Mircea Eliade (1907-86)

Author(s): Joseph M. Kitagawa, Wendy D. O'Flaherty and Frank E. Reynolds

Source: History of Religions, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Aug., 1986)
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062384 .
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 MIRCEA ELIADE (1907-86)

We regretfully inform our readers that as of this issue our journal is

deprived of the expert editorial supervision of Mircea Eliade, who
founded it in the summer of 1961 and has guided it ever since.
Mircea Eliade was born in Bucharest, Romania, on March 9, 1907.
After completing the lycee and the University of Bucharest, he lived
in India from 1928 to 1932, studying at the University of Calcutta and
spending half a year in the ashram of Rishikesh (in the Himalayas).
In 1933 he joined the faculty of the University of Bucharest. In 1940
he was sent as cultural attache to London and, in the following year,
to Lisbon. He went to Paris in 1945 as a visiting professor at the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes of the Sorbonne. In 1956 he delivered the
Haskell Lectures and the following year joined the faculty of the
University of Chicago. At the time of his death in Chicago, he was
the Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus.
As many readers know, Eliade was one of the few really influential
minds in twentieth-century history of religions (Religionswissenschaft).
He was also a world-renowned creative writer. In both capacities he
was prolific, and his books and articles have appeared in many differ-
ent languages. Throughout his life he was deeply concerned about the
future of the discipline of the history of religions and about younger
scholars as well. Partly for that reason he had founded earlier Zal-
moxis: Revue des etudes religieuses; when he came to Chicago, he
immediately advocated the establishment of History of Religions. He
wrote in its first issue as follows:

Despite the manuals, periodicals, and bibliographiestoday available to

scholars,it is progressivelymore difficult[for one]... to becomea historian
of religions.A scholarregretfullyfinds himselfbecominga specialistin one
religionor even in a particularperiodor a singleaspectof that religion.
This situationhas inducedus to bringout a new periodical.Ourpurposeis
not simplyto make one more reviewavailableto scholars(thoughthe lack of
a periodicalof this naturein the United States would be reasonenough for
our venture)but more especiallyto provide an aid to orientationin a field
that is constantlywideningand to stimulateexchangeof views. [Historyof
Religions1, no. I (Summer1961):1]

As editors it is our determination to carry on this vision that was

cherished by our deceased colleague. We hope that our readers will
join Eliade's friends and students in extending deepest condolences to
his wife, Christinel, and to his daughter, Adalgiza Tattaresco.

JOSEPHM. KITAGAWA
WENDY D. O'FLAHERTY
FRANK E. REYNOLDS

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