TÂNĂRUL MIRCEA ELIADE ȘI ENCICLOPEDISMUL LUI HASDEU

This article provides an in-depth analysis of Mircea Eliade's extensive introductory study for the 1937 edition of the Works of Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, which he edited and published – a significant work also in terms of Eliade’s political engagement. Eliade's decision to edit Hasdeu’s works embodies a comprehensive personal program and a "generationist" ideology, expressed through a complex interpretative reading that acts as a manifesto. Spanning from encyclopedism and the ambition for grand syntheses to anti-modernity, archaism, and nationalism (with elements of antisemitism), and incorporating metaphysical visionaryism in opposition to European rationalism, the thought of the 19th-century Romanian scholar is embraced by his young disciple in an affirmative and polemical exercise aimed at the pursuit and affirmation of a native intellectual heritage. Beyond the aforementioned introductory study, the "Hasdeu obsession," also reflected in other writings by the young Eliade, serves as the primary focus of the current inquiry.