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