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Wordcount: 2760

Tutor: Tony Wood

Student: Stefania Suciu

LT208: Approaches To Myth

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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 Eliades 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 writers 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,
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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 antiSemitic agenda- therefore religiously biased, as critics have argued. It is this latter aspect of Mircea Eliades 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 outIn 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. Eliades 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 Jnger 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

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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 atheist3 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 mans existence in the world4. 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 Eliades viewsFor 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_3963articles_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

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

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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 Eliades 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 hristianity 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 poems 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 Manoles metamorphosis his own being becomes a manifestation of the sacred. In addition to this, his death becomes ritual death, the only death that is creative7 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 7

Alexandru D. Xenopol, Istoria romnilor din Dacia Traian, Bucureti: Editura Elf, 2006 MIRCEA ELIADE, Comentarii la Legenda Meterului Manole, Bucuresti: Editura Humanitas, 2004, p.7 Subsequent references within text

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

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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 Caracosteas 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 sacrificed8, 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
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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 Eliades religious conception (Smith, p. XIV) In connection to this cosmic birth, Gods compliance to Manoles 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 i simboluri, Bucureti, Editura Humanitas, 1994, pp. 136-138

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

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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. 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 timethrough any form of repetitive practice- work, food preparation, dancesto repeat the initial, cosmogonist act of the deity (Eliade, Zalmoxis, p.185). This is particularly relevant since the symbolism of the churchmonastery 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

11

It is

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

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Jerusalem or Paradise (Eliade, Zalmoxis, p.179) In other words, the anonymous authors of this ballad might have been aware of the monasterys role as a Centre, to follow Eliades 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. Anas 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 Eliades 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.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eliade, Mircea, Comentarii la Legenda Meterului Manole, Bucuresti: Editura Humanitas, 2004 Eliade, Mircea, Imagini i simboluri, Bucureti, 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 romnilor din Dacia Traian, Bucure ti: Editura Elf, 2006 Article: Grottanelli, Cristiano, Fruitful Death: Mircea Eliade and Ernst Jnger on Human Sacrifice, Numen, Vol. 52, No. 1, Religion and Violence (2005)

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