and Daniel Dubuisson, Mythologies du XXe Siécle: Dumézil, LéviStrauss, Eliade. Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1993. See also criticisms of Eliade in Russell McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
6. Published serially in the journal Cuvantul, 1926; French translation, L'adolescent miop. Paris: Acte Sud, 1992.
7. Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 1, p. 31.
8. That dissertation in turn was the basis of his French book, Yoga: Essai sur les origenes de la mystique Indienne (Paris: Guenther, 1936), his first important work in history of religions, which after further major alterations became Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958).
9. English translation, University of Chicago Press, 1994. There is an interesting sequeclass="underline" Maitreyi herself, by now a prominent writer and public figure in her own right, eventually learned of Eliade's story and wrote her own autobiographical novel, Maitreya Devi, It Does Not Die (Bengali, 1974; English translation by the author, Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1976), giving her version of the affair, climaxing with a scene in which she confronts the nowdistinguished historian of religion in his Chicago office about the slanderous insinuations and defamation of her character she contends were presented in the youthful novel; Eliade has no answer but to look at her with eyes "turned to stone." She acknowledged in a letter to Mac Ricketts that the high drama of this unforgettable novelistic scene was actually a conflation of several meetings in 1973 (Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 1, p. 483).
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10. Ted Anton, Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1996, p. 43.
11. A useful summary of the Legion's history and ideology can be found in the relevant parts of Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism 1914–1945, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, especially pp. 136–38, 279–81, 391–97. The fullest account in English is Radu Ioanid, The Sword of the Archangel, Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1990. This is a translation of a Romanian work, which shows some signs of its provenance under the Communist regime, but contains essential documentation unavailable elsewhere in English. There is reference to Eliade as a spokesperson for Legion ideology. For a proLegion apologetic see Alexander E. Ronnett, Romanian Nationalism: The Legionaray Movement. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1974. Ronnett, whose real surname was Rachmistriuc, was a Guardist and medical doctor who settled in Chicago after the war. In a 1995 interview, Ronnett told Ted Anton that he had been Eliade's personal physician in his Chicago years, and also claimed that Eliade had been a prominent Guardist. Anton, Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu, p.
117.
12. Leon Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and AntiSemitism, pp. 64–65.
13. See, in addition to the works cited above, F. L. Carsten, The Rise of Fascism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, 1982 ed., pp. 181–93.
14. See, for example, Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, pp. 909–12, 915–17. It should be pointed out that in some places Eliade urged merely that the minorities be assimilated, and unlike other rightists even at his harshest did not urge the use of force against such groups collectively.
15. Strenski, Four Theories of Myth, p. 125.
16. Mircea Eliade, Autobiography, 1, Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism, pp. 101–105; Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, pp. 727–41.
17. "Contra dreptei si contra stangi," Credinta, 14 February 1934, p. 3. Cited in Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, p. 893.
18. "Noul Barbar," Vremea, 27 January 1935, p. 3. Cited in Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, pp. 893–94.
19. "Catevacuvinte mare," Vremea, 10 June 1934, p. 3. Cited in Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, p. 915.
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20. Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, p. 918.
21. "Renastere romaneasca," Vremea, Easter, 1935, p. 7. Cited in Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, p. 903.
22. "Democratia si problema Romaniei," Vremea, 18 December 1936, p. 3. Cited in Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, pp. 900–901. Ricketts comments that at the time Vremea, for which Eliade wrote regularly, had recently switched from a moderate to a far right political position.
23. Mircea Eliade, Autobiography, 2, p. 65.
24. Payne, A History of Fascism, p. 280.
25. "Noua aristocratie legionara," Vremea, 23 Jan. 1939. Cited in Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism, p. 91.
26. Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, pp. 928–29. The statement, "De ce cred in biruinta miscarii legionare," appeared in Buna vestire, 17 December 1937.
27. Mircea Eliade, Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with ClaudeHenri Rocquet. Trans. by Derek Coltman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982, p.
53. Orig. pub. in French 1978.
28. Mircea Eliade, No Souvenirs: Journal, 1957–1960. New York: Harper and Row, 1977, p. 220.
29. Cited in Ricketts, Mircea Eliade, 2, p. 926. Cf. Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism, p. 142, n.134. The diaries of Sebastian, who was killed in an accident in 1945, were the source of the article that opened current debate on Eliade's Romanian political stance, "Dosarul Mircea Eliade" [Mircea Eliade File], probably by Theodor Lavi, published in the Israeli journal Toladot, January–March 1972.
30. Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism, p. 73, n.90.
31. Eliade, Autobiography, 2, p. 65.
32. Cited Rickets, Mircea Eliade, 2, pp. 1108–1109. The book by Eliade is Salazar si revolutia in Portugalia. Bucharest: Editura Gorjan, 1942.
33. Eliade, Autobiography, 2, p. 69.
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34. Ibid, p. 85.
35. The horrors climaxing on January 21, 1941, happened as Antonescu, disillusioned with the Legion's excesses and incompetence, was preparing to turn against them with Hitler's approval; the January pogrom was part of a sort of preemptive revolt by the Legion. But it failed, and Antonescu soon outlawed the Legion while remaining firmly in the Axis camp. The worst single event in Romania, the murder of several thousand Jews in Iasi, was in late June 1941, just after German and Romanian troops had invaded Russia; Jews were regarded as Soviet sympathizers. Apparently German forces, Romanian soldiers, and Legionary elements all had a hand in the terror with the connivance of the Antonescu government. General Antonescu did order an investigation and later, to his credit, tried seriously to protect Romanian Jews. But Jews were routinely massacred by Romanians as they advanced into the formerly Romanian, now Soviet, territories of Bukovina and Bessarabia.