Lucian Blaga

Lucian Blaga (Romanian: [lutʃiˈan ˈblaɡa] ^ⓘ; 9 May 1895 – 6 May 1961) was a Romanian philosopher, poet, playwright, poetry translator and novelist. He is one of the most important philosophers and poets of Romania, and a prominent philosopher of the interwar period in Eastern Europe who, due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding his career, is barely known to the outside world.

Lucian Blaga was born on 9 May 1895 in Lancrăm (then Lámkerék), near Alba Iulia (then Gyulafehérvár). He was the ninth child of Isidor Blaga, an Orthodox priest, and Ana Moga. Both his parents' families had deep ties with the church: Isidor's father, Simion Blaga, was also a priest and Ana's family tree had a long line of priests and a bishop. His father studied at Bruckenthal Highschool in Sibiu and according to Lucian Blaga his way of being was inline with "German cultural tradition": opened to technological progress and free thinking, sometimes in contrast with his profession which he did "without the impetus of true conviction".

In the autobiographical The Chronicle and the Song of Ages he recalls that he was "mute as a swan" until the age of five, his early childhood having been "under the sign of the incredible absence of the word". His mother, reassured by doctors that her child wasn't ill, tried to convince him to speak by saying that he wouldn't want other children to call him a mute:

"I looked at my mother with bright, understanding eyes. I listened to her, but not even after this torment did my words reveal themselves. Then, after a night of some inner turmoil, the meaning of which I forgot in my wordless life, I went to her. And I started speaking. I held my hand above my eyes, and spoke. From underneath the eaves made by my fingers and palm, with which I was shielding myself from the world of the words, the speech came out whole, clear, like sieved silver."

His education started in Hungarian in the neighbouring Sebeș, where he remained until 1906, after which he attended the "Andrei Șaguna" high school in Brașov between 1906 and 1914. His senior thesis was Albert Einstein’s relativity and Henri Poincaré’s non-Euclidean geometry. During the second year of high school his father, Isidor, died and he remained under the supervision of a relative, Iosif Blaga. At the outbreak of the World War I, he began theological studies in Sibiu to avoid being drafted in the Austro-Hungarian army (like many Romanians from Transylvania at the time). Between 1917 and 1920 he studied philosophy and biology at the University of Vienna. Here he published his first two books, a book of poetry and a book of aphorisms, which helped him finance his studies. Also here he first met his future wife, Cornelia Brediceanu, who was studying medicine. He obtained his PhD with the thesis Kultur und Erkenntnis – a study on the relation between culture and knowledge - in 1920. He summed his early views in his correspondence:

"Philosophy is art, and this will be my philosophy. I tend toward an organic and mobile, lifelike conception about the world — a conception that I will propagate around me not by argument but by a kind of artistic suggestion.... I won't 'prove, I will 'infect' the environment with great art. Life is transmitted from person to person in immediate fashion, without the bridge of arguments, since life is the creative force, and everything that is creation imposes itself naturally."

His 1919 Poems of Light, published by Sextil Pușcariu – an acquaintance of Cornelia's family - first in Glasul Bucovinei, then as a stand-alone volume, received very positive criticism, Blaga being acclaimed as a figure who "represented the Transylvania of today and tomorrow", his book placed along with the Bible on the nightstand for the Queen of Romania during her visit to Transylvania following the 1918 Union. This was to pave his way for a networking trip to Bucharest where he visited the Romanian Academy and met Nicolae Iorga and Alexandru Vlahuță, among others. However, having finished his studies at Vienna and in look for an academic position, his application to Romanian University of Cluj was not successful, his Habilitation Thesis "The Philosophy of Style" being rejected in 1924. He wrote in the regional press, being the editor of the magazines Cultura in Cluj and Banatul' in Lugoj as well as for Patria, Voința, Adevărul literar și artistic, Universul cultural and others.

Demoralized after his failure to obtain a position at the university, he moves to Lugoj in 1926 and enters the Romanian diplomatic service, occupying posts at Romanian legations in Poland, Czechia, Portugal, Switzerland and Austria.