In the summer of 1942, the writer, journalist and historian of religion Mircea Eliade was briefly in Bucharest, between leaving his diplomatic post in London and taking over the one at the Romanian Embassy in Lisbon. This was the last time the author, then aged 35, saw his home country and, more importantly, his birth city, Bucharest, which he gave a mythical aura in his prose. This was also when he left his entire personal archive, with manuscripts, documents and scientific writings, in the care of his family, until his return which, in 1942, seemed not only possible, but simply natural. As we know, this never happened, and Eliade died abroad in 1986.
The archive in Bucharest was kept by his sister, Corina, until her own death in 1989. Unfortunately, since then Eliade's documents were neglected, and to this day they have not been properly accounted for and studied by experts. However, the Romanian Academy's Institute for the History of Religions has rece
Indian
and Oriental studies have had a number of remarkable representatives in Romania
as well. The first was Mircea Eliade, born in 1907, a reputed writer and
historian of religions, who had a vast scientific and didactic career in the
West. The following generation of experts in Indian studies included Sergiu
Al-George, Anton Zigmund-Cerbu, Eliza Zigmund-Cerbu, Marcel Leibovici and Arion
Roșu, the four latter being members of the Bucharest-based Jewish community.
Arion
Roșu was born February 1, 1924 in Bucharest, and passed away on April 4, 2007
in Versailles, France, at the age of 83. He studied classical philology at
University of Bucharest, and specialized in Indian studies, in Ayurveda and the
history of classical Indian medicine. In 1964, he moved to France, where he
continued his studies at La Sorbonne and defended his doctoral thesis about the
psychological concepts in Indian medical literature. He published extensive
scientific papers and volumes about India