The Life and Work of Mircea Eliade

M ircea Eliade was born in Bucharest, Romania, on 13 March 1907. He was of the city dwelling, middle class, separated from peasant roots by two generations. His father had changed his own surname from Iremia (Jeremiah) to Eliade in 1899. Mircea attended the Strada Mantuleasa primary school and the Spiru Haret high school where he developed an interest in the natural sciences, particularly entomology and botany, but where he failed courses in Romanian, French, and German. This failure seems to have impelled him to greater effort and he became a voracious reader and began to write imaginative fiction at the age of 12. His first publication, at the age of 14, was a natural science piece concerning a wasp predatory upon the silkworm. That same year, in the same Journal of Popular Science and Travels (Ziarul giintelor populare §.i ca la toriilor) , he published his first autobiographical fragments, one of which consisted largely of the narration of a peasant legend told by a local guide. His first published work of imaginative fiction, “How I Found the Philosopher’s Stone,” came later in 1921. By the end of high school his interests had moved from natural science to literature and philosophy and he determined to study philology and philosophy at university.