Birth certificate for a genius

The mother of the much-regretted writer Nicolae Velea was sometimes worried when she saw her son chiseling a few phrases all night long. She used to tell him: "Don't strain yourself too much Nicu, try stealing a bit from Eminescu like everybody else!" For a century and a half, Romanian literature has stolen something from Eminescu, one way or the other. This is how it survived. Eminescu also had a mother who might have told him at least once to try stealing from others.

Raluca Eminovici, born Iurascu, the mother of the poet, did not have very much time for Eminescu. Besides him, she had another nine children to worry about. aerban, the first born, studied medicine in Vienna and Erlangen, Bavaria. He died from tuberculosis. Nicu, the second child, was a strange young man who committed suicide. He shot himself just after becoming a lawyer; Iorgu, a lieutenant died in 1873 in Brandemburg; Ilie was brought down by typhus just before graduating from Medicine; Marghioala died when she was only seven. Aglaia was the only daughter who lived to be married. Harieta followed - she was physically challenged, then Matei, the most "lucky" and Vasile, dead when he was one. Mihai, the future poet, was the sixth child of Gheorghe and Raluca Eminovici, and his destiny was as somber as those of his siblings. Above his head, there were the "Demon and the Angel," the geniality and the punishment. At 33, he was the greatest Romanian poet of all times and he was condemned to a horrible death.

He was born in Botosani, on January 15, 1850. This is the opinion of N.D. Giurescu, shared by many. Still, in the foreword of the fourth edition of Eminescu's first poetry volume, Titu Maiorescu wrote: "Born on December 20, 1849, in the village of Ipotesti, near Botosani." The same year is mentioned by D.N. Patrascu, in a study that he published in "Convorbiri literare." On his admission paper at the Cernauti, "National Hauptschule," (gymnasium) it was written Mihai Eminovici, born in 1849. The year he died, the press of the time wrote: "He was born in Dumbraveni, the county of Botosani, in the year 1848, the month of November, the day given to the saint Archangels; thus he was called Mihai." Guilty or not, mistaken hypotheses speak about superficiality and man's constant wish to re-invent the wheel. How could Eminescu be a legend if we knew the exact time and location of his birth? This is how the people who chiseled his statue thought. The same people buried the man.

For 150 years we have pretended to rediscover him, we invent him again and again and at the same time we forget a little about the man inside the poet. Caragiale said about him: "Joyous and sad, communicative and grumpy, kind and harsh, obscene and saint, shying away from people and seeking their company, careless like an old man and jumpy like a girl before marriage. Strange mixture. A good one for the artist but a bad one for the man."