Mihail (as he appears in baptismal records) or Mihai (the more common form of the name that he

used) was born in Botoșani [ro], Moldavia. He spent his early childhood in Botoșani and Ipotești, in
his parents family home. From 1858 to 1866 he attended school in Cernăuți. He finished 4th grade
as the 5th of 82 students, after which he attended two years of gymnasium. The first evidence of
Eminescu as a writer is in 1866. In January of that year Romanian teacher Aron Pumnul died and his
students in Cernăuţi published a pamphlet, Lăcrămioarele învățăceilor gimnaziaști (The Tears of the
Gymnasium Students) in which a poem entitled La mormântul lui Aron Pumnul (At the Grave of Aron
Pumnul) appears, signed "M. Eminovici". On 25 February his poem De-aș avea (If I Had) was
published in Iosif Vulcan's literary magazine Familia in Pest. This began a steady series of published
poems (and the occasional translation from German). Also, it was Iosif Vulcan, who disliked the
Slavic source suffix "-ici" of the young poet's last name, that chose for him the more apparent
Romanian "nom de plume" Mihai Eminescu.
In 1867, he joined Iorgu Caragiale's troupe as a clerk and prompter; the next year he transferred
to Mihai Pascaly's troupe. Both of these were among the leading Romanian theatrical troupes of
their day, the latter including Matei Millo and Fanny Tardini-Vlădicescu [ro]. He soon settled
in Bucharest, where at the end of November he became a clerk and copyist for the National Theater.
Throughout this period, he continued to write and publish poems. He also paid his rent by translating
hundreds of pages of a book by Heinrich Theodor Rotscher, although this never resulted in a
completed work. Also at this time he began his novel Geniu pustiu (Wasted Genius), published
posthumously in 1904 in an unfinished form.
On April 1, 1869, he was one of the co-founders of the "Orient" literary circle, whose interests
included the gathering of Romanian folklore and documents relating to Romanian literary history. On
29 June, various members of the "Orient" group were commissioned to go to different provinces.
Eminescu was assigned Moldavia. That summer, he quite by chance ran into his brother Iorgu, a
military officer, in Cișmigiu Gardens, but firmly rebuffed Iorgu's attempt to get him to renew his ties to
his family.
Still in the summer of 1869, he left Pascaly's troupe and traveled to Cernăuţi and Iaşi. He renewed
ties to his family; his father promised him a regular allowance to pursue studies in Vienna in the fall.
As always, he continued to write and publish poetry; notably, on the occasion of the death of the
former ruler of Wallachia, Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei, he published a leaflet, La moartea principelui
Știrbei ("On the Death of Prince Știrbei").

1870s[edit]

The University's Central Library "Mihai Eminescu", Iași

From October 1869 to 1872 Eminescu studied in Vienna. Not fulfilling the requirements to become a
university student (as he did not have a baccalaureate degree), he attended lectures as a so-called
"extraordinary auditor" at the Faculty of Philosophy and Law. He was active in student life,
befriended Ioan Slavici, and came to know Vienna through Veronica Micle; he became a contributor
to Convorbiri Literare (Literary Conversations), edited by Junimea (The Youth). The leaders of this
cultural organisation, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti, Iacob Negruzzi and Titu
Maiorescu, exercised their political and cultural influence over Eminescu for the rest of his life.
Impressed by one of Eminescu's poems, Venere şi Madonă (Venus and Madonna), Iacob Negruzzi,
the editor of Convorbiri Literare, traveled to Vienna to meet him. Negruzzi would later write how he
could pick Eminescu out of a crowd of young people in a Viennese café by his "romantic"
appearance: long hair and gaze lost in thoughts.
In 1870 Eminescu wrote three articles under the pseudonym "Varro" in Federaţiunea in Pest, on the
situation of Romanians and other minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He then became a
journalist for the newspaper Albina (The Bee) in Pest. From 1872 to 1874 he continued as a student
in Berlin, thanks to a stipend offered by Junimea.
From 1874 to 1877, he worked as director of the Central Library in Iași, substitute teacher, school
inspector for the counties of Iași and Vaslui, and editor of the newspaper Curierul de Iași (The
Courier of Iaşi), all thanks to his friendship with Titu Maiorescu, the leader of Junimea and rector of
the University of Iași. He continued to publish in Convorbiri Literare. He also was a good friend of Ion
Creangă, a writer, whom he convinced to become a writer and introduced to the Junimea literary
club.
In 1877 he moved to Bucharest, where until 1883 he was first journalist, then (1880) editor-in-chief of
the newspaper Timpul (The Time). During this time he wrote Scrisorile, Luceafărul, Odă în metru
antic etc. Most of his notable editorial pieces belong to this period, when Romania was fighting the
Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and throughout the diplomatic race that
eventually brought about the international recognition of Romanian independence, but under the
condition of bestowing Romanian citizenship to all subjects of Jewish faith. Eminescu opposed this
and another clause of the Treaty of Berlin: Romania's having to give southern Bessarabia to Russia
in exchange for Northern Dobrudja, a former Ottoman province on the Black Sea.

Later life and death[edit]

Last photo of Eminescu taken by Jean Bieling in 1887–1888

The 1880s were a time of crisis and deterioration in the poet's life, culminating with his death in
1889. The details of this are still debated.
From 1883 - when Eminescu's personal crisis and his more problematic health issues became
evident - until 1886, the poet was treated in Austria and Italy, by specialists that managed to get him
on his feet, as testified by his good friend, writer Ioan Slavici.[5] In 1886, Eminescu suffered a nervous
breakdown and was treated by Romanian doctors, in particular Julian Bogdan and Panait Zosin.
Immediately diagnosed with syphilis, after being hospitalized in a nervous diseases hospice within
the Neamț Monastery,[6] the poet was treated with mercury. Firstly, massages in Botoșani, applied by
Dr. Itszak, and then in Bucharest at Dr. Alexandru A. Suțu's sanatorium, where between February–
June 1889 he was injected with mercuric chloride.[7] Professor Doctor Irinel Popescu, corresponding
member of the Romanian Academy and president of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Romania,
states that Eminescu died because of mercury poisoning. He also says that the poet was "treated"
by a group of incompetent doctors and held in misery, which also shortened his life. [8] Mercury was
prohibited as treatment of syphilis in Western Europe in the 19th century, because of its adverse
effects.
Mihai Eminescu died at 4 am, on 15 June 1889 at the Caritas Institute, a sanatorium run by Dr. Suțu
and located on Plantelor Street Sector 2, Bucharest.[7] Eminescu's last wish was a glass of milk,
which the attending doctor slipped through the metallic peephole of the "cell" where he spent the last
hours of his life. In response to this favor he was said to have whispered, "I'm crumbled". The next
day, on 16 June 1889 he was officially declared deceased and legal papers to that effect were
prepared by doctors Suțu and Petrescu, who submitted the official report. This paperwork is seen as
ambiguous, because the poet's cause of death is not clearly stated and there was no indication of
any other underlying condition that may have so suddenly resulted in his death. [9] In fact both the
poet's medical file and autopsy report indicate symptoms of a mental and not physical disorder.
Moreover, at the autopsy performed by Dr. Tomescu and then by Dr. Marinescu from the laboratory
at Babeș-Bolyai University, the brain could not be studied, because a nurse inadvertently forgot it on
an open window, where it quickly decomposed.[9]
One of the first hypotheses that disagreed with the post mortem findings for Eminescu's cause of
death was printed on 28 June 1926 in an article from the newspaper Universul. This article forwards
the hypothesis that Eminescu died after another patient, Petre Poenaru, former headmaster
in Craiova,[7] hit him in the head with a board. [10]

edition of 20 June 1889 of Curierul Român announcing Eminescu's death

Eminescu's grave on Artists' Alley in Bellu cemetery

Dr. Vineș, the physician assigned to Eminescu at Caritas argued at that time that the poet's death
was the result of an infection secondary to his head injury. Specifically, he says that the head wound
was infected, turning into an erysipelas, which then spread to the face, neck, upper limbs, thorax,
and abdomen.[9] In the same report, cited by Nicolae Georgescu in his work, Eminescu târziu, Vineș
states that "Eminescu's death was not due to head trauma occurred 25 days earlier and which had
healed completely, but was the consequence of an older endocarditis (diagnosed by late professor
N. Tomescu)".[11]
Contemporary specialists, primarily physicians who have dealt with the Eminescu case, reject both
hypotheses on the cause of death of the poet. According to them, the poet died of cardio-respiratory
arrest caused by mercury poisoning.[12] Eminescu was wrongly diagnosed and treated, aiming his
removal from public life, as some eminescologists claim.[6] Eminescu was diagnosed since 1886 by
Dr. Julian Bogdan from Iași as syphilitic, paralytic and on the verge of dementia due to alcohol
abuse and syphilitic gummas emerged on the brain. The same diagnosis is given by Dr. Panait
Zosin, who consulted Eminescu on 6 November 1886 and wrote that patient Eminescu suffered from
a "mental alienation", caused by the emergence of syphilis and worsened by alcoholism. Further
research showed that the poet was not suffering from syphilis. [5]

Works[edit]
Nicolae Iorga, the Romanian historian, considers Eminescu the godfather of the modern Romanian
language, in the same way that Shakespeare is seen to have directly influenced the English
language.[citation needed] He is unanimously celebrated as the greatest and most representative Romanian
poet.
Poems and Prose of Mihai Eminescu (editor: Kurt W. Treptow [ro], publisher: The Center for
Romanian Studies, Iași, Oxford, and Portland, 2000, ISBN 973-9432-10-7) contains a selection of
English-language renditions of Eminescu's poems and prose.

Poetry[edit]
His poems span a large range of themes, from nature and love to hate and social commentary. His
childhood years were evoked in his later poetry with deep nostalgia.
Eminescu's poems have been translated in over 60 languages. His life, work and poetry strongly
influenced the Romanian culture and his poems are widely studied in Romanian public schools.
His most notable poems are:[13]

 Doina (the name is a traditional type of Romanian song), 1884

 Lacul (The Lake), 1876
 Luceafărul (The Vesper), 1883
 Floare albastră (Blue Flower), 1884
 Dorința (Desire), 1884
 Sara pe deal [ro] (Evening on the Hill), 1885
 O, rămai (Oh, Linger On), 1884
 Epigonii (Epigones), 1884
 Scrisori (Letters or "Epistles-Satires")
 Și dacă (And if...), 1883
 Odă în metru antic (Ode in Ancient Meter), 1883
 Mai am un singur dor (I Have Yet One Desire),1883
 La Steaua (To The Star),1886
 Memento mori (Panorama deşertăciunilor), 1872
 Povestea magului călător în stele (The Story of the Magician Traveling in the Stars)
Prose[edit]
 Sarmanul Dionis (Poor Dionis), 1872
 Cezara, 1876
 Avatarii Faraonului Tla (Avatars of Pharaoh Tla), postum
 Geniu pustiu (Deserted genius), novel, postum
Presence in English language anthologies[edit]
 Testament – Anthology of Modern Romanian Verse / Testament - Antologie de Poezie
Română Modernă – Bilingual Edition English & Romanian – Daniel Ioniță (editor and translator)
with Eva Foster and Daniel Reynaud – Minerva Publishing 2012 and 2015 (second edition)
- ISBN 978-973-21-1006-5
 Testament - Anthology of Romanian Verse - American Edition - monolingual English
language edition - Daniel Ioniță (editor and principal translator) with Eva Foster, Daniel Reynaud
and Rochelle Bews - Australian-Romanian Academy for Culture - 2017 - ISBN 978-0-9953502-
0-5
 The Bessarabia of My Soul / Basarabia Sufletului Meu - a collection of poetry from the
Republic of Moldova - bilingual English/Romanian - Daniel Ioniță and Maria Tonu (editors), with
Eva Foster, Daniel Reynaud and Rochelle Bews - MediaTon, Toronto, Canada - 2018
- ISBN 978-1-7751837-9-2
 Testment - 400 Years of Romanian Poetry - 400 de ani de poezie românească - bilingual
edition - Daniel Ioniță (editor and principal translator) with Daniel Reynaud, Adriana Paul & Eva
Foster - Editura Minerva, 2019 - ISBN 978-973-21-1070-6

Romanian culture[edit]
Eminescu was only 20 when Titu Maiorescu, the top literary critic in 1870 Romania dubbed him "a
real poet", in an essay where only a handful of the Romanian poets of the time were spared
Maiorescu's harsh criticism. In the following decade, Eminescu's notability as a poet grew continually
thanks to (1) the way he managed to enrich the literary language with words and phrases from all
Romanian regions, from old texts, and with new words that he coined from his wide philosophical
readings; (2) the use of bold metaphors, much too rare in earlier Romanian poetry; (3) last but not
least, he was arguably the first Romanian writer who published in all Romanian provinces and was
constantly interested in the problems of Romanians everywhere. He defined himself as a Romantic,
in a poem addressed To My Critics (Criticilor mei), and this designation, his untimely death as well
as his bohemian lifestyle (he never pursued a degree, a position, a wife or fortune) had him
associated with the Romantic figure of the genius. As early as the late 1880s, Eminescu had a group
of faithful followers. His 1883 poem Luceafărul was so notable that a new literary review took its
name after it.
The most realistic psychological analysis of Eminescu was written by I. L. Caragiale, who, after the
poet's death published three short care articles on this subject: In Nirvana, Irony and Two
notes. Caragiale stated that Eminescu's characteristic feature was the fact that "he had an
excessively unique nature".[14] Eminescu's life was a continuous oscillation
between introvert and extrovert attitudes.[15]
That's how I knew him back then, and that is how he remained until his last moments of well-being:
cheerful and sad; sociable and crabbed; gentle and abrupt; he was thankful for everything and
unhappy about some things; here he was as abstemious as a hermit, there he was ambitious to the
pleasures of life; sometimes he ran away from people and then he looked for them; he was carefree
as a Stoic and choleric as an edgy girl. Strange medley! – happy for an artist, unhappy for a man!
The portrait that Titu Maiorescu made in the study Eminescu and
poems emphasizes Eminescu's introvert dominant traits. Titu Maiorescu promoted the image of a
dreamer who was far away from reality, who did not suffer because of the material conditions that he
lived in, regardless of all the ironies and eulogies of his neighbour, his main characteristic was
"abstract serenity".[16]
In reality, just as one can discover from his poems and letters and just as Caragiale remembered,
Eminescu was seldom influenced by boisterous subconscious motivations. Eminescu's life was but
an overlap of different-sized cycles, made of sudden bursts that were nurtured by dreams and crises
due to the impact with reality. The cycles could last from a few hours or days to weeks or months,
depending on the importance of events, or could even last longer, when they were linked to the
events that significantly marked his life, such as his relation with Veronica, his political activity during
his years as a student, or the fact that he attended the gatherings at the Junimea society or the
articles he published in the newspaper Timpul. He used to have a unique manner of describing his
own crisis of jealousy.[17]
You must know, Veronica, that as much as I love you, I sometimes hate you; I hate you without a
reason, without a word, only because I imagine you laughing with someone else, and your laughter
doesn't mean to him what it means to me and I feel I grow mad at the thought of somebody else
touching you, when your body is exclusively and without impartasion to anyone. I sometimes hate
you because I know you own all these allures that you charmed me with, I hate you when I suspect
you might give away my fortune, my only fortune. I could only be happy beside you if we were far
away from all the other people, somewhere, so that I didn't have to show you to anybody and I could
be relaxed only if I could keep you locked up in a bird house in which only I could enter.

National poet[edit]
He was soon proclaimed Romania's national poet, not because he wrote in an age of national
revival, but rather because he was received as an author of paramount significance by Romanians in
all provinces. Even today, he is considered the national poet of Romania, Moldova, and of the
Romanians who live in Bucovina.[citation needed]

Iconography[edit]
Former 1000 lei banknote

500 lei banknote

Eminescu is omnipresent in today's Romania. His statues are everywhere; [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] his face
was on the 1000-lei banknotes issued in 1991, 1992, and 1998, and is on the 500-lei banknote
issued in 2005 as the highest-denominated Romanian banknote (see Romanian leu); Eminescu's
Linden Tree is one of the country's most famous natural landmarks, while many schools and other
institutions are named after him. The anniversaries of his birth and death are celebrated each year in
many Romanian cities, and they became national celebrations in 1989 (the centennial of his death)
and 2000 (150 years after his birth, proclaimed Eminescu's Year in Romania).
Several young Romanian writers provoked a huge scandal when they wrote about their demystified
idea of Eminescu and went so far as to reject the "official" interpretation of his work. [26]

International legacy[edit]
A monument jointly dedicated to Eminescu and Allama Iqbal was erected in Islamabad, Pakistan on
15 January 2004, commemorating Pakistani-Romanian ties, as well as the dialogue between
civilizations which is possible through the cross-cultural appreciation of their poetic legacies. In 2004,
the Mihai Eminescu Statue was erected in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.[27]

 Monuments to Mihai Eminescu (selection)