Lucian Blaga

 Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the inter-bellum period. He was a philosopher and writer acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, into a family of priests. Although he could speak he did not speak any words until he was four, and he later described his early childhood as "under the sign of the incredible absence of word". In the poem "Self-Portrait" he describes himself : "Lucian Blaga is silent like a swan."



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His elementary education was in Sebeş (1902-1906), after which he attended the "Andrei Şaguna" school in Braşov (1906-1914), under the supervision of a relative, Iosif Blaga, who happened to be the author of the first Romanian treatise on the theory of drama. At the outbreak of the First World War, he began theological studies at Sibiu, where he graduated in 1917. From 1917 to 1920, he attended courses at the University of Vienna, where he studied philosophy and obtained his PhD.

Upon returning to the re-unified Romania, he contributed to the Romanian press in Transylvania, being the editor of the magazines Culture in Cluj and The Banat in Lugoj.

In 1926, he became involved in Romanian diplomacy, occupying successive posts at Romania's legations in Warsaw, Prague, Lisbon, Bern and Vienna. He was chosen member of the Romanian Academy in 1937. His acceptance speech was entitled Elogiul satului românesc (In Praise of the Romanian Village).

In 1939, he became professor of cultural philosophy at the University of Cluj, temporarily located in Sibiu in the years following the Second Vienna Award. In Sibiu he edited, beginning in 1943, the magazine Saeculum, which was published annually.



He was dismissed from his university professor chair in 1948 and he worked as librarian for the branch department (Cluj) of the History Institute of the Romanian Academy. Until 1960, he was allowed to publish only translations.

In 1956, he was nominated to the Nobel Prize for Literature on the proposal of Bazil Munteanu of France and Rosa del Conte of Italy, but it seems the idea was of Mircea Eliade. Still, the Romanian Communist government sent two emissaries to Sweden to protest the nomination, because Blaga was considered an idealist philosopher, and his poems were forbidden until 1962.

He died of cancer on May 6, 1961, and is buried in Lancrăm, Romania.

The University of Sibiu bears his name today.





Literature

Poetry

1919 - Poems of Light ( Poemele luminii );

1921 - The Prophet's Footsteps ( Paşii profetului );

1924 - In the Great Passage ( În marea trecere );

1929 - In Praise of Sleep ( Laudă somnului );

1933 - At the Watershed ( La cumpăna apelor ) ;

1938 - At the Courtyard of Yearning ( La curţile dorului ) ;

1943 - Unsuspected Steps ( Nebănuitele trepte );

1982 - 3 Posthumous Poems;

Drama

1921 - Zamolxis, A Pagan Mystery

1923 - Whirling Waters

1925 - Daria, The Deed, Resurrection

1927 - Manole the Craftsman ( Mesterul Manole )

1930 - The Children's Crusade

1934 - Avram Iancu

1944 - Noah's Ark

1964 - Anton Pann - published posthumously.

Philosophy

His philosophical work is grouped in three trilogies:

a cunoaşterii (knowledge) (1943)

a culturii (culture) (1944)

a valorilor (values) (1946).

His fourth, cosmologica (cosmology), remained in the project stage.

Philosophical works

1924 - "The Philosophy of Style"

1925 - "The Original Phenomenon" and "The Facets of a Century"

1931 - "The Dogmatic Aeon"

1933 - "Luciferian Knowledge"

1934 - "Transcendental Censorship"

1936 - "Horizon and Style" and "The Mioritic Space"

1937 - "The Genesis of Metaphor and the Meaning of Culture"

1939 - "Art and Value"

1940 - "The Divine Differentials"

1942 - "Religion and Spirit" and "Science and Creation"

1943 - The Trilogy of Knowledge (The Dogmatic Aeon, Luciferian Knowledge, Transcendent Censorship: in 1983 On Philosophical Cognition and Experiment and the Mathematical Spirit added by his daughter)

1944 - The Trilogy of Culture (Horizon and Style, The Mioritic Space, The Genesis of Metaphor and the Meaning of Culture)

1946 - The Trilogy of Values (Science and Creation, Magical Thinking and Religion, Art and Value)

1959 - Historical Existence

1966 - Romanian Thought in Transylvania in the 18th Century

1968 - Horizons and Stages

1969 - Experiment and the Mathematical Spirit

1972 - Sources (essays, lectures, articles)

1974 - On Philosophical Cognition

1977 - Philosophical Essays

1983 - The Cosmological Trilogy (The Divine Differentials, Anthropological Aspects, Historical Existence)

Other Works

1919 - Stones for My Temple, aphorisms

1945 - Discoblus, aphorisms

1965 - The Chronicle and Song of Ages, memoirs

1977 - The Élan of the Island, aphorisms

1990 - Charon's Ferry, novel