September 7: The day writer Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu died, after grief over his daughter drew him to spiritualism

Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu died on September 7, 1907, after a life defined by extraordinary learning and a wide range of interests. The Romanian writer, historian and philologist was born on February 26, 1838, in Cristineștii Hotinului, now in Ukraine, and continued his secondary studies in Chișinău.

Hasdeu studied law but was drawn toward literature and history-philosophy. He began writing in Russian and did not complete his university studies in Kharkiv. After returning, he joined the Russian army and served as a second lieutenant during the Crimean War. His independent temperament did not suit military discipline, and he moved to Romania in 1856, the year of the Treaty of Paris.

He later became a judge in Cahul but was dismissed after campaigning for the union of Bessarabia with Romania. The early death of his daughter Julia, at only 19, pushed him toward depression and intense reflections on death. In a testamentary meditation, he wrote that when Julia died, “the homeland, science and woman, everything had died for him,” because he had concentrated the purest form of those loves in her.

His 1892 book, Sic Cogito, expressed what the article calls a tragic twilight vision. His grief drew him toward spiritualism, as it had Victor Hugo, and between 1894 and 1896 he built a castle-temple in Câmpina in Julia’s memory.

Hasdeu died at the age of 69, after a long illness, in a small house behind the castle. He was buried in Bucharest’s Bellu Cemetery, in a tomb he designed himself, beside the two Julias in his life. The article also notes that writer Eugen Barbu and actor Ilarion Ciobanu died on September 7, while Romanian aviator Mariana Drăgescu was born on that date in 1912.

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On the day of Julia Hasdeu’s death, her father also died. He could no longer live. From his ancestors, he inherited three loves: the homeland, science and woman. Everything that was purest in these three loves, their essence, he had concentrated in his daughter, a great patriot, a great genius, a great woman. She had become for him the prism of all his loves. When she died, the homeland, science and woman, everything had died for him.