Shortly after 1 p.m. on May 21, 1991, a secretary working on the third floor of Swift Hall at the University of Chicago heard a faint “pop,” as she described it. The sound came from the men’s restroom next to her office. It was produced by a .25-caliber (6.35 mm) pistol that had fired one round into the head of Prof. Ioan Culianu, a rising scholar of esotericism and Gnosticism and a protegé of the famous historian of religion Mircea Eliade1 (1907–1986).
The killer was never caught. He did stalk Culianu during a book-sale event, which brought numerous outsiders into the building, but he also had to be someone who would not look out of place in an academic setting.
Bruce Lincoln’s Secrets, Lies, and Consequences: A Great Scholar’s Hidden Past and His Protegé’s Unsolved Murder is not a whodunit. More of a “why was it done-it.” Lincoln is a well-recognized name in religious studies and teaches at Chicago’s Divinity School, as did Eliade and Culianu.2
My review of Secrets, Lies, and Consequences was just published in the American Academy of Religion’s free Reading Religion site, and you can read it here.
I sweat bullets over that review, because its length was limited, and yet I was trying to fit in bits of Romanian history, Eliade’s life story, as well as Lincoln’s conjectures about the killer’s motive—which might have been a certain person saying, in effect, “Who will rid me of this troublesome scholar?”
I have defended Eliade here before against accusations about what he wrote or did in the 1930s. See, for instance, “Mircea Eliade, Witches, and Fascists” from 2020, where I did have room to go into the history more than I could do in a book review.
I always took Eliade at his word (in his published journals ) that when he left Romania to serve as a diplomat in Lisbon, he left all his previous associations behind. One thing that Lincoln’s book does is make me wonder, was I right or was I too naive?
Your review is fascinating. I’ve read both and Culianu plays an important role in a chapter of a book I am writing. I always found it weird that he was assassinated by the Rumanian secret police- a lot of trouble and risk for not much payoff. Academic politics can get very nasty, and when one side is idolized by former fascists and murderers, anything can happen.
We’ll never know for sure unless there is a deathbed confession which is unlikely.
Gus
The University of Chicago.
It played on influential part in my university–Michigan State–social sciences education. Several of my major and influential professors were graduates of U of C (and returned to it as professors and administrators). I studied there as a cross campus student. I studied and learned from the works and teaching of Elide (but I never took one of his classes or attended a lecture–secondary influences.)
Ideologically, politically, I was and still am progressive and communitarian. And, in general, my professors were more that than conservative. (At least so far as I could tell at that time.)
But it was also well known and widely accepted that many academic and intellectuals who came in the waves of pre- and post-WW II may not have been utterly free of any or all fascist influences or linkages or thinking. (Neither were Americans.)
While they may have been criticized, however, I felt that they and their pasts were tolerated. On account of contributions that they could–and did–make in recovery and growth following WW II. And maybe because (during WW II) “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” amounted to a government policy.
Reputationally, as much as I recall, Eliade fell into that category. As did many others. Not unforgivably spoiled by any or all acquaintances with fascism.
I have no idea about the nature or alignments of Chicago’s Romanian community. But I get that they might be very strongly held. Those views and stories and such may live on for generations sometimes.
Thanks for the review and links.