Mircea Eliade

Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade was born in 1907 in Bucharest. He was a precocious child and published works for the first time at the age of 13. He studied in Cernavoda, Bucharest, finished Philosophy courses at the University of Bucharest at the age of 21, and went to Calcutta, India, to study Sanskrit and Yoga. After three years, he returned to Romania, published some novels and stories, and taught the history of religions.

In 1928 he sailed for Calcutta to study Sanskrit and philosophy under Surendranath Dasgupta (1885-1952), a Cambridge educated Bengali, professor at the University of Calcutta

He returned to Bucharest in 1932 and successfully submitted his analysis of Yoga as his doctoral thesis at the Philosophy department in 1933

In 1940, he was sent as a cultural Attaché to London, UK, and then to Lisbon, Portugal.

After WW II, he remained in exile in Paris, moving in 1956 to Chicago where he chaired the History of Religions school at the University of Chicago.

Since the 1970s he has been criticized for his pre-war sympathies for the Iron Guard, a far right, antisemitic and fascist political organization that carried out brutal pogroms during WWII in Romania.

Starting in 1979, he published his masterpiece "A History of Religious Ideas" for which he was awarded by France with the Legion of Honour.

In 1958 he was invited to assume the chair of the History of Religions department in Chicago. There he stayed until his death on 22 April 1986, publishing extensively and writing largely unpublished fiction.