Eliade, the great scholar of religion and myth, whose explorations of archaic 'realities' in The Myth of the Eternal Return and Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy regenerate the heart sickened by history, horrified by philosophies of progress, was one of that group of remarkably gifted Romanians in exile which included Brancusi, Paul Celan, Emile Cioran, Ionesco and others. As a theorist of myth, Eliade ranks along with Levi-Strauss, Malinowski and Cassirer.