https://www.editura.ubbcluj.ro/ Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României Postlegomena la ... more https://www.editura.ubbcluj.ro/ Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României Postlegomena la Felix Culpa: Mircea Eliade, evreii şi antisemitismul / culegere de texte de Liviu Bordaş; ed. îngrijită de Mihaela Gligor şi Liviu Bordaş.-Cluj-Napoca:
Mister medieval în trei acte, un interludiu şi un intermezzo liric, cu multe ilustrări din opere ... more Mister medieval în trei acte, un interludiu şi un intermezzo liric, cu multe ilustrări din opere originale
Liviu Bordaş mi-a fost student. L-am simţit, de la început, locuit de o pasiune intelectuală pe cât de intensă, pe atât de discretă. Era tăcut, retractil şi tenace. Plecat pe urmele lui Mircea Eliade, i-a refăcut traseele interioare, itineranţa geografică şi parcursul ştiinţific. Şi-a păstrat discreţia, dar şi-a consolidat competenţele şi profilul academic. Cu lucrarea de-acum, despre Nae Ionescu, m-a luat prin surprindere: e prompt, documentat la sânge, ofensiv fără patimă, exact, fără să fie apologetic. Investigaţia sa polemică aduce, cred, o notă salutară în climatul culturii autohtone, care are nevoie de dezbateri aprinse, dar oneste, de natură să tempereze spiritul partizan, excesul ideologic, idiosincrasiile private sau corectitudinea politică la modă. (Andrei PLEŞU)
Într-o cultură în care judecata critică este înlocuită de afectele dictate de apartenenţa la o partidă literară sau alta, e o bucurie să citeşti cartea unui om liber, bazată pe competenţă şi discernământ. Râsul inteligent al lui Liviu Bordaş şi lipsa de prejudecăţi intelectuale sunt, neîndoielnic, replica cea mai potrivită dată prostiei agresive şi fanatismelor de conjunctură. (Gabriel LIICEANU)
Volum premiat la concursul de debut „Ioan Petru Culianu” pe 2005.
Studiul prezinta diversele a... more Volum premiat la concursul de debut „Ioan Petru Culianu” pe 2005.
Studiul prezinta diversele aspecte ale raporturilor dintre spatiul romanesc si indepartata Indie: de la calatoriile medievale la atractia romantica pentru Orient, de la imaginea Indiei la indologie, de la situarea ambigua a romanilor intre „Orient” si „Occident” la considerarea lor ca obiect al orientalismului, in prima jumatate a secolului al XIX-lea. Pretextul cartii este boierul moldav Alecu Ghica, fugit in India catre mijlocul secolului al XIX-lea si descoperit ulterior ca „bramin” intr-unul dintre cele mai importante centre ale hinduismului.
Cuprins: Cazul „braminului” Ghica • Romanii in istoria drumului spre India • Avatarele unui aventurier: „contele” Alexandru Ghica • Istoria unei ocultari • Imaginea Indiei in cultura romana la inceputul secolului al XIX-lea • Coliba filosofului indian • La portile Orientului
Tânărul Mircea Eliade. De la scrierile adolescentului miop la prozele din “ciclul indian” (1921-1935),, 2025
This article seeks to explore, for the first time, the issue of Mircea Eliade’s relationship with... more This article seeks to explore, for the first time, the issue of Mircea Eliade’s relationship with Jews and antisemitism, drawing on all available primary sources, both manuscript and printed. The main source is, of course, Eliade’s Romanian archive, of which only a part is accessible in public repositories. The time period examined here covers the middle phase of his formative years: high school and university (1921-1928). The Indian period, as well as the post-Indian years up to 1936, at the onset of his political engagement, will be the subject of a future article. The body of sources analyzed here reveals that Eliade was exposed early on to both Jewish culture – through his readings and interactions with Jewish colleagues – and to the antisemitic currents of his time. A contextualized analysis of these sources shows that, despite the emotional impact of his first encounter with antisemitism in the winter of 1922-1923, the young Eliade chose to rely on his own critical judgment. When he was unable to reach a definitive conclusion, he opted to temporarily suspend his judgment.
Keywords: postwar years, student movement, “the Jewish question”, nationalism, antisemitism, socialism, fascism, Jewish culture, Zeitgeist
Studii de istorie a filosofiei româneşti, Nov 30, 2024
MIRCEA ELIADE AND THE CAPTIVES OF POLITICS.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE FELIX CULPA CASE (I)
The na... more MIRCEA ELIADE AND THE CAPTIVES OF POLITICS.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE FELIX CULPA CASE (I)
The name and work of Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) were banned in Romania following the establishment of the communist regime. Both his writings and his person were subject to ideological criticism, though without being accorded significant attention. (That is, within the context of an article or book; no article was ever dedicated exclusively to him.) The present paper explores, for the first time, his reception in socialist Romania after the lifting of the ban imposed on him. The first part examines the period from September 1967 to July 1970, when a new ban was imposed, and after that until March 1972, when the ban was lifted once more. The English term “captive” translates the Romanian word “prizonier”, which includes among its primary meanings “slave” or “enslaved”. It refers to the members of the two “fronts” – pro and con – involved in the struggle over the acceptability of Mircea Eliade within a communist culture like that of Romania during that era. The main figures at the forefront during this period were Miron Constantinescu (1917-1974), who opposed Eliade, and Adrian Păunescu (1943-2010), who supported him. The second part of the article focuses on other protagonists – both from Romania and abroad – active in the period following March 1972 and leading up to the fall of communism in December 1989.
Geography and encyclopaedism. Revisiting Gheorghe Lazăr:
Between 1810 and 1822... more Geography and encyclopaedism. Revisiting Gheorghe Lazăr:
Between 1810 and 1822, Gheorghe Lazăr (1779/82-1823) composed or compiled four geography textbooks for the use of the Romanian schools of Transylvania and Walachia: a mathematical geography (1810), a geography of Transylvania (1815), an astronomical geography (1820), and a world geography (1822), respectively. The first two were destined for publication in Transylvania, but his superior blocked all attempts. The last two were used in the St. Sava College of Bucharest, and – according to a 1822 manifesto – the world geography was being prepared for publication. Like most of Lazăr’s Nachlass, they have been lost after his death. The present article discusses all the available information about these books and attempts to identify their sources on the basis of contextual data. It also underlines Lazăr’s long lasting interest for the subject matter of geography, which has been neglected by both his biographers and the historiography of geographical studies in Romanian culture. My thesis is that it should be understood as part of Lazăr’s encyclopaedicism, another dimension of his intellectual formation and academic profile which has been neglected. The last section, which places Lazăr in the context of the geographical textbook production during his mature life and the decades following his death, shows that many other manuscript textbooks have met with the same fate: they failed to reach the printing press and – sooner or later – have been lost.
Nicola Nicolau and his Geographical Work
This is the second in a series of three articles on Nic... more Nicola Nicolau and his Geographical Work
This is the second in a series of three articles on Nicola Nicolau (1762-1837), a Romanian merchant and scholar from the Transylvanian town of Brașov (Kronstadt, in the Habsburg Empire). While the first article dealt with his life and work, this is an attempt to discuss all the available data about the book of world geography, which he compiled and published in 1814-1815. Among the various contributions to this topic, brought here, two are opening new research avenues. One is a preliminary chronological map of the circulation and reception of the book during the 19th century, based on all the available information. The other regards the identification of its sources. Géographie universelle of Claude Buffier (1661-1737) – translated by bishop Amphilochius of Hotin (1795) – was the only one known so far, along with some chapters from Le Plutarque de la jeunesse of Pierre Blanchard (1772-1856), published by Nicolau himself (1819). To them he added various chapters extracted from travelogues, geographical and historical works authored by George Leonard Staunton (1737-1801), Guillaume Antoine Olivier (1756-1814), Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann (1762-1811), and Johann Matthias Schröckh (1733-1808). There is also a short story with historical theme (Hernán Cortés and La Malinche) by Louis d’Ussieux (1744-1805) and miscellaneous texts of natural history – botany, zoology, mineralogy – from popular works (one of which is the almanac Vaterländischer Pilger). The third and last article of the series will discuss in detail the image of India as reflected in Nicolau’s work.
Nicola Nicolau: an Intellectual with an Unfair Posterity:
This is the fi... more Nicola Nicolau: an Intellectual with an Unfair Posterity:
This is the first in a series of three articles discussing the life and work of Nicola Nicolau (1762-1837), a Romanian merchant and scholar from the Transylvanian town of Brașov (Kronstadt, in the Habsburg Empire). Its chapters deal with Nicolau’s family and life, the books published by him, the question of their authorship, their sources, their circulation, and, finally, with Nicolau’s teaching activity. While settling, on the basis of primary sources, a number of earlier hypotheses and debates, it proposes some new hypotheses, which should be checked against further primary evidence.
The image of India in the first books of history and geography printed in Romanian: The Universal... more The image of India in the first books of history and geography printed in Romanian: The Universal geography of Buffier (Jassy, 1795)
The article is part of a series discussing the early books of world history and geography published in Romanian. Until the end of 18th century they circulated in manuscript form and were translations of works coming from Western Europe through various language channels. As some of the translators belong to the Orthodox clergy, it is interesting to note that a great number of authors are Jesuits or students of Jesuit schools (Giovanni Botero, Claude Buffier, Claude François Xavier Millot, Joseph de La Porte, Louis Domairon, etc.). They are also mostly French, although none of the works were translated directly from the French. The first to be printed, in 1795, was a book translated and adapted from Buffier’s Géographie universelle. The first book of world history, translated from Elements d’histoire générale ancienne et moderne of Millot, was printed in 1800 (after an earlier, partial translation, had been published in 1798).
Adapted by bishop Amphilochius of Hotin as a school textbook, Buffier’s work reached various categories of readers and enjoyed wide circulation in all the territories inhabited by Romanians, which were, at that time, separated by multiple borders. In the process of translation, the image of India underwent some changes. While Buffier talked about India and the Indies, Amphilochius made all the “Indies” become “India”, thus extending its image up to Japan. One of the chapters he added as addenda to the book deals with exotic plants, half of which grow on the Indian subcontinent (among other places). Changes and interpolations attest that Amphilochius was already familiar with India, although perhaps with an outdated image of it.
In his first year spent in India, 1929, Mircea Eliade nurtured two projects related to America, w... more In his first year spent in India, 1929, Mircea Eliade nurtured two projects related to America, which remained unaccomplished. On the one hand, he was planning a long return trip to his homeland, which would pass through the United States. On the other hand, he considered obtaining a teaching position in an American university, the first target being Harvard. This early American project – hitherto unexplored – becomes symbolic in the perspective of Eliade’s subsequent evolution and choices. Decades later, as a professor at the University of Chicago, he turned down an invitation to occupy a chair at Harvard, which offered him far better conditions and opportunities than those in Chicago. We present here the first results of an ongoing research that tries to clarify all the details related to the young Eliade’s American project.
Ioan Petru Culianu, Mircea Eliade, and Felix culpa. Supplementa
The article discusses new unpu... more Ioan Petru Culianu, Mircea Eliade, and Felix culpa. Supplementa
The article discusses new unpublished documents which supplement those presented in the earlier articles published in this journal (the issues VIII, IX and X). Appendix 1 contains seven new pieces belonging to the correspondence of I.P. Culianu with Mac Linscott Ricketts. In order to further contextualise them I have added a contemporary exchange between Ricketts and Joseph M. Kitagawa, along with Kitagawa’s unpublished review of Ricketts’ monograph about Mircea Eliade (appendices 3 and 5). Appendix 2 adds three new pieces to the correspondence of I.P. Culianu with Mircea and Christinel Eliade. Again, for a better contextualisation and understanding of them, I added the exchanges of Fernand Schwarz with Mircea and Christinel Eliade (appendix 4). In most of these documents, the main topic of interest for the discussion carried on in the article is Culianu’s attitude towards the accusations of philo-Fascism and anti-Semitism brought to Mircea Eliade.
By focusing on Eliade’s early life and writings (1921–1936), and specifically on his work on Yoga... more By focusing on Eliade’s early life and writings (1921–1936), and specifically on his work on Yoga, I address in this paper a question that is frequently asked about the problematic relation between personal belief and scholarship in fields such as the history of religions. Eliade’s interest in Yoga showcases his own personal spiritual quest, of course. But it is also informed by his earlier readings of, and reflections on, two polar aspects of the religious experience: the magical and the mystical. For Eliade, these two categories provide not only a key to unlocking the conceptual and pragmatic dimensions of Yoga, but also the impetus for charting a systematic theory of religion. The last major expression of these early ideas can be seen in Yoga: Essai sur les origines de la mystique indienne (1936). Eliade’s thoughts on Yoga and religion then took different paths, reaching their full expression in works published in Paris after 1945. In his later books on Yoga – Techniques du Yoga (1948), Le Yoga: Immortalité et liberté (1954) – the twofold schema of the magical and the mystical no longer plays a key hermeneutical role. Nonetheless, understanding this early phase of his work is crucial if we are to provide a comprehensive account of the development of his thought on Yoga. This early phase in his scholarly career and experiential transformation, marked by his trip to India, is also very important in terms of understanding the further developments of his ideas on history of religions, as well as to evince the ground on which Eliade built his own – never confessed – private religious belief.
The present paper addresses a frequently-asked question concerning the problematic relation betwe... more The present paper addresses a frequently-asked question concerning the problematic relation between personal belief and scholarship in such fields as the History of Religions by focusing on Eliade’s early life and writings (1921–1936), specifically on his work on Yoga. Eliade’s interest in Yoga, of course, showcases his own personal spiritual quest. But it is also informed by his earlier readings and reflections on two polar aspects of the religious experience: the magical and the mystical. For Eliade these two categories provide not only a key to unlocking the conceptual and pragmatic dimensions of Yoga, but also the impetus for charting a systematic theory of religion. The last major expression of these early ideas can be seen in Yoga. Essais sur les origines de la mystique indienne (1936). Subsequently, Eliade’s thought on Yoga and religion develops along different lines, reaching its full expression in works published in Paris after 1945. In his later books on Yoga – Techniques du Yoga (1948), Le Yoga. Immortalité et liberté (1954) – the two-fold schema of the magical and the mystical no longer plays a key hermeneutical role. Nonetheless, understanding this early phase of his work is crucial if we are to provide a comprehensive account of the development of his thought on Yoga. This early phase of his scholarly career and experiential transformation, marked by his trip to India, is also very important in order to understand the further developments of his ideas on History of Religions, as well as to evince the ground on which Eliade built his own – never confessed – private religious belief.
Revisiting Eliade's India: the Passage versus the Story LIVIU BORDAȘ "New Europe College" Institu... more Revisiting Eliade's India: the Passage versus the Story LIVIU BORDAȘ "New Europe College" Institute for Advanced Study 1. Introduction This paper is the result of a long-term concern with Eliade's Indian experience and writings. It is therefore related in many ways to other results of the same research, which have already materialised or are about to be materialised elsewhere. I shall mention only three of them to which it is most directly connected. The first is my doctoral thesis on Eliade and India 1 , which is still under revision for publication. The second is a philological edition of Eliade's India and Șantier 2. It represents the first instalment of a five-volume series containing the books resulted from his experience on the subcontinent. The third one, which is going to be published soon, is the critical edition of Eliade's Writings from India. Its first volume is composed of his travel writings and literature published in periodical publications (including those which were collected in India 3), while the second one contains his essays and scientific writings 4 .
La corrispondenza di Ioan Petru Culianu con Mircea Eliade inizia nel 1972, alcuni mesi dopo che q... more La corrispondenza di Ioan Petru Culianu con Mircea Eliade inizia nel 1972, alcuni mesi dopo che quest’ultimo ha compiuto sessantacinque anni. Oltre alla monografia pubblicata nel 1978, la bibliografia del discepolo comprende molte recensioni, articoli, studi e manoscritti inediti dedicati al suo maestro. Tra questi ci sono anche alcuni testi omaggiali scritti in occasione degli anniversari dei settanta, settantacinque e (postumo) ottant’anni dalla nascita di Eliade, che finora non sono stati ripubblicati né discussi. Alcune delle idee disseminate in questi piccoli articoli saranno riprese, parafrasate o citate in altri testi a lui dedicati. Il loro contenuto non è, dunque, del tutto sconosciuto. Tuttavia, la loro forma e il loro intento andrebbero restituiti e reintegrati cronologicamente nel corpus degli scritti su Eliade per conoscere appieno il modo in cui Culianu si è relazionato a colui che era diventato il suo modello.
THE RECEPTION AND IMAGE OF YOGA IN ROMANIAN LEXICOGRAPHY (II)
ABSTRACT: The first part of this p... more THE RECEPTION AND IMAGE OF YOGA IN ROMANIAN LEXICOGRAPHY (II)
ABSTRACT: The first part of this paper gave an overall and detailed survey of the reception and image of yoga in various types of Romanian dictionaries (linguistic, encyclopaedic, specialised, etc.). The second part is devoted to a focused discussion of the dictionaries on religion published during the Communist era. As in the first part, three words, with their derivates, have been taken into consideration: “fakir”, “yoga”, and “tantra”. The dictionaries discussed here offer – even more than those considered previously – ample material for a discussion of the impact of political contexts on understanding yoga and the interpretative patterns which survive political eras. They illustrate three different theoretical paradigms of approaching religion under Socialism. While “religiology” and “general mythology” were understood as Marxist approaches to the religious phenomenon, and thus ideologically subordinated to scientific atheism, the “materialistic-scientific and humanist-revolutionary education” (a name coined in order to replace the older “scientific-atheistic education”) was conceived as a practical, pedagogical extension of scientific atheism. All of these dictionaries were published late, in the ’80s, and only one – devoted to “general mythology” – was destined for mass consumption. The reasons for which the Party ideologists considered that such dictionaries are not a desirable item of anti-religious propaganda has to be clarified by further inquiry, especially through archival research.
THE RECEPTION AND IMAGE OF YOGA IN ROMANIAN LEXICOGRAPHY (I)
ABSTRACT: The first part of the p... more THE RECEPTION AND IMAGE OF YOGA IN ROMANIAN LEXICOGRAPHY (I)
ABSTRACT: The first part of the paper offers an overall and detailed survey of the reception and image of yoga in various types of Romanian dictionaries (linguistic, encyclopedic, specialized, etc.), while the second part is reserved for a special discussion of the dictionaries devoted to religion during the Communist era.
Three words, with their derivates, have been taken into consideration: “fakir” (“fakirism”, “fakiric”, “fakiristic”, etc.), “yoga” (“yogism”, “yogistic”, “yogin” / “yogist”, etc.), and “tantra” (“tantrism”, “tantric”, “tantrist”, etc.). The timeframe covers the 20th century till the end of 1989, with incursions before (for “fakir”, etc.) and after (for “yoga”, “tantra”, etc.) this period.
The survey offers ample material for a discussion on influences between dictionaries and cases of intertextuality, as well as on the impact of political contexts on understanding yoga and the interpretative patterns which survive political eras.
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Books by Liviu Bordas
Notă asupra ediției ................................................................... 5
I. Prieteni și cunoscuți interbelici
Ionel Jianu .................................................................................. 11
Mircea Lungu ............................................................................ 61
Mihail Rinea ............................................................................... 71
Peretz Reiter ............................................................................. 79
Sergiu Dan ................................................................................. 83
Nicu Steinhardt ........................................................................ 93
Miron Grindea ......................................................................... 121
Edgar Papu .............................................................................. 127
Beno Sebastian ...................................................................... 133
Lucian Boz ................................................................................ 141
Berthe Dominic ....................................................................... 149
II. Elevi și discipoli postbelici
Marcel Leibovici ...................................................................... 155
Nicolae Morcovescu .............................................................. 189
Anton Zigmund-Cerbu .......................................................... 237
Arion Roșu ................................................................................. 263
Adriana Berger ......................................................................... 295
Abrevieri ..................................................................................... 409
Liviu Bordaş mi-a fost student. L-am simţit, de la început, locuit de o pasiune intelectuală pe cât de intensă, pe atât de discretă. Era tăcut, retractil şi tenace. Plecat pe urmele lui Mircea Eliade, i-a refăcut traseele interioare, itineranţa geografică şi parcursul ştiinţific. Şi-a păstrat discreţia, dar şi-a consolidat competenţele şi profilul academic. Cu lucrarea de-acum, despre Nae Ionescu, m-a luat prin surprindere: e prompt, documentat la sânge, ofensiv fără patimă, exact, fără să fie apologetic. Investigaţia sa polemică aduce, cred, o notă salutară în climatul culturii autohtone, care are nevoie de dezbateri aprinse, dar oneste, de natură să tempereze spiritul partizan, excesul ideologic, idiosincrasiile private sau corectitudinea politică la modă. (Andrei PLEŞU)
Într-o cultură în care judecata critică este înlocuită de afectele dictate de apartenenţa la o partidă literară sau alta, e o bucurie să citeşti cartea unui om liber, bazată pe competenţă şi discernământ. Râsul inteligent al lui Liviu Bordaş şi lipsa de prejudecăţi intelectuale sunt, neîndoielnic, replica cea mai potrivită dată prostiei agresive şi fanatismelor de conjunctură. (Gabriel LIICEANU)
Studiul prezinta diversele aspecte ale raporturilor dintre spatiul romanesc si indepartata Indie: de la calatoriile medievale la atractia romantica pentru Orient, de la imaginea Indiei la indologie, de la situarea ambigua a romanilor intre „Orient” si „Occident” la considerarea lor ca obiect al orientalismului, in prima jumatate a secolului al XIX-lea. Pretextul cartii este boierul moldav Alecu Ghica, fugit in India catre mijlocul secolului al XIX-lea si descoperit ulterior ca „bramin” intr-unul dintre cele mai importante centre ale hinduismului.
Cuprins: Cazul „braminului” Ghica • Romanii in istoria drumului spre India • Avatarele unui aventurier: „contele” Alexandru Ghica • Istoria unei ocultari • Imaginea Indiei in cultura romana la inceputul secolului al XIX-lea • Coliba filosofului indian • La portile Orientului
Chapters by Liviu Bordas
Keywords: postwar years, student movement, “the Jewish question”, nationalism, antisemitism, socialism, fascism, Jewish culture, Zeitgeist
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE FELIX CULPA CASE (I)
The name and work of Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) were banned in Romania following the establishment of the communist regime. Both his writings and his person were subject to ideological criticism, though without being accorded significant attention. (That is, within the context of an article or book; no article was ever dedicated exclusively to him.) The present paper explores, for the first time, his reception in socialist Romania after the lifting of the ban imposed on him. The first part examines the period from September 1967 to July 1970, when a new ban was imposed, and after that until March 1972, when the ban was lifted once more. The English term “captive” translates the Romanian word “prizonier”, which includes among its primary meanings “slave” or “enslaved”. It refers to the members of the two “fronts” – pro and con – involved in the struggle over the acceptability of Mircea Eliade within a communist culture like that of Romania during that era. The main figures at the forefront during this period were Miron Constantinescu (1917-1974), who opposed Eliade, and Adrian Păunescu (1943-2010), who supported him. The second part of the article focuses on other protagonists – both from Romania and abroad – active in the period following March 1972 and leading up to the fall of communism in December 1989.
Between 1810 and 1822, Gheorghe Lazăr (1779/82-1823) composed or compiled four geography textbooks for the use of the Romanian schools of Transylvania and Walachia: a mathematical geography (1810), a geography of Transylvania (1815), an astronomical geography (1820), and a world geography (1822), respectively. The first two were destined for publication in Transylvania, but his superior blocked all attempts. The last two were used in the St. Sava College of Bucharest, and – according to a 1822 manifesto – the world geography was being prepared for publication. Like most of Lazăr’s Nachlass, they have been lost after his death. The present article discusses all the available information about these books and attempts to identify their sources on the basis of contextual data. It also underlines Lazăr’s long lasting interest for the subject matter of geography, which has been neglected by both his biographers and the historiography of geographical studies in Romanian culture. My thesis is that it should be understood as part of Lazăr’s encyclopaedicism, another dimension of his intellectual formation and academic profile which has been neglected. The last section, which places Lazăr in the context of the geographical textbook production during his mature life and the decades following his death, shows that many other manuscript textbooks have met with the same fate: they failed to reach the printing press and – sooner or later – have been lost.
This is the second in a series of three articles on Nicola Nicolau (1762-1837), a Romanian merchant and scholar from the Transylvanian town of Brașov (Kronstadt, in the Habsburg Empire). While the first article dealt with his life and work, this is an attempt to discuss all the available data about the book of world geography, which he compiled and published in 1814-1815. Among the various contributions to this topic, brought here, two are opening new research avenues. One is a preliminary chronological map of the circulation and reception of the book during the 19th century, based on all the available information. The other regards the identification of its sources. Géographie universelle of Claude Buffier (1661-1737) – translated by bishop Amphilochius of Hotin (1795) – was the only one known so far, along with some chapters from Le Plutarque de la jeunesse of Pierre Blanchard (1772-1856), published by Nicolau himself (1819). To them he added various chapters extracted from travelogues, geographical and historical works authored by George Leonard Staunton (1737-1801), Guillaume Antoine Olivier (1756-1814), Theophil Friedrich Ehrmann (1762-1811), and Johann Matthias Schröckh (1733-1808). There is also a short story with historical theme (Hernán Cortés and La Malinche) by Louis d’Ussieux (1744-1805) and miscellaneous texts of natural history – botany, zoology, mineralogy – from popular works (one of which is the almanac Vaterländischer Pilger). The third and last article of the series will discuss in detail the image of India as reflected in Nicolau’s work.
This is the first in a series of three articles discussing the life and work of Nicola Nicolau (1762-1837), a Romanian merchant and scholar from the Transylvanian town of Brașov (Kronstadt, in the Habsburg Empire). Its chapters deal with Nicolau’s family and life, the books published by him, the question of their authorship, their sources, their circulation, and, finally, with Nicolau’s teaching activity. While settling, on the basis of primary sources, a number of earlier hypotheses and debates, it proposes some new hypotheses, which should be checked against further primary evidence.
The article is part of a series discussing the early books of world history and geography published in Romanian. Until the end of 18th century they circulated in manuscript form and were translations of works coming from Western Europe through various language channels. As some of the translators belong to the Orthodox clergy, it is interesting to note that a great number of authors are Jesuits or students of Jesuit schools (Giovanni Botero, Claude Buffier, Claude François Xavier Millot, Joseph de La Porte, Louis Domairon, etc.). They are also mostly French, although none of the works were translated directly from the French. The first to be printed, in 1795, was a book translated and adapted from Buffier’s Géographie universelle. The first book of world history, translated from Elements d’histoire générale ancienne et moderne of Millot, was printed in 1800 (after an earlier, partial translation, had been published in 1798).
Adapted by bishop Amphilochius of Hotin as a school textbook, Buffier’s work reached various categories of readers and enjoyed wide circulation in all the territories inhabited by Romanians, which were, at that time, separated by multiple borders. In the process of translation, the image of India underwent some changes. While Buffier talked about India and the Indies, Amphilochius made all the “Indies” become “India”, thus extending its image up to Japan. One of the chapters he added as addenda to the book deals with exotic plants, half of which grow on the Indian subcontinent (among other places). Changes and interpolations attest that Amphilochius was already familiar with India, although perhaps with an outdated image of it.
The article discusses new unpublished documents which supplement those presented in the earlier articles published in this journal (the issues VIII, IX and X). Appendix 1 contains seven new pieces belonging to the correspondence of I.P. Culianu with Mac Linscott Ricketts. In order to further contextualise them I have added a contemporary exchange between Ricketts and Joseph M. Kitagawa, along with Kitagawa’s unpublished review of Ricketts’ monograph about Mircea Eliade (appendices 3 and 5). Appendix 2 adds three new pieces to the correspondence of I.P. Culianu with Mircea and Christinel Eliade. Again, for a better contextualisation and understanding of them, I added the exchanges of Fernand Schwarz with Mircea and Christinel Eliade (appendix 4). In most of these documents, the main topic of interest for the discussion carried on in the article is Culianu’s attitude towards the accusations of philo-Fascism and anti-Semitism brought to Mircea Eliade.
ABSTRACT: The first part of this paper gave an overall and detailed survey of the reception and image of yoga in various types of Romanian dictionaries (linguistic, encyclopaedic, specialised, etc.). The second part is devoted to a focused discussion of the dictionaries on religion published during the Communist era.
As in the first part, three words, with their derivates, have been taken into consideration: “fakir”, “yoga”, and “tantra”. The dictionaries discussed here offer – even more than those considered previously – ample material for a discussion of the impact of political contexts on understanding yoga and the interpretative patterns which survive political eras. They illustrate three different theoretical paradigms of approaching religion under Socialism. While “religiology” and “general mythology” were understood as Marxist approaches to the religious phenomenon, and thus ideologically subordinated to scientific atheism, the “materialistic-scientific and humanist-revolutionary education” (a name coined in order to replace the older “scientific-atheistic education”) was conceived as a practical, pedagogical extension of scientific atheism. All of these dictionaries were published late, in the ’80s, and only one – devoted to “general mythology” – was destined for mass consumption. The reasons for which the Party ideologists considered that such dictionaries are not a desirable item of anti-religious propaganda has to be clarified by further inquiry, especially through archival research.
KEYWORDS: Romania, lexicography, religion, scientific atheism, fakir, fakirism, yoga, yogism, tantra, tantrism, mysticism, spirituality, religiology, mythology, atheistic education, Communism, Mircea Eliade, Transcendental Meditation
ABSTRACT: The first part of the paper offers an overall and detailed survey of the reception and image of yoga in various types of Romanian dictionaries (linguistic, encyclopedic, specialized, etc.), while the second part is reserved for a special discussion of the dictionaries devoted to religion during the Communist era.
Three words, with their derivates, have been taken into consideration: “fakir” (“fakirism”, “fakiric”, “fakiristic”, etc.), “yoga” (“yogism”, “yogistic”, “yogin” / “yogist”, etc.), and “tantra” (“tantrism”, “tantric”, “tantrist”, etc.). The timeframe covers the 20th century till the end of 1989, with incursions before (for “fakir”, etc.) and after (for “yoga”, “tantra”, etc.) this period.
The survey offers ample material for a discussion on influences between dictionaries and cases of intertextuality, as well as on the impact of political contexts on understanding yoga and the interpretative patterns which survive political eras.
KEYWORDS: Romania, lexicography, neology, indology, fakir, fakirism, yoga, yogism, tantra, tantrism, hypnosis, suggestion, mysticism, Communism, Post-Communism, Mircea Eliade, Transcendental Meditation