Mircea Eliade: "The myths of the modern world"

In the first chapter of his studyΒ Myths, dreams and mysteries (published in 1957), the Romanian historian of religions Mircea Eliade deals with the question of the survival of the Myth, more or less "disguised", in the modern world. The question from which his analysis starts is the following: "What have myths become in modern societies?" Or rather: what occupied the essential place that myth had in traditional societies?Β».Β With these premises, Eliade therefore investigates the function of mythical thought in the twentieth century, analyzing in the first place the different types of eschatology underlying the political myths of our time: the "communist myth" and the "national socialist" one.