The Portugal Journal

Mircea Eliade, Mac Linscott Ricketts

Description

Detailing a fascinating, hitherto unknown period in the life of one of the twentieth century's preeminent intellectuals, The Portugal Journal was written by Mircea Eliade from 1941–1945, when he served as a diplomat in Lisbon. Eliade's work as a theorist of religion has been the chief influence on how religion is understood and studied in contemporary times and he is also increasingly well known as a writer of fiction and drama. Long awaited by readers, The Portugal Journal is the only one of Eliade's journals to be published in its entirety, unedited by its author. Here, Eliade writes frankly, at times about things that he could never bring himself to make public, including his relationship with the Iron Guard, his problems with hypersexuality, his religious beliefs and actions, his admiration for René Guénon, and his sufferings and terrible grief both before and after his wife's death.

"With WWII as the historical context, this journal is fascinating to read because Eliade invites the reader into the interior of his troubled mind. The journal is replete with existential pathos, anxiety, loss, fear, danger, suffering, sorrow, and happy moments. Readers will be rewarded with some surprises, without political apologies for being on the wrong side during the war." — Carl Olson, author of The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade: A Search for the Centre

Mac Linscott Ricketts is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Louisburg College. He is the translator of a number of Mircea Eliade's works, including Journal I, 1945–1955, Journal IV, 1979–1985, and Autobiography I and II.
Translator’s Preface

Part I. Th e Portugal Journa

1. The Journal, 1941

2. The Journal, 1942

3. The Journal, 1943

4. The Journal, 1944

5. The Journal, 1945

Part II. The Appendices

Appendix A. Journal of the Novel, Viaţă Nouă
Appendix B. First Impressions of Portugal
Appendix C. Two Communiqués from Portugal
Appendix D. Preface to Salazar şi Revoluţia în Portugalia

Notes
Index

Sujets

• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438429601
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 15 Mo

Extrait

SUNY series, Issues in the Study of Religion

Bryan Rennie, editor

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

This 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
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© 2010 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eliade, Mircea, 1907–1986
  [Jurnalul portughez. English]
The 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

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. There 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 first 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 [The Journal]. Throughout 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 [The Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent], Maitreyi , India , and Ş antier [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 fled 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 “The Portugal Journal” in his Autobiography , Eliade says, “If it should ever be published in its entirety, the reader will find many facts and much information useful for understanding the era.” 3 This is true, but for the person desiring to know more about Mircea Eliade, the significance of the book lies in the “many facts and much information useful for understanding” the author that will be found there! The importance of the phrase “in its entirety” cannot be overemphasized. For the first time it is possible to read a journal text of Eliade's that was not subject to his editing for publication. The original manuscript totals about 435 pages, much of it written in a small, neat hand with very few obliterations or corrections. 4 This 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? The text makes several passing remarks about its future readers, although the author underscores that he is writing it first of all for his own benefit. 5 The 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. The 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 five years past the age of sixty-five, 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 briefly 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 explanation. 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 “The 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 “The Portugal Journal,” as he did from the journal notebooks of other years? The 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 difficult 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 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 statements that readers might consider expressions of hubris—statements he surely would have modified 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. This 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. These have been incorporated in this volume where appropriate, as indicated in the notes.
The value of this text cannot be overstated. It is the most important journal volume for the reasons stated above, and others. The biographer will find it the most reliable source of facts for these years of Eliade's life. The literary 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. For historians of religions, most precious is what this journal reveals about the inception of his two major works in the field, Patterns in Comparative Religion and Cosmos and History , and the importance he assigned to them. But for anyone who wants to gain insight into the enigmatic and multifaceted personality of Mircea Eliade, this “Portugal Journal” will be a treasure.
In addition to the journal proper, four “appendices”—documents by Eliade having an autobiographical character from the “Portugal era”—have been included in this volume. The “Journal of the Novel Via ţ ă Nou ă [New Life]” began to be written in Oxford, England, while Eliade was still serving as press secretary there, but the majority of the material was written in Lisbon. This little diary records the inception not only of a novel that was never finished, but also of the volume that became Patterns in Comparative Religion. I have grouped some travel notes from Eliade's first months in his new post under the title “First Impressions of Portugal.” Two communiqués of