Was Eminescu a poor man? An answer

This is a question that remains unanswered 150 years after the death of the great poet. We still believe today that the poet was poor all his life and that he died in misery. We know that he was very ill between 1883 and 1889 and that people chipped in to put him in a hospital and get him proper care. Six years are enough to form a certain image about someone, even a false one. The truth is a bit different. With the exception of the time when he ran away from home and went on a cross-country tour, Eminescu was not a poor man. What he needed in order to live a decent life he had. He was never interested in the material aspect. When he had little or no money, friends helped him out. Then how is it that people think he was poor? To a large extent it is Eminescu's fault.

The "fashion" of the period demanded that a poet be poor and ill. Eventually madness became the "hip" thing for poets. A romantic poet by excellence, Eminescu stayed with the flow. He wrote about madness and poverty and the public had no reasons to doubt the fact that the verses came not from his life but from his imagination. When he had money he spent it like crazy, he gave things to everybody and when he was all out he took some from his friends, just to last him through the day. When he received money he paid his debts and then the circle was complete. He started spending again. Those were the good times. Unfortunately they did not last long. When all his friends were out of money he telegraphed home and asked for help. Those letters and the fact that he always complained contributed a great deal to his "poor" image. In the autumn of 1869, advised by his father, he took the road to Vienna. He was not convinced that he did the right thing because he did not want his family to spend too much on his account

was promised 18 gold coins per month and he did receive them for the whole time he was in Vienna. Eighteen gold coins were worth then 360 lei, a big sum for the period. He had more than enough for food and rent and there were plenty left for coffees and an occasional theatre play. He never had enough. When he received his allowance, he bought books, coffee, tobacco and the rest he used to live a life of luxury for a few days. Then he fasted and borrowed from friends. He sold back his books and ate on credit. It is then that he came up with a curse he will use all his life: " To Hell with necessity!" We took the liberty to calculate just how much money he had. Taking into account the quantity of gold that 18 gold coins would have weighed we came up with some pretty big figures: $1000 - the salary of a Romanian MP. The rent and food for a month was about $150 a month. He was not so poor after all.