Lucian Blaga (1895-1961) is judged by many to be Romania’s most original philosopher and greatest poet of the twentieth century. While scholars with access to his works in Romanian are well-aware of their importance, his work has remained, up to now, little known in the English-speaking world. The book represents one of the first efforts to make Blaga’s work accessible to an international audience. Zalmoxis is Blaga’s first play and one of his most important literary works. It underlines much of his philosophy and also reflects his poetry. Blaga’s attachment to Expressionist ideals is discernible in his treatment of the characters primarily as vehicles of ideas and his preference for primitive nature over the cultured metropolis.

This book includes an introduction by Keith Hitchins of the University of Illinois, one of the leading historians of Romania in the United States and a scholar intimately acquainted with Blaga’s life and work. In it, he discusses the life of Lucian Blaga, and the importance of his literary and philosophical work. The translation is by Doris Plantus-Runey from Wayne State University in the United States.