When at only 19, Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940) defended his university degree examinations one of his examining professors characterized him as "a true phenomenon both in point of memory and power of ratiocination." Then Iorga worked hard in Paris and in Germany, obtaining a diploma from the prestigious école Pratique des Hautes études and his doctor's degree in Leipzig, with Karl Lamprecht. With infinite passion he collected an impressive amount of information, benefiting from an exceptional staying power and a prodigious memory.In the autumn of 1894, at 23 Iorga took by contest the desk of world history of the Iaşi university, and at 26 he was elected corresponding member of the Romanian Academy.Establishing very fast a brilliant career for himself, the young historian made a name for himself both in Romania and abroad, as an exceptional personality, uniquely original. After a few years of isolation among books, especially in the years spent abroad, he returned to this country, as a man of the citadel, a scholar and a fiery tribune, able to talk to the crowds, not only to his students. With a sparkling intelligence, a mind like a comprehensive repository, with exceptional capacities of association and systematization of all the knowledge gathered, Iorga had an unquenched thirst after knowledge. He scrutinized the past in all its complexity trying, until the end of his life, to discover causes, fixtures and laws. Had not his life been violently cut short in 1940 he would have managed to achieve what he called historiology.For Iorga the past could not be divided, put in series. Everything was of interest for him, the details and the whole, and what he desired most was to revive an epoch, to animate bygone personalities, to instill life into past life. A historian of humanity, he dared undertake a history in four volumes, Essai de synthèse de l'histoire de l'humanité."I was born," he once wrote, "with remote horizons in space and time, with inklings of foreign realms at the bottom of the world, and the vision of a past coming from the dawn of times." He also confessed that he had approached "all historical domains, from contemporary to the first expressions of civilization in the prehistoric periods."Iorga appears to us as an optimist in his judgement of the huge scene of human becoming that is constantly changing. Seen from the necessary distance, as he put it, history recounts a great triumph of human energy that is often kept back, and loses the fruit of its endeavors only to win then back, through stubborn battle, gains for a time seized by the unconsciousness of barbarians, by the sand of the deserts. The scholar seems to us a director of the great show given on the world stage where he revives past life. He is the historian of interdependencies among people and of world historical phenomena. "The life of a people," he once noted, "ceaselessly blends with the life of the others, being constantly in contact with them and never stopping to influence them."Enthralled by the great questions of humankind, by its historical evolution, often going into surprising details as a proof of his extraordinary erudition and also of his aspiration after a fuller truth, Iorga strove to follow guidelines, dominant traits, essential facts. A generalizing tendency characterized many of the topics he tried to decipher: the Rhine question, the question of oceans, of the Danube, of the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the development of institutional settlements in Europe. Specializing in the matters of western Middle Ages he also showed interest in the problems affecting the geographic area where he belonged. The history of Byzantium, and of southeastern Europe in general, the Crusades, the presence of westerners in the eastern areas of the Mediterranean Sea. Most amazing in his work – more than one thousand books and a few thousand studies and articles! – is the variety of his approaches, his competence in highly specialized matters.The historian was also an important publisher of historical sources, putting forth thousands of documents and narrative sources. "When you prepare a work, bathe in its sources," he would tell his students. Iorga ceaselessly gathered historical data, copied documents and inscriptions. Thus his works were based not only on thorough documentation but also on original information.Iorga was concerned with the broad flow of history, but he, naturally, also approached the national history, setting out from the broad bases offered by his knowledge of the historical evolution of humankind. He made three syntheses of the national history of the Romanians, the last one, in ten volumes, a lifetime work, was written in the last years of his existence and published in Romanian and French. Besides world history, Iorga showed interest in the national history in all the periods."The concept of history put forth by Iorga," Mario Roques remarked, "is actually very broad. As far as Romania is concerned he wanted to study and reconstruct its entire civilization, its entire life. Many of the unknown points in the history of the Romanians were elucidated by the historian based on documentation, on intuition and also on his exceptional power of association. In the thousand of pages he wrote he explained various moments in the history of the Romanian people."Iorga was a scholar who stood out by his exceptional staying power. Jerome Carcopino noted that the Romanian scholar was capable of coping with a terrible amount of work. "One may think," he added admiringly, in 1931, "that in him there are several people in shifts so that they can carry out policies and disinterested research, journalism and educational, scientific and literary missions alike."In his turn Mario Roques, another coeval of the historian, pictured his extraordinary activity thus: "In Romania or abroad, in the city or in the countryside, when traveling through Europe, Iorga never stopped reading, transcribing, composing, dictating. I do not believe the word 'holiday' had any meaning for him, and perhaps the word 'rest' neither. I have never seen him, no matter where he was, even in the street, and not have him explain, show or demonstrate in what activity he was engaged at the moment, in the discovery he had just made, the idea he had just had, the system he was building, the projects he was drawing up…"Nicolae Iorga's power of comprehension was furthered by the fact that he was active in several fields. He was not only a scholar isolated among books but also a tribune, an apostle, a writer, a playwright, a poet, publisher, politician and statesman. We should add that he was also an untiring traveler through the country and abroad, a very careful witness of the contemporary world, with huge discernment, and much artistic spirit. His travel notes are revealing in this sense.He liked to live and work among people, he wanted to be an attentive chronicler of his epoch, and also an active, untiring participant in human developments and above all in the affairs of his nation. He lived in society and served it like few others. A flawless orator, concocting brilliant yet always fully grounded improvisations, he would fascinate his listeners."He never tired of explaining, and always caught you aback with the points of view revealed," maintained Roques. Besides highly scientific works, he also created popularization texts, rich in ideas and information.He headed a party, was Prime Minister between 1931 and 1932, a Member of Parliament, and a high dignitary of the State. At all moments Nicolae Iorga activated with gusto and panache in literature. His poems and his plays, written with ease in his few spare moments or during his travels, his journalistic activity – he wrote every day for Neamul românesc, at first published twice a week and then daily, and for culture magazines. His autobiography A Man's Life, his numerous travel notes fully evince the man's literary qualities. In this respect too he wanted to teach. He tried thus to round off his historiographic works, striving to shape, to educate to mold minds.Many of the works signed by Nicolae Iorga are written in widely circulated languages. He was a member of more than 20 Academies and Societies in the world, a doctor honoris causa of ten Universities, to quote only Oxford, Rome and Paris. The historian also enjoyed international plaudit and respect. An elite personality of the Romanian culture, Iorga is also a personality of world spiritual fame, of outstanding prestige.In November 1940 he fell under the deadly blows of his political adversaries, a victim of hatred and intolerance. He disappeared like a titan, an exceptional personality of humankind, leaving behind an undying work that still represents him in the whole world. In fact, Iorga did not die and actually could not have ever died!
by Dan Berindei
