, who translated Eliade's works into Spanish, claimed that none of Eliade's texts he ever encountered show him to be an antisemite.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/> Mircea Eliade's nephew and commentator [[Sorin Alexandrescu]] himself proposed that Eliade's politics were essentially conservative and patriotic, in part motivated by a fear of the [[Soviet Union]] which he shared with many other young intellectuals.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/> Based on Mircea Eliade's admiration for [[Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi|Gandhi]], various other authors assess that Eliade remained committed to [[nonviolence]].<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/>

Robert Ellwood also places Eliade's involvement with the Iron Guard in relation to scholar's conservatism, and connects this aspect of Eliade's life with both his nostalgia and his study of primal societies. According to Ellwood, the part of Eliade that felt attracted to the "freedom of new beginnings suggested by primal myths" is the same part that felt attracted to the Guard, with its almost mythological notion of a new beginning through a "national resurrection".<ref>Ellwood, pp. 100–101</ref> On a more basic level, Ellwood describes Eliade as an "instinctively spiritual" person who saw the Iron Guard as a spiritual movement.<ref>Ellwood, p. 86</ref> In Ellwood's view, Eliade was aware that the "[[golden age]]" of antiquity was no longer accessible to secular man, that it could be recalled but not re-established. Thus, a "more accessible" object for nostalgia was a "secondary silver age within the last few hundred years"—the [[Kingdom of Romania]]'s 19th century cultural renaissance.<ref>Ellwood, p. xiv</ref> To the young Eliade, the Iron Guard seemed like a path for returning to the silver age of Romania's glory, being a movement "dedicated to the cultural and national renewal of the Romanian people by appeal to their spiritual roots".<ref name="Ellwood, p.83"/> Ellwood describes the young Eliade as someone "capable of being fired up by mythological archetypes and with no awareness of the evil that was to be unleashed".<ref>Ellwood, p. 91</ref>

Because of Eliade's withdrawal from politics, and also because the later Eliade's religiosity was very personal and idiosyncratic,<ref name="Ellwood, p.120"/> Ellwood believes the later Eliade probably would have rejected the "corporate sacred" of the Iron Guard.<ref name="Ellwood, p.120"/> According to Ellwood, the later Eliade had the same desire for a Romanian "resurrection" that had motivated the early Eliade to support the Iron Guard, but he now channeled it apolitically through his efforts to "maintain the culture of a free Romania" abroad.<ref>Ellwood, p. 115</ref> In one of his writings, Eliade says, "Against the terror of History there are only two possibilities of defense: action or contemplation."<ref>Eliade, ''The Forbidden Forest'', in Ellwood, p. 101</ref> According to Ellwood, the young Eliade took the former option, trying to reform the world through action, whereas the older Eliade tried to resist the terror of history intellectually.<ref name="Ellwood, p.101"/>

Eliade's own version of events, presenting his involvement in far right politics as marginal, was judged to contain several inaccuracies and unverifiable claims.<ref name="oscaderea"/><ref>Ornea, pp. 202, 208–211, 239–240</ref> For instance, Eliade depicted his arrest as having been solely caused by his friendship with [[Nae Ionescu]].<ref>Ornea, pp. 202, 209</ref> On another occasion, answering Gershom Scholem's query, he is known to have explicitly denied ever having contributed to ''[[Buna Vestire]]''.<ref name="oscaderea"/> According to [[Sorin Antohi]], "Eliade died without ever clearly expressing regret for his Iron Guard sympathies".<ref name="Antohi p.xxiii">Antohi, preface to Liiceanu, p. xxiii</ref> [[Z. Ornea]] noted that, in a short section of his ''Autobiography'' where he discusses the ''Einaudi'' incident, Eliade speaks of "my imprudent acts and errors committed in youth", as "a series of malentendus that would follow me all my life."<ref>Eliade, in Ornea, p. 210</ref> Ornea commented that this was the only instance where the Romanian academic spoke of his political involvement with a dose of self-criticism, and contrasted the statement with Eliade's usual refusal to discuss his stances "pertinently".<ref name="Ornea, p.210"/> Reviewing the arguments brought in support of Eliade, Sergio Vila-Sanjuán concluded: "Nevertheless, Eliade's pro-Legionary columns endure in the newspaper libraries, he never showed his regret for this connection [with the Iron Guard] and always, right up to his final writings, he invoked the figure of his teacher Nae Ionescu."<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/>

In his ''Felix Culpa'', Manea directly accused Eliade of having embellished his memoirs to minimize an embarrassing past.<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/> A secondary debate surrounding Eliade's alleged unwillingness to dissociate with the Guard took place after ''Jurnalul portughez'' saw print. Sorin Alexandrescu expressed a belief that notes in the diary show Eliade's "break with his far right past".<ref name="scnostal"/> [[Cătălin Avramescu]] defined this conclusion as "whitewashing", and, answering to Alexandrescu's claim that his uncle's support for the Guard was always superficial, argued that ''Jurnal portughez'' and other writings of the time showed Eliade's disenchantment with the Legionaries' Christian stance in tandem with his growing sympathy for [[Nazism]] and its [[Nazi occultism|pagan messages]].<ref name="cavrcitim"/> Paul Cernat, who stressed that it was the only one of Eliade's autobiographical works not to have been reworked by its author, concluded that the book documented Eliade's own efforts to "camouflage" his political sympathies without rejecting them altogether.<ref name="pcommare"/>

Oișteanu argued that, in old age, Eliade moved away from his earlier stances and even came to sympathize with the non-[[Marxism|Marxist]] Left and the [[hippie]] [[youth movement]].<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="teodoist"/> He noted that Eliade initially felt apprehensive about the consequences of hippie activism, but that the interests they shared, as well as their advocacy of [[Communalism (Bookchin)|communalism]] and [[free love]] had made him argue that hippies were "a quasi-religious movement" that was "rediscovering the sacrality of Life".<ref>Eliade, in Oişteanu, "Mircea Eliade şi mişcarea hippie"</ref> Andrei Oișteanu, who proposed that Eliade's critics were divided into a "maximalist" and a "minimalist" camp (trying to, respectively, enhance or shadow the impact Legionary ideas had on Eliade), argued in favor of moderation, and indicated that Eliade's fascism needed to be correlated to the political choices of his generation.<ref name="Oişteanu, Angajamentul..."/>

===Political symbolism in Eliade's fiction===
{{Conservatism in the Western world|Intellectuals}}
Various critics have traced links between Eliade's fiction works and his political views, or Romanian politics in general. Early on, [[George Călinescu]] argued that the [[Totalitarianism|totalitarian]] model outlined in ''Huliganii'' was: "An allusion to certain bygone political movements [...], sublimated in the ever so abstruse philosophy of death as a path to knowledge."<ref name="Căl. p.959"/> By contrast, ''Întoarcerea din rai'' partly focuses on a failed [[Communism|communist]] rebellion, which enlists the participation of its main characters.<ref name="Căl. p.958"/>

''Iphigenia''‍'s story of self-sacrifice, turned voluntary in Eliade's version, was taken by various commentators, beginning with [[Mihail Sebastian]], as a favorable allusion to the Iron Guard's beliefs on commitment and death, as well as to the bloody outcome of the 1941 [[Legionnaires' rebellion and Bucharest pogrom|Legionary Rebellion]].<ref name="aoamniotica"/> Ten years after its premiere, the play was reprinted by Legionary refugees in Argentina: on the occasion, the text was reviewed for publishing by Eliade himself.<ref name="aoamniotica"/> Reading ''Iphigenia'' was what partly sparked Culianu's investigation of his mentor's early political affiliations.<ref name="aoamniotica"/>

A special debate was sparked by ''Un om mare''. Culianu viewed it as a direct reference to [[Corneliu Zelea Codreanu]] and his rise in popularity, an interpretation partly based on the similarity between, on one hand, two monikers ascribed to the Legionary leader (by, respectively, his adversaries and his followers), and, on the other, the main character's name (''Cucoanes'').<ref name="milaffaireii"/> [[Matei Călinescu]] did not reject Culianu's version, but argued that, on its own, the piece was beyond political interpretations.<ref name="milaffaireii"/> Commenting on this dialog, literary historian and essayist [[Mircea Iorgulescu]] objected to the original verdict, indicating his belief that there was no historical evidence to substantiate Culianu's point of view.<ref name="milaffaireii"/>

Alongside Eliade's main works, his attempted novel of youth, ''Minunata călătorie a celor cinci cărăbuși in țara furnicilor roșii'', which depicts a population of red ants living in a totalitarian society and forming bands to harass the beetles, was seen as a potential allusion to the [[Soviet Union]] and to communism.<ref name="ihincep"/> Despite Eliade's ultimate reception in [[Communist Romania]], this writing could not be published during the period, after [[Censorship|censors]] singled out fragments which they saw as especially problematic.<ref name="ihincep"/>