Lucian Blaga (May 9, 1895 – May 6, 1961) was a Romanian philosopher, poet, and playwright. Lucian Blaga was a commanding personality of the Romanian culture of the interbellum period. He was a philosopher and writer higly acclaimed for his originality, a university professor and a diplomat. He was born on May 9, 1895 in Lancrăm, near Alba Iulia, Romania, his father being an Orthodox priest.
He did not speak any words until he was four, and he later described his early childhood, in an autobiographical work "The Chronicle and the Song of Ages", as "under the sign of the incredible absence of word". In the poem "Self-Portrait" he describes himself: "Lucian Blaga is silent like a swan."
His elementary education was in Sebeş (1902–1906), after which he attended the "Andrei Şaguna" Highschool in Braşov (1906–1914), under the supervision of a relative, Iosif Blaga, who happened to be the author of the first Romanian treatise on the theory of drama. At the outbreak of the First World War, he began theological studies at Sibiu, where he graduated in 1917. He published his first philosophy article on the Bergson theory of subjective time. From 1917 to 1920, he attended courses at the University of Vienna, where he studied philosophy and obtained his PhD.
Upon returning to the re-unified Romania, he contributed to the Romanian press in Transylvania, being the editor of the magazines Culture in Cluj and The Banat in Lugoj.