mircea eliade and master manole

LT208: Approaches To Myth

Tutor: Tony Wood

Student: Stefania Suciu

Wordcount: 2760

UP:16/01/2013-09:42:42 WM:16/01/2013-09:42:45 M:LT208-5-FY A:12a1 R:1103755 C:7B57C9E358CCFB00B197C9AF203FF5D76813F7DF

Mircea Eliade and The Legend of Master Manole

Transcendendence of History and Space

There is a special connection between Mircea Eliade and The Legend

of Master Manole; much like his theory of the eternal return, this

connection is based in history but transcends it. By this is meant that, his

interest in the ballad may well have originated in his being Romanian, or

having particular political views at a certain point in time as shall be seen

later on; but it has later on contributed to the development of the concept

of the eternal return itself, concept used and explored throughout this

essay as a means of understanding the content of this construction myth

through Mircea Eliade’s theories and special connection.

When defining hierophany, Mircea Eliade states that the mundane

both hides and reveals the sacred at the same time. This duality can be

traced not only in his religious history works, but throughout the writer’s

own life as well, as Bryan Rennie pointed out: ‘One factor that has

occasioned suspicions about Eliade is this mythologization or

fictionalization of his autobiography, the dividing line between his

biography and his fiction is not always easy to draw’ 1. This

mythologisation of his own biography is in more ways than one connected

1 Bryan Rennie, Mircea Eliade : a critical reader, London : Equinox Pub., 2006, p.7


to the Legend this essay is about to analyse; Mircea Eliade was, after all,

more than just a historian of religions and this needs be taken into

account when discussing his perspective on any myth, but especially in

this particular case: a Romanian that lived more than half of his life away

from his country, a novelist- as he is most widely known in his native

country- that used literature as a way of exploring the connections

between the spiritual and the secular, as well as politically involved- and

thus historically- with an extreme right movement with a strong anti-

Semitic agenda- therefore religiously biased, as critics have argued.

It is this latter aspect of Mircea Eliade’s biography that links his

work in a peculiar way to the Legend of Master Manole, this well known

ballad being considered representative of the Romanian spirit by the Iron

Guard members, and most often opposed to another locally famous

ballad- Mioritza- because of its portrayal of sacrifice. As Cristiano

Grotanelli pointed out-

In describing the sacrificial ideal of the Iron Guard as a passive, almost

pacifist attitude, and in accusing the murderers of Iorga and Magdearu of betraying that ideal, Eliade appeared to misunderstand the very nature of

that religious and political ideology, consisting of a combination of Orthodox Christian self-sacrifice - modelled upon the redeeming death of

the Saviour and upon the archaic, pre-Christian view of the fruitful death of willing victims - and the warlike behaviour of members of a military

elite.... Thus, sacrifice (of course, the sacrifice of members of the Legion) was inextricably blended with revenge2.

Eliade’s affiliation has long been a source of controversy, raising the

question if he was sent to London to work at the embassy as a result of

being pardoned, or in order to keep him away from the happenings at

home; this has only increased the mythological dimension of his

biography, in any case. Nevertheless, it is during this period, between

1935 and 1938, that he wrote Comentarii la Legenda Mesterului Manole,

although this was only published 6 years later, while he was already in

Portugal and the Legionary movement had been long stifled; according to

22

Cristiano Grottanelli, Fruitful Death: Mircea Eliade and Ernst Jünger on Human Sacrifice, Numen, Vol. 52, No. 1, Religion and Violence (2005), p.124-125


Jonathan Smith, it is shortly following the publishing of this volume that

‘Eliade appears to have begun thinking about this book [The Myth of the

Eternal Return] in 1944.’ Yet, Andrei Oisteanu claims that Eliade

‘managed to maintain the equidistance of an atheist’3 in his religious

studies. In this sense he could be compared to Manole himself, in his

capacity of sacrificing, putting aside the personal dimension of his

existence for the sake of his work.

Eliade speaks of a “Cosmic Christianity”, typical of the Eastern

European space, which did not assimilate the ‘historical elements of

Christianity, insisting instead on the liturgical dimension of man’s

existence in the world’4. This mixture of Christian and pre-Christian can

be found in the ballad itself, although its traces having nothing to do with

the extremist ideology mentioned above, but rather in a way more

representative of Eliade himself, as well as more in accordance to his

opinions on Christianity.. The first and most noticeable manifestation of

the Christian nature of the legend consists in the purpose stated in its

very beginning- the building of a ‘monastery worthy to be remembered’.

Remembrance is the word that sets the content on the limits of

Christianity and preceding religious cults, in accordance with Eliade’s

views-

For the first time, we find affirmed, and increasingly accepted, the idea that historical events have a value in themselves, insofar as they are

determined by the will of God.... Historical facts thus become situations of man in respect to God, and as such they acquire a religious value that

nothing had previously been able to confer to them5.(104)

The monumental building is literally set in stone, a landmark

mentioned in historical documents. Moreover, even its being founded on

3 Andrei Oisteanu, Mircea Eliade, intre ortodoxism si zalmoxism, as published on

http://www.observatorcultural.ro/Mircea-Eliade-intre-ortodoxism-si-zalmoxism*articleID_3963-articles_details.html (seen 14.01. 2013) 4 Mircea Eliade, De la Zalmoxis la Genghis-Han, Bucuresti: Editura Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1980, p. 246

5 Mircea Eliade, The myth of the eternal return : cosmos and history / introduction by Jonathan Z. Smith,

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2005 p.104 Subsequent references within text


http://www.observatorcultural.ro/Mircea-Eliade-intre-ortodoxism-si-zalmoxism*articleID_3963-articles_details.html

http://www.observatorcultural.ro/Mircea-Eliade-intre-ortodoxism-si-zalmoxism*articleID_3963-articles_details.html

the remains of a previous building is based on historical facts6. At the

same time, it is through remembrance, as a first step towards imitation

and repetition, that archaic Homo Religiosus sets himself outside of time,

the ruin thus serving the purpose of linking the construction to a mythical

past since it was believed that ‘hierophanies recur in a place where the

sacred has once appeared.... These rituals of construction and foundation

ensure that the site will perpetuate the presence of a hierophany that first

appeared within the bounds of a similarly structured location and

event.’(p. 90-91) Moreover, as Eliade states, it is a basic characteristic of

the manifestation of the sacred in the profane that it is at its origins an

historical event, while at the same time universal. (43)

Another way in which Mircea Eliade’s take on Christianity can be

traced within the ballad appears in its ending, through the Icarus fall of

the master and the rest of the builders, if we assimilate it as a metaphor

of the idea that “Çhristianity incontestably proves to be the religion of the

‘fallen man’” (pp161, 162) as well as of it translating ‘the periodic

regeneration of the world into a regeneration of the human individual’

(p.129-130). These two apparently opposing ideas are reconciled in the

Romanian poem’s ending, firstly because, as examples of ‘the fallen man’,

the builders deny the contribution of the divine, the importance of ritual

and sacrifice when stating that they could build a second such monastery;

secondly, through Manole’s metamorphosis his own being becomes a

manifestation of the sacred. In addition to this, his death becomes ‘ritual

death, the only death that is creative’7 through its breach of secular

geography, aspect celebrated as well as signified by the apparition of the

well.

In his disapproval of the historicist perspective, Mircea Eliade does

not focus on the possible place of origin of the legend, but notes that it is

only in Eastern Europe that it has attained a literary form, following ‘the 6 Alexandru D. Xenopol, Istoria românilor din Dacia Traiană, București: Editura Elf, 2006

7 MIRCEA ELIADE, Comentarii la Legenda Meşterului Manole, Bucuresti: Editura Humanitas, 2004, p.7

Subsequent references within text


sequence: construction ritual- legend of the sacrificial victims- ballad. On

the other hand, the construction ritual is itself a consequence of a

cosmogony which states that nothing ‘soulless’ can last. The sequence

therefore stretches from cosmogony to folk literary product.’ (p.21) In his

argumentation of folklorist Dumitru Caracostea’s claim that the legend

had fulfilled its ‘esthetic destiny’, Eliade gives a few examples of other

ritual building legends, such as the bridge from Arta, or the city of Deva,

for example; he then focuses on the way the victims are chosen, treated

and how they react to their fate, noting that it is only in the Romanian

form of the myth that the wife accepts what is happening with

resignation, as well as the fact that, while in most other versions, the

myth starts with the collapse of the walls, in this version, the search for a

building space is mentioned, as well as a constant focus being on Manole

unlike in other texts where it is shifting. This is relevant to the literary

critic just as much as to the religious scholar because of its circular form.

In a sense, the legend describes each stage in the process of creation and

destruction; both cosmos and chaos are present in any cosmogony, the

transformation of the latter into the first being the process described. The

text not only starts in the vicinity of a river, in the chaos of a forest, but

also ends symmetrically with Manole himself becoming a source of water

and instead of the forrest containing the remains of a church, it is now the

monastery that possesses, in a sense, the remains of the couple. Yet, in

this case, unlike the river in the beginning, the water has a divine,

miraculous source, transforming the spontaneous and chaotic into

orderly, simultaneously historic and transcending history; just as in the

case of the monastery, creation replaced the chaos of the forest. Eliade

considers that ‘death in some sort restores to him the wife he had just

sacrificed’8, but this restoration goes beyond the initial, historical

marriage situation, could be argued; it is through death that the couple

attain androgyny once again, a state of divinity that can only fleetingly be

8 Mircea Eliade, Zalmoxis, the vanishing God : comparative studies in the religions and folklore of Dacia and

Eastern Europe , Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1972, p.177


realised during lifetime through love, “for in love each sex attains the

‘characteristics’ of the opposite sex”.9 Just as Eliade himself notes, ‘this

myth of divine androgyny- which reveals the paradox of divine existence

more clearly than any of the other formulae for the coincidentia

oppositorum’(p.165)- this aspect of the legend illustrates another concept

introduced by the scholar, ‘the simultaneous occurrence of apparently

opposing elements to form a coherent and empowered whole’, as

according to Bryan Rennie (p.162).

An important variation to the usual content of construction myths is

in this case the child. Most women that are built up ask for a small crack

to be left, through which they could still breastfeed their newborn even

after death. In the case of Ana alone, she is pregnant and the future child

obviously gets built up alongside its mother. It could be argued, in

accordance with the above concept of androgyny as example of

coincidentia oppositorum, that the child represents exactly this state of

androgyny contained in creation. The ‘soul of the building’ is not only

feminine or masculine, but neutral, as of the still developing child; its

birth becomes the realisation of the monastery, the Romanian ballad

portraying a rare case in which a ritual death is creative in a very

traditional sense, that of a birth. In the child is made visible the hermetic

concept of ‘as above so below’ contained within Eliade’s religious

conception (Smith, p. XIV)

In connection to this cosmic birth, God’s compliance to Manole’s

prayers and the natural phenomenona could also be compared to the

puberty initiation rituals practiced in numerous cultures, followin which

the girl becomes a woman, i.e. is considered prepared to bare children10.

This initiation of the wife would be necessary in order because, according

to the historian of religions, ‘all the negative valuations of defilement

result from this ambivalence of hierophanies and kratophanies. It is 9 Mircea Eliade, Polarity and the Coincidentia Oppositorum, ed. Bryan Rennie, Mircea Eliade : a critical reader,

p.167 Subsequent Subsequent page references in text. 10

Mircea Eliade, Imagini şi simboluri, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 1994, pp. 136-138


dangerous to come near any defiled or consecrated object in a profane

state- without, that is, proper ritual preparation’. (Myth of the Eternal

Return, p.48) In other words, it is this divine intervention that draws the

fine line between murder and ritual sacrifice- if Ana were deemed

unsuitable, she would have been successfully deterred, or, better said,

she would have failed the initiatory trials.

Another notable element of the myth is that master Manole must

climb up a ladder before building up his wife, an interesting detail since it

can be paralleled with the ladder being associated with shamans and their

attainment of divine knowledge found in the works of the historian of

religions. Through this, the constructor assumes his role of creator. 11 It is

also the premonitory dream that leads one to draw comparison with

shamanic practices, but of course, it need not be a shamanic initiation

involved in this particular case, especially since Eliade insists that it is

improbable that there are any traces of shamanism among Romanian

locals (Eliade, Zalmoxis, p.203); on the other hand, he mentions a form

of initiation practiced among masons and builders in Eastern Europe,

Aromanian builders most probably being responsible of the spread of the

legend (Eliade, Comentarii, p.27). The initiation rituals are not known, yet

the secrets of the guild were transmitted from father to son and only

members knew them. Such rituals were necessary because of the belief of

in the imitation, the return to ilo tempore- the original, mythical time-

through any form of repetitive practice- work, food preparation, dances-

to repeat the initial, cosmogonist act of the deity (Eliade, Zalmoxis,

p.185).

This is particularly relevant since ‘the symbolism of the church-

monastery was still perceived and culturally valorized by eastern

European Chritendom, the heir of Byzantum.... until the most recent

times the people of the Balkano-Danubian area were conscious that a 11

Mircea Eliade, Shamanism : archaic techniques of ecstasy, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. 259- 272


church or monastery represented both the Cosmos and the Heavenly

Jerusalem or Paradise’ (Eliade, Zalmoxis, p.179) In other words, the

anonymous authors of this ballad might have been aware of the

monastery’s role as a ‘Centre’, to follow Eliade’s terminology. Any spiritual

place or object can signal the Centre through its breach of secular

meaning, of secular space and time, representing ‘the meeting point of

the three cosmic regions: heaven, earth, and hell.’ (Eliade, The Myth of

the Eternal Return, p.15) If the monastery represents Paradise, the

heavens, then both the choice of the place where to build the monastery

and the sacrifice have an additional meaning and importance. Ana’s

human nature comes into play by representing the earthly dimension

mentioned above. In this context, the fact that ‘the dogs rush to it,

hawling dismally’ (Eliade, Zalmoxis, p.166) comes to suggest that ruins

used to be chosen as a starting place for monasteries because of their

supposed connection to the underworld. Moreover, as he later points in

The Myth of the Eternal Return, ‘a thing becomes sacred in so far as it

embodies (that is, reveals) something other than itself... what matters is

that a hierophany implies a choice, a clear-cut separation of the thing

which manifests the sacred from everything else around it’ (Eliade, Myth

of the Eternal Return, p.15) The ruins were therefore fit to become the

foundation of a sacred construction because they already possessed, or

rather were attributed, a sacred, albeit negative, dimension long before

the construction started; in addition to this, the monastery literally

embodies something other than itself, in the persons of Ana and her child,

as well as figuratively representing the heavens.

The Legend of Master Manole and Mircea Eliade’s connection to it

have created a special situation in which, by applying the theoretical

concepts of the historian to the ballad, one actually ends up discovering

as much about the critic and his views, as about the folk text itself; just

as in the case of the legend, the constructor of meanings ends up

assimilated into his work.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Eliade, Mircea, Comentarii la Legenda Meşterului Manole, Bucuresti:

Editura Humanitas, 2004

Eliade, Mircea, Imagini şi simboluri, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 1994

Eliade, Mircea, Shamanism : archaic techniques of ecstasy, Princeton, N.J.

: Princeton University Press, 2004

Eliade, Mircea, The myth of the eternal return : cosmos and history /

introduction by Jonathan Z. Smith, Princeton, NJ : Princeton University

Press, 2005

Eliade, Mircea, Zalmoxis, the vanishing God : comparative studies in the

religions and folklore of Dacia and Eastern Europe , Chicago : University

of Chicago Press, 1972

Rennie Bryan, Mircea Eliade : a critical reader, London : Equinox Pub.,

2006

Xenopol, Alexandru D., Istoria românilor din Dacia Traiană, Bucureș ti:

Editura Elf, 2006

Article:

Grottanelli, Cristiano, Fruitful Death: Mircea Eliade and Ernst Jünger on

Human Sacrifice, Numen, Vol. 52, No. 1, Religion and Violence (2005)


Web:

Oisteanu, Mircea, Mircea Eliade, intre ortodoxism si zalmoxism,

http://www.observatorcultural.ro/Mircea-Eliade-intre-ortodoxism-si-

zalmoxism*articleID_3963-articles_details.html


mircea eliade and master manole

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