Mihai Eminescu

Did You Know?

• From October 1869 to 1872 Eminescu studied at the University of Vienna as an 'extraordinary auditor' in the Faculty of Philosophy and Law.
• Iacob Negruzzi, editor of Convorbiri Literare, traveled to Vienna to meet Eminescu after being impressed by his poem Venere și Madonă.
• Nicolae Iorga considered Eminescu the godfather of the modern Romanian language, akin to Shakespeare's influence on English.

Family

The most accepted theory traces Mihai Eminescu's paternal ancestors to a Romanian family from Banat. In 1675, a child named Iminul was born; his son Iovul lui Iminul, born in 1705, became a priest under the Serbianized name Iovul Iminovici. Priest Iovul Iminovici moved from Banat to Blaj between 1738 and 1740, attracted by civil liberties and free education, on condition of becoming an Eastern-Rite Catholic. He had two sons, Iosif and Petrea Iminovici. Petrea Eminovici, the poet's great-grandfather, was probably born in 1735; from his marriage to Agafia Șerban came several descendants, with only their middle child Vasile known with certainty. Vasile Iminovici (1778–1844) attended normal school in Blaj and married Ioana Sărghei. Petrea and Agafia divorced; Petrea died in Blaj in 1811, and Agafia moved with Vasile's family to Bukovina, dying in Călinești in 1818. Vasile Iminovici settled in Călinești in 1804, becoming a church teacher and receiving land. He had four daughters and three sons; his eldest son Gheorghe, born in 1812, was Mihai's father. Gheorghe Eminovici served various boyars and later became administrator of the Dumbrăveni estate, obtaining the title of sluger. An alternative theory by historian George Călinescu suggests Mihai's paternal great-grandfather might have been a Swedish cavalry officer who settled in Moldavia after the Battle of Poltava.

Early years

Mihai Eminescu was the seventh of eleven children of Gheorghe Eminovici and Raluca Jurașcu. He spent his early childhood in Botoșani and Ipotești. From 1858 to 1866 he attended school in Cernăuți, finishing 4th grade as 5th of 82 students, then two years of gymnasium. His first known writing appeared in January 1866, when a poem signed 'M. Eminovici' was published in a pamphlet for teacher Aron Pumnul. On 25 February 1866, his poem De-aș avea was published in Iosif Vulcan's magazine Familia. Vulcan, disliking the Slavic suffix '-ici', gave him the Romanian nom de plume Mihai Eminescu. In 1867 he joined Iorgu Caragiale's theatrical troupe as a clerk and prompter, then moved to Mihai Pascaly's troupe. He settled in Bucharest, becoming a clerk and copyist for the National Theater in late November. He continued writing and publishing poems, and translated hundreds of pages by Heinrich Theodor Rötscher. He also began his novel Geniu pustiu, published posthumously in 1904 unfinished. On 1 April 1869 he co-founded the 'Orient' literary circle, which gathered Romanian folklore and literary documents. On 29 June he was assigned to Moldavia for the group. That summer he encountered his brother Iorgu in Cișmigiu Gardens but refused to renew family ties.

Later life and death

The 1880s brought crisis and deterioration in Eminescu's life, with details still debated. From 1883, when his personal crisis and health issues became evident, until 1886, he was treated in Austria and Italy by specialists who helped him recover. In 1886 he suffered a nervous breakdown and was treated by Romanian doctors, diagnosed with syphilis, and hospitalized at a nervous diseases hospice in Neamț Monastery, where he received mercury treatment. He was massaged in Botoșani by Dr. Itszak, then treated at Dr. Alexandru A. Suțu's sanatorium in Bucharest from February to June 1889 with mercuric chloride injections. Irinel Popescu states Eminescu died of mercury poisoning, noting mercury was prohibited for syphilis in Western Europe due to adverse effects. Eminescu died at 4 am on 15 June 1889 at the Caritas Institute sanatorium on Plantelor Street, Bucharest. His last wish was a glass of milk, after which he whispered 'I'm crumbled'. On 16 June doctors Suțu and Petrescu declared him deceased, but the cause of death was not clearly stated. The medical file and autopsy indicated mental rather than physical disorder. At autopsy, the brain could not be studied because a nurse left it on an open window where it decomposed.

Romanian culture

At age 20, Eminescu was called 'a real poet' by critic Titu Maiorescu. His notability grew through enriching literary language with words from all Romanian regions, old texts, and new coinages from his philosophical readings; using bold metaphors rare in earlier Romanian poetry; and being the first Romanian writer to publish in all Romanian provinces while caring about Romanians everywhere. He defined himself as a Romantic in To My Critics, and his bohemian lifestyle and untimely death associated him with the Romantic genius figure. By the late 1880s he had faithful followers; his 1883 poem Luceafărul inspired a literary review of the same name. Ion Luca Caragiale wrote that Eminescu had 'an excessively unique nature', oscillating between introvert and extrovert attitudes. Titu Maiorescu's portrait emphasized Eminescu's introvert dominant traits, promoting an image of a dreamer far from reality whose main characteristic was 'abstract serenity'.