On the Romanian Biographical Novel: Fictional Representation of Mircea Eliade and Ioan Petru Culianu

Home , Ioan Petru Culianu, Maitreyi Devi, Na Hanyate

Andrei TERIAN Universitatea „Lucian Blaga” din Sibiu, Centrul de Cercetări Filologice și Interculturale “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Center for Philological and Intercultural Research B-dul Victoriei 5-7, 550024, Sibiu e-mail: [email protected], web: http://grants.ulbsibiu.ro/wsa Personal e-mail: [email protected]

On the Romanian Biographical Novel: Fictiona Representations of Mircea Eliade and Ioan Petru Culianu

By choosing as starting point the biographical novels dedicated to Mircea Eliade and Ioan Petru Culianu, this study examines the reluctance shown to this narrative form by contemporary Romanian literature and it also explores some of the structural features of the biographical novel as genre. Thus, despite the obvious reconnection of Romanian literature to the world literary space over the last decades, the suspicion of this cultural system towards fictional processing of biographical data is explained by the post-communist condition of Romanian literature, namely by its imperative to rediscover the historical truths that have been obscured by the communist ideology. Regarding the genre conventions of the biographical novel, this study emphasizes, in contrast to much of contemporary research of this form, its predominantly literary nature, manifested by its polemic placement against modernism aesthetics, by its propensity for certain narrative motives and scenarios, and by the configuration of various specific intertextual webs. Keywords: world literary space, (semi)peripheral literatures, Romanian fiction, biographical novel, modernism, Mircea Eliade, Ioan Petru Culianu

The present study tries to provide an indirect the biographical novel in American and Romanian answer to the question whether there is any affinity literature? Next, why does the biographical novel of the between the resurrection of the biographical novel in last decade have a specific fondness for the exploration the last decades and literary modernism1. The indirect of the modernist authors’ lives? Last but not least, I will nature of my answer relates precisely to the fact that analyze whether the investigation of the previous aspects I am going to explore a lesser-known literary space can help us construe if not a rule, at least a structural where the phenomenon of the recent expansion of the conditioning of the biographical novel as specific genre. biographical novel is not confirmed. I am talking about Before I attempt to tackle these issues, I believe Romanian literature; here, the focus will mainly (but several basic pieces of information on the evolution not exclusively) be on the fictional representations of of the biographical novel in Romanian literature may the modernist novelist Mircea Eliade and of his main be useful. In the modern approach of the term, this disciple, Ioan Petru Culianu. Nevertheless, I will take narrative form appeared in Romania, as well as in the this detour hoping that it could help me clarify three West, in the inter-war era; its sources are continental issues. First, how can we explain that, despite their rather than Anglo-American. More precisely, the coexistence in a globalizing cultural space, there are Romanian novelists’ models at that time were authors such radical differences between the development of such as André Maurois or Stefan Zweig, instead of Irving

5 6 transilvania 12/2014 communist period. rehabilitate personalities some ofthe political pre- are those where the authors to self-consciously try characters appear with their names in fictional works of the communist the where era, cases only historical Nevertheless,ideas. in the Romanian writers’ novels to circulate more efficiently their own propagandistic manner to educate at the and, the public same time, of Paganini Vinogradov “fictionalizedlives”, by Anatolyas such those signed the translation encouraged regime ofanumber ofSoviet were here, successful nottoo even ifthe totalitarian new communism novels (1948-1989), when biographical continuedborn dogma in Romania even during “hybridity”) cancels which its validity. novel (namely the and ofbiography fusion fiction, its thataspect conditions the existence ofthe biographical of Biography unknowingly meets writers’ “creative” and “empirical” self “fictionalizedlife” creates grossbetween the confusion a happens) and Benedetto Croce’s modernist thesis that scarcely which novel agenius, ever himself be should to truly “understand” character, his the author ofthe cannot charactera genius become in anovel (because, bylife” linking Thibaudet’s thesis according to which genre the of“fictionalized literary of the rejected era, perhaps the most influentialRomanian critic literary Călinescu, series to the novels, ofreviews George said the British and American writers. For example, in a But even this way their arguments often met those of Thibaudet’sAlbert Benedettoand Croce’s suggestions. now in the American academia); instead, followed they Luk by some authorsobjections raised György such as the Romanian intellectual not know elite did the and professional writers. Truth at told, that be time encountered steady resistance both from the critics the Anglo-American or in other continental literatures, novel,similar to whatthe biographical happened in with the onset madness. ofhis and Berlin) and the which coincide last years life of his poet’s youth (mainly the studies in periodofhis Vienna Novel] Micle), while in in Eminescu’s (with life Mite Kremnitz and Veronica Lovinescu explored the defining two erotic relationships novels Romanian “national Mihai In Eminescu. poet” the join variousthey significant; in life of episodes the the in the mid-1930s published are particularly cycles two Stone Graves. Thus, or Robert frompoint this of view, á But the here detail odd isthe resistance encountered Fueled by Călinescu’s authority, this modernist- Despite the of the popularity genre in Romania, cs and Virginia Woolfcs and Virginia (more frequently invoked (3 vol., 1935-1937), Cezar Petrescu (3vol.,1935-1937),Cezar the analyzed Mite Mite ), in saw they which the expression ofa (1934) and (1942).In their opinion, the itisprecisely ( Three Colors of Time Romanul lui Eminescu[Eminescu’s ignaWof’s Woolf inVirginia ideas Bălăuca[Blondie] and . Thus, Călinescu (1935),Eugen Condemnation The Art slowed down here by the imperative to retrieve need the not known in Romanian culture, but its assumption was fiction. It’s not that dimmingthe ofdistinction this was century toward the strong distinction and fact between increasing suspicion in seen half the ofthe second 20 canonization ofthis form in the West through the to MichaelDavid Lackey, Lodge the explained recent of theorists and analysts novel, from of the biographical communist condition ofRomanian literature. Anumber reluctance is different and it relates to mainly post-the process. Perhaps the nature ofthe explanation for this result ofits accelerated (re)accessing ofthe globalization were expectations that afteras a be 1989, also itshould of the firsttherefore, wave novel; of therebiographical the literature was extremely open, in the 1930s,to the impact traditional provincialism ofthe Romanian culture. This when we consider that we can invoke nolonger here the countedbe even on one hand. is more This surprising in the novels last 25years published can biographical similar evolution where notoccur in did Romania, the in literatures written them, and beyond a in English oftenas seen, an unrivaled development of formthis ofcommunism.fall Thus, although the 1990s marked, novel inby Romanian the even after biographical the with the introduction ofrather personalities, marginal one hand, manyacquainted novels also us biographical that, directly or indirectly, concern on the While, life. his argument the to relatively justify number large ofnovels Nonetheless, Eliade’s renown isnotnecessarily an most influentialhistorian worldwide. of religions that in the 1970s and 1980sEliade was perhaps the now strongly many debated, voices in this fieldclaim of Religions History Professor Avery Sewell Service oftheas Distinguished this fieldof decades study at the of University Chicago, in France, then in the where US, hetaught for nearly three prestigious academic career historian as first ofreligions, War Eliade immigrated II, in the West, where hehad a of the “new generation” ofintellectuals, after World Born where in inRomania, he stood the leader 1930s as known thecondition be popularity could by the author. authors.foreign An explanation at hand of this privileged and/or fictional works, writtenbothRomanian by and factual ofseveral the has been object decades, last two ofMircea the Eliade personality who, inlandscape: the novel. thus,of and, avoided systematically the biographical conversation volumes etc.), ithas suspicious always been genres (diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, biographies, Romanian literature saw inflation areal biographical of is why, This by propaganda. post-communist although retrieval of of the last quarter mainly on the ofcentury focused blend of“fact”a nasty and “fiction”,Romanian literature was inhistorical itself truth. Since communist ideology There is,however, asignificant exception inthis facts , especially those that, especially haddistorted been . Although his methodology is methodology . Although his th there are, on the other hand, numerous Romanian born Another defining element of Eliade’s biography is his writers whose renown is comparable to Eliade’s and who adherence, in the 1930s, to the Iron Guard, a Romanian have not become, until now, characters of biographical far-right movement that promoted racism and anti- novels. Semitism. Although Eliade did not take direct part in the group’s violent actions, he supported in a series of articles published in the Romanian far-right press the group’s mystic and chauvinistic ideology. Furthermore, after his relocation in the West, Eliade never admitted and confessed this shameful episode of his biography, although it did gradually catch the attention of the Israeli and American academic environments, starting from the 1970s. Perhaps Eliade’s later attempts of hiding his past rather than the past itself determined Saul Bellow to depict him sarcastically in his last novel (Ravelstein, 2000), in which a historian of religions at the University of Chicago and a close friend of the narrator is described, under the name Radu Grielescu, as a parvenu who tries to conceal his guilty past by surrounding himself with Jewish friends. Admittedly, Ravelstein is not altogether a biographical novel, but a roman à clef; however, Bellow’s work also includes several real characters that help identify Eliade with Grielescu (for example, the Chicago professor is described as a disciple of Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade mentor of the Romanian “new generation” inthe 1930s). http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ro/c/c3/Mircea_eliade.jpg Last but not least, a significant part in Eliade’s literary posterity plays the relationship with his main disciple and potential successor, Ioan Petru Culianu. This aspect could be clarified by a brief exploration After he left communist Romania at the beginning of of Eliade’s biography and work. To this end, I think the 1970s and finally relocated in the US, Culianu felt at least three elements are conclusive: first of all, the strong intellectual admiration toward Eliade; in fact, he author’s fiction writing. Between 1927 and 1930, Eliade was also the author of the first monograph dedicated to published in Romania 13 modernist novels and novellas, his mentor, but he began to slowly distance from him influenced by Papini, Gide and Joyce, with a more or less as he discovered his far-right past. On the other hand, (auto)biographical note. From these, the most important Culianu’s academic career ended violently on May one was Maitreyi[Bengal Nights](1933); a result of his 21, 1991, when the young scholar was assassinated in stay in India several years before, the novel tells the love unknown conditions in a restroom at the University of story between British engineer Allan and Maitreyi, his Chicago. Culianu’s murderer remains unknown and his host’s 16 year-old daughter; the story begins with pure death inspired a series of novels. Thus, in 1996, Italian feelings, it is furthered by sexual relationships and ends journalist Claudio Gatti published the biographical because of cultural differences. The novel was received novel Il Presagio (The Omen); although here Culianu’s extremely positively in Romania, being considered murderer is suggested to be an agent of the former the first “exotic” Romanian novel, as well as, given the Romanian secret police (Securitate), some characters protagonist’s name and ethnicity, a work of pure fiction. do not exclude the hypothesis that the moral author Nevertheless, its (auto)biographical nature was revealed of the murder could be Eliade himself, either because to the main female character herself, Maitreyi Devi; not his disciple had disclosed part of his fascist past or only was she a real person, but also a writer, daughter because Eliade introduced him to the dangerous secrets of Indian philosopher Surendranath Dasgupta and of occultism. Similar hypotheses were also spread by a protégée of poet Rabindranath Tagore. In 1969, when Romanian author, Cezar Pricop, in the biographical Romanian Orientalist Sergiu-Al. George made a trip to novel Patria de carton [Cardboard Homeland] (2005), India, Devi was horrified to find out about the contents which followed Gatti and the path of the sensationalist of Eliade’s novel; several years later, she replied with thriller. From a literary point of view, two other novels her own (auto)biographical novel,Na Hanyate[It Does published in Romania are more substantial, because Not Die](1976), in which, although she acknowledges they manage to exceed the sphere of popular fiction the spiritual connection between Mircea and Amrita through parabolic reflection or metafictional projection. (the female protagonist’s name in the novel), she firmly Thus, in Norman Manea’sViziuna[The Lair](2009), the denies the existence of any sexual contact. relationship between Eliade and Culianu is described by

7 8 transilvania 12/2014 (psychoanalysis) for which all ofour for all gestures which –cultural (psychoanalysis) the latterempirical objects; founded afieldof practices that any rejected mindand connection between the former invented (analytic philosophy) adiscipline thedecisively conceptualization ofthis association: and Freud, key two names of modernism who marked this end, perhaps the extreme are cases Wittgenstein idiosyncratic interpretation of this relationship. To connection or by attempting the accreditation ofan either and writing, life by negating anybetween such who have problematized tenaciously the relationship preferred novels are by recent those biographical stake.polemic We that can see the modernist authors interest in the modernist authors involves an obvious series opaque phenomena. ofotherwise can this, Ithink, provide somenovel; explanations for a (not necessarily fictional) nature of biographical the in what approach Iwill follows particularly the bystructures specific conventions.and guided This is why, first and foremost often while they that novel forget is biographical the fromdelimitation the fictional, ofthe “biographical” John F. Keener, Vanessa on the focused correct Guignery) researchers this who hybrid studied form (Ina Schabert, Butin general. Iwouldnote first that number a large of aseriesgrasp ofcharacteristics novel ofthe biographical the novelists’ interest in Eliade, and these help could us to we find can some try answersI believe relating to tradition started by Saul Bellow. are they rathernovel; Nevertheless, none ofthese isaproper biographical Caraiani Tidid Diomed and Constantincalled Dima. Dobrescu’s the duo Cosmin Dima –Mihnea Palade, in while Caius Thus, novelists’ I find biographical the increased At the end ofthis perhaps digression, detailed too Minoic [Minoan] a novel, http://www.b365.ro/media/image/201208/w620/2402culianu___eliade_1984___46331200.jpg romans àclef which meanswhich anarrative form (2011) the characters are that further the Ioan Petru Culianu șiMircea Eliade literary the most literal manner we Because,could as possible. attaches to the and even latter promotes itin category of the Undoubtedly, psyche. in this equation, Eliade creations – are included by governed the obscure forces plainly in Eliade’splainly For case. example, the Romanian novels or to purely fictional Thisis works. proved very novels, relates which frequently to other biographical on novelistic conventions too. related genres, the characters’ selection relies constantly examples show that novel and in the in abiographical to various versions ofthe theory. conspiracy these All relationshipdisciple to anarrative thriller core and even scenarios ofliterary range and motifs, from the teacher- relationship Culianu between avast and Eliade packs the “skeleton in the closet”;and that the sophisticated embracespast the pattern ofahubris particularizedas after the novels all published Eliade’s death, fascist his and Julietthe Romeo manner; that, we see can also in Other with the theme ofimpossible love approached in Die thatclearly observe both in thesee “purely” fictional novel. For example, we can to use the same stock ofschemes and structures we also novel form, tends the aliterary Indeed, as biographical make whole.” an organic ( perceivable pattern into the which fitted canto parts be accomplishment woven through its entirety, an overall, that must present, be recurrent themes ofconflict and novel. There aredramaticbiographical specific elements fit will “Notinto life suggestions: the form every of the this end, Iwouldlike to remind one ofIrving Stone’s explains Eliade’s novelistic as character. popularity To the writingtriggered ofthe reply-novel by Maitreyi Devi. the precisely debatable insee, allegations merge the merge well-known cultural motif ofthe “exotic” Finally, there isthe intertextuality ofthe biographical there this aspect, Beyond isanother cause that Bengal Nights The Biographical Novel , and Bengal Nights It Does Not , 1957) literary criticism showed that, despite the Indian 1994. setting, Bengal Nights is nothing else than a modern Dobrescu, Caius. Minoic/ Minoan. Iași: Polirom, 2011. remake of Søren Kierkegaard’s Diary of a Seducer. As Eliade, Mircea. Bengal Nights: A Novel. Translated by expected, It Does Not Die also evokes and comments Catherine Spencer. Chicago: University of Chicago on many episodes of Bengal Nights. Grielescu, the name Press, 1994. assigned by Bellow to Eliade’s mask in Ravelstein, is a Gatti, Claudio. Il presagio. Un thriller esoterico/ The Omen: hint to Gavrilescu, the protagonist of one of the best An Esoteric Thriller. Milano: Rizzoli, 1996. known novels of the Romanian writer. Constantin Guignery, Vanessa. “David Lodge’s Author, Author and the Dima (Culianu’s alter-ego in Caius Dobrescu’s Minoan) Genre of the Biographical Novel”. Etudes Anglaises, Vol. is obviously an offshoot of Cosmin Dima (Eliade’s 60, No. 2, April-June 2007, pp. 160-172. alter-ego in Norman Manea’s The Lair). This fabric of Keener, John F. Biography and The Postmodern Historical intertextual links seems to connect the novels on Eliade Novel. New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. in the form of a microsystem, if not even a subgenre that Lackey, Michael. “Introduction: The Rise of the American has already created its own conventions and which helps Biographical Novel”. In Truthful Fictions. Conversations us explain one of the key-problems of the biographical with American Biographical Novelists. New York: novel: why do some authors write biographical novels Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 1-26. as such, while others choose to dissimulate the real Lodge, David. The Year of Henry James or, Timing is All: references of their works in the form of masks, in romans the Story of a Novel. With other essays on the genesis, à clef? Unmistakably, a writer’s primary option can be composition and reception of literary fiction. London: determined only by circumstantial causes. But when Harvill Secker, 2006. a real person becomes a character in a series of novels, Lovinescu, E.[ugen]. Mite. București: Adeverul, 1934. the work that opens the series tends to change its own Lovinescu, E.[ugen]. Bălăuca/Blondie. București: Adeve- structural features in conventions of the said subgenre. rul, 1935. This is how we can explain, for Eliade, why Cezar Lukacs, Georg. The Historical Novel. London: Merlin, Pricop, in his popular fiction, borrowed the model of 1962. [1947] . this predecessor, Claudio Gatti, and used the characters’ Manea, Norman. The Lair. Translated by Oana Sanziana real names, while Norman Manea and Caius Dobrescu, Marian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Romanian mainstream writers, related to the illustrious Petrescu, Cezar. Romanul lui Eminescu/ Eminescu’s Novel, precedent set by Saul Bellow and opted for the roman 3 vol. București: Naționala-Ciornei, 1935-1937. à clef formula. We can only wait to see whether future Pricop, Cezar: Patria de carton. Moartea lui I. P. Culianu/ novels that will include Eliade as character confirm or Cardboard Homeland. I. P. Culianu’s Death. Pitești: try to overturn this convention that seems to postulate Paralela 45, 2005. a specific homology between a character’s identity and a Schabert, Ina. “Fictional Biography, Factual Biography, specific type of discourse. One thing is certain, though: and their Contaminations”. Biography, Vol. 5, No. 1, like Freud or Henry James, Eliade and Culianu have Winter 1982, pp. 1-16. become in the last two decades more than extremely Stone, Irving, John O’Hara and MacKinlay Kantor. controversial cultural personalities; they have evolved Three Views ofthe Novel. Lectures Presented Under into real literary topoi. the Auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund. Washington: The Library of Congress, 1957. Notes: Terian, Andrei. G. Călinescu. A cincea esență/ G. Călinescu. The Fifth Essence. București: Cartea Românească, 2009. 1. This study expands and elaborates a paper that was Thibaudet, Albert.Réflexions sur le roman/ Reflections on presented in the panel “Modernists and Modernism in the Novel. Paris: Gallimard, 1938. the Biographical Novel” at the 16th Annual Conference of Woolf, Virginia. The Death of the Moth and Other the Modernist Studies Association (MSA 16), Pittsburgh, Essays. London: Hogarth Press, 1942. November 6-9, 2014.

Bibliography:

Bellow, Saul. Ravelstein. New York: Viking Press, 2000. Croce, Benedetto. Vite din avventure, di fede i di passione/ Acknowledgment: This work was supported by a grant of Lifes of adventure, faith and passion. Bari: Laterza, 1936. the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, Devi, Maitreyi. It Does Not Die: A Romance. Translated by CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-RU- Maitreyi Devi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, TE-2012-3-0411.