The Unbearable Virtues of Backwardness: Mircea Eliade’s Conceptualisation of Colonialism and His Attraction to Romania’s Interwar Fascist Movement

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter addresses Mircea Eliade’s conceptualisation of the colonial experience and the ways in which it influenced his view of history, which in turn informed his studies of the sacred and the discipline of comparative religious studies to whose establishment he contributed significantly. I argue that his vision of colonialism, informing both his scientific work and his perception of the history and culture of Central and Eastern Europe, was reflective of the tension prompted by the epistemology of in-betweenness that Eliade (and other interwar Romanian intellectuals) developed as a response to Romania’s marginality, translating in practical terms in a conversion of its perceived “backwardness” into a virtue (albeit one that remained uncomfortable) and a weapon directed against Western cultural and political hegemony. As such, his epistemological stance corresponded on the one hand to Eliade’s genuine cultural pluralism, support for decolonisation, and appreciation of non-European cultures and the challenges they posed to European hegemony; and on the other led to his attraction to Romania’s native fascist movement, the “Legion of the Archangel Michael”. Studying the link between Eliade’s scholarship and his politics in light of his experience of colonialism in India draws attention to his broader understanding of Romania’s position within the global system, as well as to the parallels he drew between colonial scenarios and the historical legacies of countries in the region of Central and Eastern Europe, which he saw as also indelibly marked by their own experiences of empire.