Secrets, Lies, and Consequences, Bruce Lincoln
Secrets, Lies, and Consequences, Bruce Lincoln
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Secrets, Lies, and Consequences
A Great Scholar's Hidden Past and his Protégé's Unsolved Murder

Author: Bruce Lincoln

Narrator: Tom Beyer

Unabridged: 6 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/28/2023

Synopsis

In 1991, Ioan Culianu was on the precipice of a brilliant academic career. Culianu had fled his native Romania and established himself as a widely admired scholar at just forty-one years old. He was teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School where he was seen as the heir apparent to his mentor, Mircea Eliade, a fellow Romanian expatriate and the founding father of the field of religious studies, who had died a few years earlier. When Culianu began to receive threatening messages, he asked a colleague to hold onto some papers for safekeeping. A week later someone fired a bullet into the back of his head, killing him instantly. The case was never solved, though the prevailing theory is that Culianu was targeted by the Romanian secret police as a result of critical articles he wrote after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu.

What was in those papers and what connection might they have to Culianu's death? The papers eventually passed into the hands of Bruce Lincoln, and their story is at the heart of this book. The documents were English translations of articles that Eliade wrote in the 1930s, some of which voiced Eliade's support for the Iron Guard. Bruce Lincoln explores what the articles reveal about Eliade's past, his subsequent efforts to conceal that past, his complex relations with Culianu, and the possible motives for Culianu's shocking murder.

About Bruce Lincoln

Bruce Lincoln is Caroline E. Haskell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Religions in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He received his BA from Haverford College in 1970 with high honors and his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1976 with distinction. His publications include Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification, 2nd Ed., Apples and Oranges: Explorations In, On, and With Comparison, and Old Thiess, A Livonian Werewolf (with Carlo Ginzburg).

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jim

An interesting but ultimately disappointing book about scholarship and murder. Lincoln digs into the spiritual/fascist background of Mircea Eliade and the assasination of his protégé Ioan Culianu in 1991. Disappointing — for me — because I was hoping for more insight into the scholarly imagination o......more

Goodreads review by Neil

A very interesting little book. Although not the same genre, it reminded me a bit of a Sebald or Drndic book. Also a little of the Dorothy Thompson article "Who Goes Nazi."......more

Goodreads review by Igo

A good analysis of: 1. Eliade connections with the Iron Guard (what he wrote, what he said, what documents exist about what other people said) 2. How Eliade’s involvement with the fascists came to light after the war (spoiler slowly) and what Eliade said to deny his involvement was relevant. 3. How Cul......more

Goodreads review by Milda

Intriguing story about one of the key scholars of religion Mircea Eliade, his connections with nazis and attempts to cover them through his lifetime and afterwards. The story was new to me and it provides aditional valuable perdpective for interpretation of Eliade’s works and their contribution to t......more

Goodreads review by John

A thoughtful and meticulous investigation of a real life detective case which remains unsolved, the 1991 murder of Ioan Cuilescu..It back then received a flurry of attention among intellectuals, but outside rarified circles, has been forgotten. As a scholar of religion who happened to have been give......more

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