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The Portugal Journal Mircea Eliade Translated from the Romanian and with a Preface and Notes by Mac Linscott Ricketts

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The Portugal Journal Mircea Eliade Translated from the Romanian and with a Preface and Notes by Mac Linscott Ricketts The Portugal Journal Mircea Eliade Translated from the Romanian and with a Preface and Notes by Mac Linscott Ricketts Th e Portugal Journal SUNY series, Issues in the Study of Religion ————— Bryan Rennie, editor Th e Portugal Journal MIRCEA ELIADE Translated from the Romanian and with a Preface and Notes by Mac Linscott Ricketts Th is publication has been made possible by a grant from the Prodan Romanian Cultural Foundation of London. Cover image of seashell © Kasia Biel/iStockphoto.com Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2010 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eliade, Mircea, 1907–1986 [Jurnalul portughez. English] Th e Portugal journal / Mircea Eliade ; translated by Mac Linscott Ricketts. p. cm. — (SUNY series, Issues in the study of religion) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-1-4384-2959-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4384-2958-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Eliade, Mircea, 1907–1986—Diaries. 2. Religion historians—United States—Diaries. I. Title. BL43.E4A3 2010 200.92—dc22 2009017903 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In Memory of Mary Park Stevenson 1920–2007 Contents Translator’s Preface ix Part I. Th e Portugal Journal 1. Th e Journal, 1941 3 2. Th e Journal, 1942 17 3. Th e Journal, 1943 57 4. Th e Journal, 1944 101 5. Th e Journal, 1945 149 Part II. Th e Appendices Appendix A. Journal of the Novel, Viaţă Nouă 227 Appendix B. First Impressions of Portugal 239 Appendix C. Two Communiqués from Portugal 247 Appendix D. Preface to Salazar și Revoluţia în Portugalia 251 Notes 255 Index 273 Translator’s Preface A well-written private diary (or “intimate journal”) was one of Mircea Eliade’s favorite forms of literature. In his own journals he often mentions reading such a book for pleasure. Th ere is no doubt that he assigned an important place to journal writing within his numerous and varied activities as an author. In his memoirs, he recalls his fi rst journal, which he dates to 1921 (when he would have been fourteen).1 He used a school copybook, on the cover of which he wrote Jurnalul [Th e Journal]. Th roughout his life, with the exception of only a few years, he faithfully recorded his activities and thoughts in notebooks. Four autobiographical novels—Romanul adolescentului miop [Th e Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent], Maitreyi, India, and Şantier [Work in Progress]—draw heavily upon his journals. One of his greatest regrets—and ours—was the loss of the diaries of 1932–40 that occurred during the Second World War, while he was abroad on diplomatic service. Upon leaving Romania in April 1940 for London, he entrusted them to his cousin, Gicu, but when Nina, his wife, came to Bucharest in the summer of 1943, she placed the journals (by prearrangement) in the care of N. I. Herescu, professor of language and literature at the University of Bucharest and secretary of the Romanian Writers’ Society. Only a year later, Herescu fl ed the country as a refugee and left Eliade’s journals and many of his own papers with a friend of his. Somehow, in the turbulent years of the early Communist regimes, they were lost.2 Speaking of “Th e Portugal Journal” in his Autobiography, Eliade says, “If it should ever be published in its entirety, the reader will fi nd many facts and much information useful for understanding the era.”3 Th is is true, but for the person desiring to know more about Mircea Eliade, the signifi cance of the book lies in the “many facts and much information useful for understanding” the author that will be found there! Th e importance of the phrase “in its entirety” cannot be overemphasized. For the fi rst time it is possible to read a journal text of Eliade’s that was not subject to his editing for publication. Th e original manuscript totals about 435 pages, much of it written in a small, neat hand ix x Preface with very few obliterations or corrections.4 Th is would suggest that it was transcribed from pocket notebooks and loose pages (to which the journal in fact sometimes refers), and in this process some changes probably were made. However, although the text may have been “polished” when copied, the reader does not have the impression that the material has been “censored”; there is a surprising candor in many of the statements it contains. Did Eliade plan to publish this journal, or at least selections from it, during his lifetime? Th e text makes several passing remarks about its future readers, although the author underscores that he is writing it fi rst of all for his own benefi t.5 Th e clearest statement on the matter is dated 5 February 1945, where he indicates he had been planning to publish the journal in 1967, at age sixty, but now he is considering releasing it sooner. Th e thought makes him hesitate: “[W]ill it intimidate me so much that I won’t dare confess everything?” he asks. He concludes that he will not be intimidated—since in any event he would publish only excerpts.6 In 1972, when Eliade was fi ve years past the age of sixty-fi ve, some excerpts from his onetime friend Mihail Sebastian’s journal were published in Israel—excerpts chosen in part to embarrass Eliade by revealing his “Legionary past” and including a passage about how Eliade seemingly had snubbed his friend when he visited Bucharest briefl y in July 1942. When the selections from Sebastian’s journal appeared, a close colleague of Eliade in the history of religions, Professor Gershom Scholem of Jerusalem, wrote asking for an explana- tion. Eliade answered point by point the incriminating passages from Sebastian’s journal, saying, among other things, that in 1942 he had had a “long interview with Salazar.” Concerning it, he said, “. I still cannot give details—but [they] will be read in my Journal.”7 Here, Eliade seems to promise that he intends to publish “Th e Portugal Journal” soon, since Scholem was then seventy-four. But Professor Scholem died in 1982, and Eliade himself died four years later (22 April 1986) without having made any preparation for bringing out that journal. He had, however, in the meantime, written the second volume of his memoirs, chapter 18 of which is devoted to his time in Lisbon.8 Why did Eliade not publish at least selections from “Th e Portugal Journal,” as he did from the journal notebooks of other years? Th e most likely answer is that it contains too much material that he would have found embarrassing to see in print. On the one hand, there were personal things: his outpourings of grief after Nina’s death, his recurrent attacks of “neurasthenia” and melancholy, expressions of personal religious sentiments and belief—subjects he always refused to discuss in later years—revelations about his sexual problems, disclosures of personal secrets. On the other hand, there were “exposés” relative to his “past” that would have been diffi cult for him to explain, after having endeavored to keep them secret all these years: the extent of his relationship with the Iron Guard and his hopes for a victory of the Axis (born of his terror of what a Preface xi Allied victory would mean for his country: its inevitable engulfment by the Soviet Union). Had he been making selections for a “Portugal Journal” that he could have published, all the above things would have had to be set aside. In addition, there are a number of journal entries in which Eliade makes state- ments that readers might consider expressions of hubris—statements he surely would have modifi ed or deleted entirely before publication. What would have remained would have been essentially the sorts of things found in chapter 18 of the Autobiography—which was written, obviously, with the journal in hand. Here, routine biographical and historical events are recorded, meetings with important persons duly noted, and references made to books planned and/or published. Th is remnant, although longer than the chapter in the autobiography, would not have been enough to merit issuing as a book. In fact, he did publish a few “fragments” from his journal of the Portugal period (and from a special journal) for his fellow exiles in a mimeographed periodical with a very limited circulation, Caiete de dor (Paris), nos. 5 and 8 (1954–55). Mircea Handoca also included them in his edition of Eliade’s Journal (Jurnalul, vol. I, Bucharest: Humanitas, 1993), 10–18. Th ese have been incorporated in this volume where appropriate, as indicated in the notes. Th e value of this text cannot be overstated. It is the most important journal volume for the reasons stated above, and others. Th e biographer will fi nd it the most reliable source of facts for these years of Eliade’s life. Th e lit- erary historian will prize it for the information it provides on the background of the books Eliade published during the war, especially Salazar, plus several older ones he reread for new editions.
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