Ion Creanga
Encyclopedia
Ion Creangă was a Moldavia
n-born Romania
n writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature
, he is best known for his Childhood Memories
volume, his novella
s and short stories
, and his many anecdote
s. Creangă's main contribution to fantasy
and children's literature
includes narratives structured around eponymous protagonists ("Harap Alb
", "Ivan Turbincă
", "Dănilă Prepeleac
", "Stan Păţitul"), as well as fairy tale
s indebted to conventional forms ("The Story of the Pig", "The Goat and Her Three Kids
", "The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law", "The Old Man's Daughter and the Old Woman's Daughter"). Widely seen as masterpieces of the Romanian language
and local humor, his writings occupy the middle ground between a collection of folkloric sources
and an original contribution to a literary realism
of rural inspiration. They are accompanied by a set of contributions to erotic literature
, collectively known as his "corrosives".
A defrocked
Romanian Orthodox
priest with an unconventional lifestyle, Creangă made an early impact as an innovative educator and textbook author, while pursuing a short career in nationalist
politics with the Fracţiunea liberă şi independentă group. His literary debut came late in life, closely following the start of his close friendship with Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu
and their common affiliation with the influential conservative
literary society Junimea
. Although viewed with reserve by many of his colleagues there, and primarily appreciated for his records of oral tradition
, Creangă helped propagate the group's cultural guidelines in an accessible form. Later criticism has often described him, alongside Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale
and Ioan Slavici
, as one of the most accomplished representatives of Junimist literature.
Ion Creangă was posthumously granted several honors, and is commemorated by a number of institutions in both Romania and neighboring Moldova
. These include the Bojdeuca building in Iaşi
, which, in 1918, was opened as the first memorial house in Romania. His direct descendants include Horia Creangă
, one of the leading Romanian architects during the interwar period
.
city, the son of Orthodox trader Ştefan sin Petre Ciubotariul and his wife Smaranda. His native area, bordering on heavily forested areas, was in the Eastern Carpathian
foothills, and included into what was then the principality of Moldavia. The surrounding region's population preserved an archaic way of life, dominated by shepherd
ing, textile manufacturing and related occupations, and noted for preserving the older forms of local folklore
. Another characteristic of the area, which left an impression on Creangă's family history, was related to the practice of transhumance
and the links between ethnic Romanian
communities on both sides of the mountains, in Moldavia and Transylvania
: on his maternal side, the writer descended from Maramureş
-born peasants, while, according to literary historian George Călinescu
, his father's origin may have been further southwest, in Transylvania-proper.
The family had reached a significant position within their community: Ştefan sin Petre had made a steady income from his itinerant trade in wool, while his wife was the descendant of the Creangăs of Pipirig
, a family of community leaders. The latter's members included Moldavian Metropolitan
Iacob Stamati, as well as Smaranda's father, Vornic
David, and her uncle Ciubuc Clopotarul, a monk at Neamţ Monastery
. Proud of this tradition, it was her who insisted for her son to pursue a career in the Church. According to his own recollection, the future writer was born on March 1, 1837—a date which has since been challenged. Creangă's other statements mention March 2, 1837, or an unknown date in 1836. The exactitude of other accounts is equally unreliable: community registers from the period gave the date of June 10, 1839, and mention another child of the same name being born to his parents on February 4, 1842 (the more probable birth date of Creangă's younger brother Zahei). The imprecision also touches other aspects of his family life: noting the resulting conflicts in data, Călinescu decided that it was not possible for one to know if the writer's parents were married to each other (and, if so, if they were on their first marriage), nor how many children they had together. At a time when family names were not legally required, and people were primarily known by various nicknames and patronymic
s, the boy was known to the community as Nică, a hypocorism formed from Ion, or more formally as Nică al lui Ştefan a Petrei ("Nică of Ştefan of Petru", occasionally Nic-a lui Ştefan a Petrei).
After an idyllic period, which is recounted in the first section of his Childhood Memories
, Ion Creangă was sent to primary school, an institution then in the care of Orthodox Church authorities, where he became noted for his rebellious attitude and appetite for truancy
. Among his colleagues was a female student, Smărăndiţa popii (known later as Smaranda Posea), for whom he developed an affection which lasted into his adult life, over decades in which the two no longer saw each other. He was taught reading and writing in Cyrillic alphabet
through peer tutor
ing techniques, before the overseeing teacher, Vasile a Ilioaiei, was lasso
ed off the street and conscripted by the Moldavian military
at some point before 1848. After another teacher, whom the Memories portray as a drunk, died from cholera
in late 1848, David Creangă withdrew his grandson from the local school and took him to a similar establishment in Broşteni
, handing him into the care of a middle-aged woman, Irinuca. Ion Creangă spent several months at Irinuca's remote house on the Bistriţa River
, before the proximity of goats resulted in a scabies
infection and his hastened departure for Pipirig, where he cured himself using birch
extract, a folk remedy mastered by his maternal grandmother Nastasia.
After returning to school between late 1849 and early 1850, Creangă was pulled out by his financially struggling father, spent the following period working in wool-spinning
, and became known by the occupational nickname Torcălău ("Spinster"). He only returned in third grade some four years later, having been sent to the Târgu Neamţ public school, newly founded by Moldavian Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica
as part of the Regulamentul Organic
string of reforms. A colleague of future philosopher Vasile Conta
in the class of priest and theologian Isaia "Popa Duhu" Teodorescu, Creangă was sent to the Fălticeni
seminary
in 1854. After having been registered as Ioan Ştefănescu (a variant of his given name and a family name based on his patronymic), the adolescent student eventually adopted his maternal surname of Creangă. According to Călinescu, this was done either "for aesthetic reasons" (as his new name, literally meaning "branch" or "bough", "sounds good") or because of a likely discovery that Ştefan was not his real father. Dan Grădinaru, a researcher of Creangă's work, believes that the writer had a special preference for the variant Ioan, generally used in more learned circles, instead of the variant Ion that was consecrated by his biographers.
Having witnessed, according to his own claim, the indifference and mundane preoccupations of his peers, Creangă admitted to having taken little care in his training, submitting to the drinking culture
, playing practical joke
s on his colleagues, and even shoplifting
, while pursuing an affair with the daughter of a local priest. According to his own statement, he was a philanderer who, early in his youth, had already "caught the scent" of the catrinţă (the skirt in traditional costumes
). In August 1855, circumstances again forced him to change schools: confronted with the closure of his Fălticeni school, Creangă left for the Central Seminary attached to Socola Monastery
, in Moldavia's capital of Iaşi
. Ştefan sin Petre's 1858 death left him without means of support, and he requested being directly ordained
, but, not being of the necessary age, was instead handed a certificate to attest his school attendance. He was soon after married, after a brief courtship, to the 15-year old Ileana, daughter of Priest Ioan Grigoriu from the church of the Forty Saints, where he is believed to have in training as a schoolteacher. The ceremony took place in August 1859, several months after the personal union
between Moldavia and its southern neighbor Wallachia
, effected by the election of Alexander John Cuza
as Domnitor
. Having been employed as a cantor
by his father in law's church, he was ordained in December of the same year, assigned to the position of deacon
in Holy Trinity Church, and, in May 1860, returned to Forty Saints. The relationship between Creangă and Grigoriu was however exceptionally tense. Only weeks after his wedding, the groom, who had probably agreed to marriage only because it could facilitate succeeding Grigoriu, signed a complaint addressed to Metropolitan Sofronie Miclescu, denouncing his father in law as "a killer", claiming to have been mistreated by him and cheated out of his wife's dowry
, and demanding to be allowed a divorce. The response to this request was contrary to his wishes: he was ordered into isolation by the Dicasterie, the supreme ecclesiastical court
, being allowed to go free only on promise to reconcile with Grigoriu.
, before his position as deacon was cut out of the budget and his belongings were evicted out of his temporary lodging in 1864. He contemplated leaving the city, and even officially requested a new assignment in the more remote Bolgrad
. Since January 1864, when the Faculty of Theology had been closed down, he had been attending Iaşi's Trei Ierarhi Monastery
normal school
(Trisfetite or Trei Sfetite), where he first met the young cultural figure Titu Maiorescu
, who served as his teacher and supervisor, and whence he graduated as the first in his class (June 1865). Embittered by his own experience with the education system
, Creangă became an enthusiastic promoter of Maiorescu's ideas on education reform
and modernization
, and in particular of the new methods of teaching reading and writing. During and after completing normal school, he was assigned to teaching positions at Trisfetite. While there, he earned the reputation of a demanding teacher (notably by accompanying his reports on individual students with characterizations such as "idiot", "impertinent" or "envious"). Accounts from the period state that he made use of corporal punishment in disciplining his pupils, and even surpassed the standards of violence accepted at the time.
In parallel, he was beginning his activities in support of education reform. By 1864, he and several others, among them schoolteacher V. Răceanu, were working on a new primer
, which saw print in 1868 under the title Metodă nouă de scriere şi cetire pentru uzul clasei I primară ("A New Method of Writing and Reading for the Use of 1st Grade Primary Course Students"). It mainly addressed the issues posed by the new Romanian alphabet
ical standard, a Romanization
replacing Cyrillic spelling
(which had been officially discarded in 1862). Largely based on Maiorescu's principles, Metodă nouă... became one the period's most circulated textbooks. In addition to didactic
texts, it also featured Creangă's isolated debut in lyric poetry
, with a naïve piece titled Păsărica în timpul iernii ("The Little Bird in Wintertime"). The book was followed in 1871 by another such work, published as Învăţătoriul copiilor ("The Children's Teacher") and co-authored by V. Răceanu. It included several prose fable
s and a sketch story
, "Human Stupidity", to which later editions added Poveste ("A Story") and Pâcală (a borrowing of the fictional folk character better known as Păcală
).
In February 1866, having briefly served at Iaşi's Pantelimon Church, he was welcomed by hegumen
Isaia Vicol Dioclias into the service of Golia Monastery
. Around 1867, his wife Ileana left him. After that moment, Creangă began losing interest in performing his duties in the clergy, and, while doing his best to hide that he was no longer living with his wife, took a mistress. The marriage's breakup was later attributed by Creangă himself to Ileana's adulterous
affair with a Golia monk, and rumors spread that Ileana's lover was a high-ranking official, the protopope
of Iaşi. Creangă's accusations, Călinescu contends, are nevertheless dubious, because the deacon persisted in working for the same monastery after the alleged incident.
By the second half of the 1860s, the future writer was also pursuing an interest in politics, which eventually led him to rally with the more nationalist
group within the Romanian liberal current
, known as Fracţiunea liberă şi independentă. An agitator for his party, Creangă became commonly known under the nickname Popa Smântână ("Priest Sour Cream"). In April 1866, shortly after Domnitor Cuza was toppled by a coup d'état
, and just before Carol I
was selected to replace him, the Romanian Army intervened to quell a separatist
riot in Iaşi, instigated by Moldavian Metropolitan
Calinic Miclescu. It is likely that Creangă shared the outlook of his fellow Fracţiunea members, according to which secession was preferable to Carol's rule, and was probably among the rioters. At around the same time, the priest also began circulating antisemitic tracts, and is said to have demanded that Christians boycott
Jewish business. He is thought to have coined the expression Nici un ac de la jidani ("Not even a needle from the kike
s"). He was eventually selected as one of the Fracţiunea candidates for a Iaşi seat in the Romanian Deputies' Chamber
, as documented by the memoir
s of writer Iacob Negruzzi, who was his conservative
adversary for the same seat. The episode is supposed to have taken place at the earliest during the 1871 suffrage.
By 1868, Creangă's rebellious stance was irritating his hierarchical superiors, and, according to Călinescu, his consecutive actions show that he was "going out of his way for scandal". He was initially punished for attending a Iaşi Theater performance, as well as for defiantly claiming that there was "nothing scandalous or demoralizing" in what he had seen, and reportedly further antagonized the monks by firing a gun to scare off the rooks nesting on his church. The latter incident, which some commentators believe fabricated by Creangă's detractors, was judged absurd by the ecclesiastical authorities, who had been further alarmed by negative reporting in the press. When told that no clergyman other than him had been seen using a gun, Creangă issued a reply deemed "Nasreddin
esque" by George Călinescu, maintaining that, unlike others, he was not afraid of doing so. Confronted by Metropolitan Calinic himself, Creangă allegedly argued that he could think of no other way to eliminate rooks, being eventually pardoned by the prelate when it was ruled that he had not infringed on canon law
.
Creangă eventually moved out of the monastery, but refused to relinquish his key to the church basement, and, in what was probably a modernizing
intent, chopped off his long hair, one of the traditional marks of an Orthodox priest. The latter gesture scandalized his superiors, particularly since Creangă explained himself using an ancient provision of canon law, which stipulated that priests were not supposed to grow their hair long. After some assessment, his superiors agreed not to regard this action as more than a minor disobedience. He was temporarily suspended in practice but, citing an ambiguity in the decision (which could be read as a banishment in perpetuity), Creangă considered himself defrocked
. He relinquished his clerical clothing
altogether and began wearing lay
clothes everywhere, a matter which caused public outrage.
By then a teacher at the 1st School for Boys, on Română Street, Creangă was ordered out of his secular assignment in July 1872, when news of his status and attitude reached Education Minister Christian Tell
. Upset by the circumstances, and objecting in writing on grounds that it did not refer to his teaching abilities, he fell back on income produced by a tobacconist
's shop he had established shortly before being dismissed. This stage marked a final development in Creangă's conflict with the church hierarchy. Summoned to explain why he was living the life of a shopkeeper, he responded in writing by showing his unwillingness to apologize, and indicated that he would only agree to face secular courts. The virulent text notably accused the church officials of being his enemies on account of his "independence, sincerity, honesty" in supporting the cause of "human dignity". After the gesture of defiance, the court recommended his defrocking, its decision being soon after confirmed by the synod
.
In the meantime, Creangă moved into what he called Bojdeuca (or Bujdeuca, both being Moldavian regional speech
for "tiny hut"), a small house located on the outskirts of Iaşi. Officially divorced in 1873, he was living there with his lover Ecaterina "Tinca" Vartic. A former laundress who had earlier leased one of the Bojdeuca rooms, she shared Creangă's peasant-like existence. This lifestyle implied a number of eccentricities, such as the former deacon's practice of wearing loose shirts throughout summer and bathing in a natural pond. His voracious appetite, called "proverbial gluttony" by George Călinescu, was attested by contemporary accounts. These depict him consuming uninterrupted successions of whole meals on a daily basis.
In May 1874, soon after taking over Minister of Education in the Conservative Party cabinet of Lascăr Catargiu
, his friend Maiorescu granted Creangă the position of schoolteacher in the Iaşi area of Păcurari. During the same period, Ion Creangă met and became best friends with Mihai Eminescu
, posthumously celebrated as Romania's national poet. This is said to have taken place in summer 1875, when Eminescu was working as an inspector for Maiorescu's Education Ministry, overseeing schools in Iaşi County
: reportedly, Eminescu was fascinated with Creangă's talents as a raconteur, while the latter admired Eminescu for his erudition.
, an upper class
literary club presided upon by Maiorescu, whose cultural and political prestige was increasing. This event, literary historian Z. Ornea argued, followed a time of indecision: as a former Fracţiunea affiliate, Creangă was a natural adversary of the mainstream Junimist "cosmopolitan
orientation", represented by both Maiorescu and Negruzzi, but was still fundamentally committed to Maiorescu's agenda in the field of education. Literary historians Carmen-Maria Mecu and Nicolae Mecu also argue that, after attending Junimea, the author was able to assimilate some of its innovative teachings into his own style of pedagogy
, and thus helped diffuse its message outside the purely academic environment.
The exact date of his reception is a mystery. According to Maiorescu's own recollections, written some decades after the event, Creangă was in attendance at a Junimea meeting of 1871, during which Gheorghe Costaforu proposed to transform the club into a political party. The information was considered dubious by Z. Ornea, who argued that the episode may have been entirely invented by the Junimist leader, and noted that it contradicted both Negruzzi's accounts and minutes
kept by A. D. Xenopol. According to Ornea's assessment, with the exception of literary critic Vladimir Streinu, all of Creangă's biographers have come to dismiss Maiorescu's statement. Several sources mention that the future writer was introduced to the society by Eminescu, who was an active member around 1875. This and other details lead Ornea to conclude that membership was granted to Creangă only after the summer break of 1875.
Gradually or instantly, Creangă made a positive impression by confirming with the Junimist ideal of authenticity. He also became treasured for his talkative and jocular nature, self-effacing references to himself as a "peasant", and eventually his debut works, which became subjects of his own public readings. His storytelling soon earned him dedicated spectators, who deemed Creangă's fictional universe a "sack of wonders" at a time when the author himself had started casually using the pseudonym Ioan Vântură-Ţară ("Ioan Gadabout"). Although still in his forties, the newcomer was also becoming colloquially known to his colleagues as Moş Creangă ("Old Man Creangă" or "Father Creangă"), which was a sign of respect and sympathy. Among Ion Creangă's most dedicated promoters were Eminescu, his former political rival Iacob Negruzzi, Alexandru Lambrior and Vasile Pogor
, as well as the so-called caracudă (roughly, "small game") section, which comprised Junimists who rarely took the floor during public debates, and who were avid listeners of his literary productions (it was to this latter gathering that Creangă later dedicated his erotic texts
). In parallel to his diversified literary contribution, the former priest himself became a noted voice in Junimist politics, and, like his new friend Eminescu, voiced support for the group's nationalist faction, in disagreement with the more cosmopolitan and aristocratic segment led by Maiorescu and Petre P. Carp
. By that the late 1870s, he was secretly redirecting the political support of some former Fracţiunea colleagues toward his new colleagues, as confirmed by an encrypted
letter he addressed to Negruzzi in March 1877.
first publish in October by the club's magazine Convorbiri Literare. In all, Convorbiri Literare would publish 15 works of fiction and the four existing parts of his Childhood Memories
before Creangă's death. Reportedly, the decision to begin writing down his stories had been the direct result of Eminescu's persuasion. His talent for storytelling and its transformation into writing fascinated his new colleagues. Several among them, including poet Grigore Alexandrescu
, tasked experimental psychologist
Eduard Gruber with closely studying Creangă's methods, investigations which produced a report evidencing Creangă's laborious and physical approach to the creative process. The latter also involved his frequent exchanges of ideas with Vartic, in whom he found his primary audience. In addition to his fiction writing, the emerging author followed Maiorescu's suggestion and, in 1876, published a work of educational methodology
and the phonemic orthography
favored by Junimea: Povăţuitoriu la cetire prin scriere după sistema fonetică ("Guide to Reading by Writing in the Phonetic System"). It was supposed to become a standard textbook for the training of teachers, but was withdrawn from circulation soon afterward, when the Catargiu cabinet fell.
After losing his job as school inspector following the decisions of a hostile National Liberal
executive, Mihai Eminescu spent much of his time in Bojdeuca, where he was looked after by the couple. For five months after quarreling with Samson Bodnărescu
, his fellow poet and previous landlord, Eminescu even moved inside the house, where he reputedly pursued his discreet love affair with woman writer Veronica Micle
, and completed as many as 22 of his poems. Creangă introduced his younger friend to a circle of companions which included Zahei Creangă, who was by then a cantor, as well as Răceanu, priest Gheorghe Ienăchescu, and clerk Nicşoi (all of whom, Călinescu notes, had come to share the raconteur's lifestyle choices and his nationalist opinions). Eminescu was especially attracted by their variant of simple life, the rudimentary setting of Creangă's house and the group's bohemian
escapades. Circumstances drew the two friends apart: by 1877, Eminescu had relocated in Bucharest
, the capital city, regularly receiving letters in which Creangă was asking him to return. He was however against Eminescu's plan to marry Veronica Micle, and made his objection known to the poet. In 1879, as a sign that he was formalizing his own affair with Tinca Vartic, Creangă purchased the Bojdeuca in her name, paying his former landlord 40 Austrian gulden
in exchange. That same year, he, Răceanu and Ienăchescu published the textbook Geografia judeţului Iaşi ("The Geography of Iaşi County"), followed soon after by a map of the same region, researched by Creangă and Răceanu. A final work in the area of education followed in 1880, as a schoolteacher's version of Maiorescu's study of Romanian grammar
, Regulile limbei române ("Rules of the Romanian Language").
, suffering accelerated and debilitating episodes. He was also severely overweight, weighing some 120 kilograms (over 250 pounds), with a height of 1.85 meters (6 feet), and being teasingly nicknamed Burduhănosul ("Tubby") by his friends (although, according to testimonies by his son and daughter-in-law, he did not actually look his size).
Despite his activity being much reduced, he still kept himself informed about the polemics agitating Romania's cultural and political scene. He was also occasionally hosting Eminescu, witnessing his friend's struggle with mental disorder. The two failed to reconnect, and their relationship ended. After one of the meetings, he recorded that the delusional poet was carrying around a revolver with which to fend off unknown attackers—among the first in a series of episodes which ended with Eminescu's psychiatric confinement and death during June 1889. Around that time, Creangă, like other Junimists, was involved in a clash of ideas with the emerging Romanian socialist
and atheistic
group, rallied around Contemporanul
magazine. This occurred after Contemporanul founder Ioan Nădejde publicly ridiculed Învăţătoriul copiilor over its take on creationism
, quoting its claim that "the invisible hand of God" was what made seeds grow into plants. Creangă replied with a measure of irony, stating that "had God not pierced the skin over our eyes, we would be unable to see each other's mistakes". Nevertheless, Călinescu argued, Nădejde's comments had shaken his adversary's religious sentiment, leading Creangă to question the immortality of the soul in a letter he addressed to one of his relatives in the clergy. According to other assessments, he was himself an atheist, albeit intimately so.
In 1887, the National Liberal Ministry of Dimitrie Sturdza
removed Creangă from his schoolteacher's post, and he subsequently left for Bucharest in order to petition for his pension
rights. Having hoped to be granted assistance by Maiorescu, he was disappointed when the Junimea leader would not respond to his request, and, during his final years, switched allegiance to the literary circle founded by Nicolae Beldiceanu (where he was introduced by Gruber). Among Creangă's last works was a fourth and final part of his Memories, most likely written during 1888. The book remained unfinished, as did the story Făt-frumos, fiul iepei ("Făt-Frumos
, Son of the Mare"). He died after an epileptic crisis, on the last day of 1889, his body being buried in Iaşi's Eternitatea Cemetery
. His funeral ceremony was attended by several of Iaşi's intellectuals (Vasile Burlă, A. C. Cuza
, Dumitru Evolceanu, Nicolae Iorga
and Artur Stavri among them).
by recovering authenticity, and reacting against those cultural imports it deemed excessive, the group notably encouraged individual creativity among peasants. Reflecting back on Maiorescu's role in the process, George Călinescu wrote: "A literary salon where the personal merit would take the forefront did not exist [before Junimea] and, had Creangă been born two decades earlier, he would not have been able to present 'his peasant material' to anyone. Summoning the creativity of the peasant class and placing it in direct contact with the aristocrats is the work of Junimea." His cogenerationist and fellow literary historian Tudor Vianu
issued a similar verdict, commenting: "Junimea is itself [...] an aristocratic society. Nevertheless, it is through Junimea that surfaced the first gesture of transmitting a literary direction to some writers of rural extraction: a phenomenon of great importance, the neglect of which would render unexplainable the entire subsequent development of our literature." Also referring to cultural positioning within and outside the group, Carmen-Maria Mecu and Nicolae Mecu took the acceptance of "literate peasants" such as Creangă as exemplary proof of Junimist "diversity" and "tolerance".
Maiorescu is known to have had much appreciation for Creangă and other writers of peasant origin, such as Ion Popovici-Bănăţeanu and Ioan Slavici
. Late in life, he used this connection to challenge accusations of Junimist elitism
in the face of criticism from more populist
traditionalists. Nonetheless, Junimea members in general found Creangă more of an entertainer rather than a serious writer, and treasured him only to the measure where he illustrated their theories about the validity of rural literature as a source of inspiration for cultured authors. Therefore, Iacob Negruzzi sympathetically but controversially referred to his friend as "a primitive and uncouth talent". Maiorescu's critical texts also provide little individual coverage of Creangă's contributions, probably because these failed to comply exactly with his stratification of literary works into poporane ("popular", that is anonymous or collective) and otherwise. Tudor Vianu's theory defines Creangă as a prime representative of the "popular realism
" guidelines (as sporadically recommended by the Junimist doyen himself), cautioning however that Creangă's example was never mentioned in such a context by Maiorescu personally.
Although he occasionally downplayed his own contribution to literature, Creangă himself was aware that his texts went beyond records of popular tradition, and made significant efforts to be recognized as an original author (by corresponding with fellow writers and willingly submitting his books to critical scrutiny). Vianu commented at length on the exact relationship between the narrative borrowed from oral tradition
and Creangă's "somewhat surreptitious" method of blending his own style into the folkloric standard, likening it to the historical process whereby local painters improvised over the strict canons of Byzantine art
. Creangă's complex take on individuality and the art of writing was attested by the his own foreword to an edition of his collected stories, in which he addressed the reader directly: "You may have read many stupid things since you were put on this Earth. Please read these as well, and where it should be that they don't agree with you, take hold of a pen and come up with something better, for this is all I could see myself doing and did."
An exception among Junimea promoters was Eminescu, himself noted for expressing a dissenting social perspective which only partly mirrored Maiorescu's take on conservatism. According to historian Lucian Boia
, the "authentic Moldavian peasant" that was Creangă also complemented Eminescu's own "more metaphysical
" peasanthood. Similarly, Z. Ornea notes that the poet used Creangă's positions to illustrate his own ethnonationalist
take on Romanian culture
, an in particular his claim that rural authenticity lay hidden by a "superimposed stratum" of urbanized ethnic minorities
. 20th century critics have described Creangă as one of his generation's most accomplished figures, and a leading exponent of Junimist literature. This verdict is found in several of Vianu's texts, which uphold Creangă as a great exponent of his generation's literature, comparable to fellow Junimea members Eminescu, Slavici and Ion Luca Caragiale
. This view complements George Călinescu's definition, placing the Moldavian author in the company of Slavici and Caragiale as one of the "great prose writers" of the 1880s. Lucian Boia, who noted that "the triad of Romanian classics" includes Creangă alongside Eminescu and Caragiale, also cautioned that, compared to the other two (with whom "the Romanians have said almost all there is to say about themselves"), Creangă has "a rather more limited register".
The frequent comparison between Creangă and Caragiale in particular is seen by Vianu as stemming from both their common "wide-ranging stylistic means" and their complementary positions in relations to two superimposed phenomenons, with Caragiale's depiction of the petite bourgeoisie
as the rough equivalent of Creangă's interest in the peasantry. The same parallelism is explained by Ornea as a consequence of the two authors' social outlook: "[Their works] have cemented aesthetically the portrayal of two worlds. Creangă's is the peasant world, Caragiale's the suburban and urban one. Two worlds which represent, in fact, two characteristic steps and two sociopolitical models in the evolution of Romanian structures which [...] were confronting themselves in a process that would later prove decisive." According to the same commentator, the two plus Eminescu are their generation's great writers, with Slavici as one "in their immediate succession." While listing what he believes are elements bridging the works of Creangă and Caragiale, other critics have described as strange the fact that the two never appear to have mentioned each other, and stressed that, although not unlikely, a direct encounter between them was never recorded in sources.
and archaism
s, their accumulation making Creangă's work very difficult to translate, George Călinescu reacted against claims that the narratives reflected antiquating patterns. He concluded that, in effect, Creangă's written language was the equivalent of a "glossological
museum", and even contrasted by the writer's more modern everyday parlance. Also discussing the impression that Creangă's work should be read with a Moldavian accent, noted for its "softness of sound" in relation to standard Romanian phonology
, Călinescu cautioned against interpretative exaggerations, maintaining that the actual texts only offer faint suggestions of regional pronunciation. Contrasting Creangă with the traditions of literature produced by Wallachia
ns in what became the standard literary language
, Călinescu also argued in favor of a difference in mentality: the "balance" evidenced by Moldavian speech and illustrated in Ion Creangă's writings is contrasted by the "discoloration and roughness" of "Wallachianism
". He also criticized those views according to which Creangă's variant of the literary language was "beautiful", since it failed to "please everyone on account of some acoustical
beauty", and since readers from outside the writer's native area could confront it "with some irritation." For Călinescu, the result nevertheless displays "an enormous capacity of authentic speech", also found in the works of Caragiale and, in the 20th century, Mihail Sadoveanu
. According to the same commentator, the dialectical interventions formed a background to a lively vocabulary, a "hermetic
" type of "argot
", which contained "hilarious double entendre
s and indecent onomatopoeia", passing from "erudite beauty" to "obscene laughter". Some of the expressions characteristic of Creangă's style are obscure in meaning, and some other, such as "drought made the snake scream inside the frog's mouth", appear to be spontaneous and nonsensical. Another specific trait of this language, commented upon by Vianu's and compared by him to the aesthetics of Classicism
, sees much of Creangă's prose being set to a discreet poetic meter
.
The recourse to oral literature
schemes made it into his writings, were it became a defining trait. As part of this process, Călinescu assessed, "Creangă acts as all his characters in turn, for his stories are almost entirely spoken. [...] When Creangă recounts, the composition is not extraordinary, but once his heroes begin talking, their gesticulation and wording reach a height in typical storytelling." According to the critic, discovering this "fundamental" notion about Creangă's work was the merit of literary historian and Viaţa Românească
editor Garabet Ibrăileanu
, who had mentioned it as a main proof of affiliation to realism. The distinctive manner of characterization through "realistic dialogues" is seen by Vianu as a highly personal intervention and indicator of the Moldavian writer's originality. Both Vianu and Călinescu discussed this trait, together with the technique of imparting subjective narration
in-between characters' replies, as creating other meeting points between Creangă and his counterpart Caragiale. Partly replicating in paper the essence of social gatherings, Ion Creangă often tried to transpose the particular effects of oral storytelling into writing. Among these characteristic touches were interrogations addressed to the readers as imaginary listeners, and pausing for effect with the visual aid of ellipsis
. He also often interrupted his narratives with concise illustrations of his point, often in verse form, and usually introduced by vorba ceea (an expression literally meaning "that word", but covering the sense of "as word goes around"). One example of this connects the notions of abundance and personal satisfaction:
In other cases, the short riddles relate to larger themes, such as divine justification for one's apparent fortune:
, the accounts appeal to cultured tastes, having as the generation of comedy and volubility as their main purpose. According to Vianu's assessment Creangă was "a supreme artist" whose use of "typical sayings" attests "a man of the people, but not an anonymous and impersonal sample." These verdicts, directly contradicting Junimist theories, were mirrored by several other 20th century exegetes belonging to distinct schools of thought: Pompiliu Constantinescu
, Benjamin Fondane
and Ion Negoiţescu
. Writing during the second half of the century, critic Nicolae Manolescu
passed a similar judgment, believing that Creangă was motivated by a "strictly intellectual sensuousness" and the notion that "pleasure arises from gratuitousness", while Manolescu's colleague Mircea Braga referred to "the great secret of the man who has managed to transfer unaltered the code of popular creativity into the immanence of the cultured one." In Braga's assessment, this synthesis managed "the impossible", but the difficulty of repeating it with each story also resulted in mediocre writings: "from among his few texts, even fewer are located on the relatively highest level of the relative aesthetic hierarchy".
Călinescu viewed such intellectual traits as shared by Creangă with his Wallachian counterpart Anton Pann
, in turn linking both writers to the satirical component of Renaissance literature
, and specifically to François Rabelais
. Within local tradition, the literary historian saw a symbolic connection between Creangă and the early 18th century figure, Ion Neculce
, one of Moldavia's leading chroniclers. While he made his own comparison between Creangă and Pann, Tudor Vianu concluded that the Moldavian writer was in fact superior, as well as being more relevant to literature than Petre Ispirescu
, the prime collector of tales in 19th century Wallachia. Also making use of the Rabelais analogy, literary chronicler Gabriela Ursachi found another analogy in local letters: Ion Budai-Deleanu, an early 19th century representative of the Transylvanian School
, whose style mixes erudite playfulness with popular tastes. These contextual traits, researchers assess, did not prevent Creangă's overall work from acquiring a universal aspect, particularly since various of his writings use narrative sequences common throughout world literature.
George Călinescu also assessed that these literary connections served to highlight the elevated nature of Creangă's style, his "erudite device", concluding: "Writers such as Creangă can only show up in places where the word is ancient and equivocal, and where experience has been condensed into unchanging formulas. It would have been more natural for such a prose writer to have emerged a few centuries later, into an era of Romanian humanism
. Born much earlier, Creangă showed up where there exists an ancient tradition, and therefore a species of erudition, [...] in a mountain village [...] where the people is unmixed and keeping [with tradition]." Outlining his own theory about the aspects of "national specificity" in Romanian letters, he expanded on these thoughts, listing Creangă and Eminescu as "core Romanians" who illustrated a "primordial note", complemented by the "southern" and "Balkan
" group of Caragiale and others. Claiming that the "core" presence had "not primitive, but ancient" origins, perpetuated by "stereotype
d wisdom" and "energetic fatalism
", he asserted: "Creangă shows our civilization's contemporaneity with the world's oldest civilizations, our Asia
n age." The alternating national and regional characteristics in Creangă's writings are related by historian Neagu Djuvara
with the writer's place of birth, an affluent village in an isolated region, contrasting heavily with the 19th century Wallachian countryside: "if the mud hut villages of the Danube flood plain are to be taken into account, one finds himself in a different country." Ornea, who noted that Eminescu effectively shared Creangă's worldview, believed the latter to have been dominated by nostalgia
for a world of independent landowning peasants, and argued that Creangă's literary and political outlook were both essentially conservative. Ornea commented: "One could say that it was through [this form of nostalgia] that the writer debuted and that, within the space of his work it became, in its own right, an expression of the world that was about to vanish." Commenting on Creangă's "robust realism" and lack of "sentimentality
", Vianu contrarily asserted: "Creangă's nostalgia [...] has an individual, not social, sense."
The witty and playful side of Creangă's personality, which became notorious during his time at Junimea and constituted a significant part of his appeal, was reflected into a series of anecdote
s. These accounts detail his playing the ignorant in front of fellow Junimists in order not to antagonize sides during literary debates (notably, by declaring himself "for against" during a two-option vote), his irony in reference to his own admirers (such as when he asked two of them to treasure the photograph of himself in the middle and the two of them on either side, while comparing it to the crucifixion scene
and implicitly assigning them the role of thieves), and his recourse to puns and proverbs which he usually claimed to be citing from oral tradition and the roots of Romanian humor. The latter habit was notably illustrated by his answer to people who would ask him for money: "not since I born was I as poor as I was poor yesterday and the day before yesterday and last week and last week and throughout life". His joyfulness complemented his overall Epicureanism
and his gourmand
habits: his accounts are often marked by a special interest in describing acts related to food and drink. Overall, Eduard Gruber's report contended, Creangă's writing relied on him being "a strong sensual and auditive type", and a "very emotional" person.
Ion Creangă's sense of humor was instrumental in forging the unprecedented characteristics of his work. American
critic Ruth S. Lamb, the writer's style merges "the rich vocabulary of the Moldavian peasant" with "an original gaiety and gusto comparable to that of Rabelais." According to George Călinescu: "[Creangă] got the idea that he was a clever man, like all men of the people, and therefore used irony to make himself seem stupid." In Călinescu's view, the author's antics had earned him a status equivalent to that of his Wallachian Junimist counterpart Caragiale, with the exception that the latter found his inspiration in urban settings, matching "Nasreddin
isms" with "Miticism
". Z. Ornea sees the main protagonists in Creangă's comedic narratives as, in effect, "particularized incarnations of the same symbolic character", while the use of humor itself reflects the traditional mindset, "a survival through intelligence, that of a people with an old history, whose life experience has for centuries been concentrated into gestures and words."
, fantasy
and children's literature
genres involved collecting and transforming narratives circulating throughout his native region, which intertwine with his characteristic storytelling to the point where they become original contributions. According to Călinescu, the traditional praise for Ion Creangă as a creator of literary types is erroneous, since his characters primarily answered to ancient and linear narrative designs. The conclusion is partly shared by Braga, who links Creangă's tales to ethnological
and anthropological
takes on the themes and purposes of fairy tale
s, postulating the prevalence of three ancient and related narrative pretexts throughout his contributions: the preexistence of a "perturbing situation" (attributable to fatality), the plunging of the hero into a rite of passage
-type challenge, a happy ending
which brings the triumph of good over evil (often as a brutal and uncompromising act). Like their sources and predecessors in folklore, these accounts also carry transparent moral
s, ranging from the regulation of family life to meditations about destiny and lessons about tolerating the marginals. However, Swedish
researcher Tom Sandqvist argues, they also illustrate the absurdist
vein of some traditional narratives, by featuring "grotesqueries" and "illogical surprises".
With "The Goat and Her Three Kids
", written mainly as a picturesque
illustration of motherly love, Creangă produced a fable
in prose, opposing the eponymous characters, caricatures of a garrulous but hard-working woman and her restless sons, to the sharp-toothed Big Bad Wolf
, a satirical
depiction of the cunning and immoral stranger. The plot shows the wolf making his way into the goat's house, where he eats the two older and less obedient kids, while the youngest one manages to escape by hiding up the chimney—the symbolism of which was psychoanalyzed
by Dan Grădinaru, who claims it constitutes an allusion to Creangă's own childhood. The dénouement sees an inversion of the natural roles, an episode which, ethnologist Şerban Anghelescu notes, is dominated by "the culinary fire": the goat exercises her brutal revenge by trapping and slowly cooking the predator. This approach partly resonates with that of "The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law", in which Creangă makes ample use of a traditional theme in Romanian humor, which portrays mothers-in-law as mean, stingy and oppressive characters. The embodiment of such offensive traits, she is also shown to be ingenious, pretending that she has a hidden third eye
which always keeps things under watch. The narrator sides with the three young women in depicting their violent retribution, showing them capturing their oppressor, torturing her until she is left speech impaired, and leaving her on the brink of death. The mother-in-law's end turns into a farce: the eldest and most intelligent of the killers manipulates her victim's dying sounds into a testament partitioning her wealth, and a thin decorum is maintained at the funeral ceremony by the daughters' hypocritical sobbing.
"The Story of the Pig" partly illustrates the notion that parental love subdues even physical repulsion, showing an elderly peasant couple cherishing their adopted porcine son, who, unbeknown to them, is enchanted. The creature instantly offsets his parents' sadness and immobility by his witty intelligence. Having applied his perseverance and spells to erect a magical bridge, the piglet fulfills the requirement for marrying the emperor's daughter, after which it is uncovered that he is a Făt-Frumos
or Prince Charming
character who assumes his real identity only by night. Although the plot is supposed to deal with imperial magnificence in fairy tale fashion, the setting is still primarily rural, and the court itself is made to look like an elevated peasant community. According to researcher Marcu Beza, the text is, outside of its humorous context, a distant reworking of ancient legends such as Cupid and Psyche
. The story introduces three additional characters, old women who assess and reward the efforts of the virtuous: Holy Wednesday, Holy Friday and Holy Sunday. They represent a mix of Christian and pagan
traditions, by being both personifications of the liturgical calendar
and fairy
-like patrons of the wilderness (zâne
).
A similar perspective was favored by "The Old Man's Daughter and the Old Woman's Daughter". Here, the theme echoes Cinderella
, but, according to Călinescu, the rural setting provides a sharp contrast to the classical motif. Persecuted by her stepmother and stepsister, the kind and loving daughter of the old man is forced into a position of servitude reflecting the plight of many peasant women in Creangă's lifetime. In this case, the old man is negatively depicted as cowardly and entirely dominated by his mean wife. The focal point of the narrative is the meeting between the good daughter and Holy Sunday. The latter notices and generously rewards the girl's helpful nature and mastery of cooking; in contrast, when her envious sister attempts the same and fails, she ends up being eaten by serpent-like creatures (balaur
i). The happy ending
sees the good girl marrying not Prince Charming, but a simple man described as "kind and industrious"—this outcome, Călinescu assessed, did not in effect spare the old man's daughter from a life of intense labor. A story very similar to "The Old Man's Daughter..." is "The Purse a' Tuppence", which teaches that greed can shatter families, while offering symbolic retribution to men who are unhappy in marriage. The old man's rooster, chased away by the old woman for being unproductive, ends up amassing a huge fortune, which he keeps inside his belly and regurgitates back into the courtyard; the jealous old woman ends up killing her favorite hen, who has failed in replicating the rooster's feat.
Several of Creangă's characteristic novella
s are infused with themes from Christian mythology
, fictionalizing God, Saint Peter
and the army of devils, most often with the comedic intent of showing such personages behaving like regular people. A defining story in this series is "Dănilă Prepeleac
", whose eponymous peasant hero is characterized by what Şerban Anghelescu calls "idiocy serving to initiate", or, according to Gabriela Ursachi, "complete, and therefore sublime, stupidity." The first part of the story shows Dănilă exchanging his oxen for an empty bag—a set of dialogues which, George Călinescu argued, is almost exactly like a comedy play. In what was described as a complete reversal in characterization, the hero uses intelligence and ruse to trick and frighten several devils. Contrarily, "Stan Păţitul" shows its hero fraternizing with a lesser demon. Following the opening episode, in which the latter accidentally eats a bit of mămăligă
dedicated by Stan to those who honor God, Satan
himself condemns his subordinate to service the peasant. Călinescu highlights the naturalness of exchanges between the two protagonists, the latter of whom assumes the endearing form of a frail boy, Chirică, who ends up moving in with Stan and entering his service. The writing was also noted for other realistic elements alluding to everyday life, such as the overtly colloquial exchange between Chirică and Satan, or the episodes in which the young devil helps Stan woo a peasant woman. Although relatively young, Stan himself is referred to as stătut ("frowzy" or "lacking in freshness"), and the wording reflects rural attitudes about men who fail to marry during a certain age interval. Toward the end, the story focuses on a corrupt old woman who tries to trick Stan's new wife into committing adultery, but fails and is banished to the remotest area of Hell. Viewed by Călinescu as Creangă's "most original manner of dealing with the fabulous", and paralleled by him with Caragiale's Kir Ianulea
on account of its realist approach to the supernatural, "Stan Păţitul" is, according to Vianu, untraceable in its inspiration: "[its] folk origin could not be identified, but it is not dismissible".
Another account in this series is "Ivan Turbincă
", whose protagonist, a Russia
n serviceman, is shown rebelling against Heaven and Hell, and ultimately accomplishing the human ideal of cheating Death
. The plot retells a theme present in both Romanian tradition and Ukrainian folklore
, while, according to researcher of children's literature Muguraş Constantinescu, the main character is similar to German tradition
's Till Eulenspiegel
. In the beginning of the account, God rewards the soldier's exemplary charity by granting him a pouch (turbincă), which can miraculously trap anything in existence. In order to circumvent the laws of nature, Ivan subsequently makes use of both his magical item and his innate shrewdness. In one such episode, pretending not to understand the proper position of bodies inside a coffin, he tricks impatient Death into taking his place, and traps her inside. Eventually, he is allowed to keep his life, but is promised an eternity of old age, which he ingeniously counterbalances by attending an endless succession of wedding parties, and therefore never having to feel sad.
"Harap Alb
", one of Ion Creangă's most complex narratives, carries a moral defined by Călinescu as "the gifted man will earn a reputation under any guise." The story opens with a coming of age
quest, handed down by a king to his three sons: the most fit among them is supposed to reach the court of the Green Emperor, who is the king's brother, and succeed him to the throne. According to Călinescu, the mission bases itself on travels undertaken by young men in Creangă's native region, while the subsequent episodes in the narrative reinforce the impression of familiarity, from the "peasant speech" adopted by the villain
known as the Bald Man, to the "crass vulgarity" evidenced by the antagonist
Red Emperor. Forced to pass himself off as a foreign servant (or "Moor
"), the prince is three times tested and aided by Holy Sunday, who doubles as the queen of zâne
creatures. Călinescu described as "playful realism" the method through which Creangă outlined the mannerisms of several other characters, in particular the allegorical
creatures who provide the youngest prince with additional and serendipitous assistance. In one noted instance, the characters Setilă ("Drink-All") and Flămânzilă ("Eat-All") help the hero overcome seemingly impossible tasks set by the Red Emperor, by ingesting unnaturally huge amounts of food and drink.
The tale builds on intricate symbolism stemming from obscure sources. It features what Muguraş Constantinescu calls "the most complex representation of Holy Sunday", with mention of her isolated and heavenly abode on "flower island". A background antithesis
opposes the two fictional monarchs, with the Red Emperor replicating an ancient tradition which attributes malignant characteristics to the color. By contrast, the Green Emperor probably illustrates the ideals of vitality and healthy lifestyle, as hinted by his culinary preference for "lettuce from the garden of the bear". Historian Adrian Majuru, building on earlier observations made by linguist Lazăr Şăineanu
, also connects the servant-prince's antagonists with various reflections of ethnic strife in Romanian folklore: the Red Emperor as standing for the medieval Khazars
("Red Jews
"), the Bald Man as a popular view of the Tatars
.
Childhood Memories
is, together with a short story about his teacher Isaia Teodorescu (titled "Popa Duhu"), one of Creangă's two memoir
s. George Călinescu proposed that, like his fairy tales, the book illustrates popular narrative conventions, a matter accounting for their special place in literature: "The stories are true, but typical, without depth. Once retold with a different kind of gesticulation, the subject would lose all of its lively atmosphere." Also based on the techniques of traditional oral accounts, it features the topical interventions of a first-person narrator
in the form of soliloquies
, and reflects in part the literary canon set by frame stories
. The resulting effect, Călinescu argued, was not that of "a confession or a diary", but that of a symbolic account depicting "the childhood of the universal child." According to Vianu, the text is especially illustrative of its author's "spontaneous passage" between the levels of "popular" and "cultured" literature: "The idea of fictionalizing oneself, of outlining one's formative steps, the steady accumulation of impressions from life, and then the sentiment of time, of its irreversible flow, of regret for all things lost in its consumption, of the charm relived through one's recollections are all thoughts, feelings and attitudes defining a modern man of culture. No popular model could have ever stood before Creangă when he was writing his Memories, but, surely, neither could the cultured prototypes of the genre, the first autobiographies and memoirs of the Renaissance". Grădinaru and essayist Mircea Moţ analyzed the volume as a fundamentally sad text, in stated contrast with its common perception as a recollection of joyful moments: the former focused on moments which seem to depict Nică as a loner, the latter highlighted those sections which include Creangă's bitter musings about destiny and the impregnability of changes. A distinct interpretation was provided by critic Luminiţa Marcu, who reacted against the tradition of viewing Creangă's actual childhood as inseparable from his own subjective rendition.
Several of the book's episodes have drawn attention for the insight they offer into the culture, structure and conflicts of traditional society before 1900. Commenting on this characteristic, Djuvara asserted: "even if we take into account that the grown-up will embellish, transfigure, 'enrich' the memories of his childhood, how could we not recognize the sincerity in Creangă's heart-warming evocation of his childhood's village?" The book stays true to life in depicting ancient customs: discussing the impact of paganism on traditional Romanian customs, Marcu Beza communicated a detail of Creangă's account, which shows how January 1 celebrations of Saint Basil
opposed the loud buhai
players reenacting a fertility rite
to people preferring a quieter celebration. The work also offers details on the traditional roles of a rural society such as that of Humuleşti, in the context of social change. Muguraş Constantinescu highlights the important roles of old men and women within Nică's universe, and especially that of his grandfather and "clan
leader" David Creangă. The latter, she notes, is an "enlightened man" displaying "the wisdom and balance of the ripe age", a person able to insist on the importance of education, and a churchgoer who frowns on "his wife's bigotry
." The seniors' regulatory role within the village is evidenced throughout the book, notoriously so in the episode where the boy captures a hoopoe
who bothers his morning sleep, only to be tricked into releasing it by old man, who understands the bird's vital role as village alarm clock.
Another significant part of the account, detailing Creangă's education, shows him frustrated by the old methods of teaching, insisting on the absurd image of children learning by heart and chanting elements of Romanian grammar
and even whole texts. The narrator refers to this method as "a terrible way to stultify the mind". The negative portrayal of teaching priests was commented by writer and critic Horia Gârbea
as proof of the author's anticlericalism, in line with various satirical works targeting the Romanian clergy: "Creangă's Memories of the catechism
school would discourage any candidate."
fables written as lively dialogues, among them "The Needle and the Sledge Hammer", in which the objects of traditional metalworking
scold the byproducts of their work for having forgotten their lowly origin. The inspiration behind this theme was identified by Călinescu as "The Story of a Gold Coin", written earlier by Creangă's Junimist colleague Vasile Alecsandri
. A similar piece, "The Flax and the Shirt", reveals the circuit of fibers from weed-like plants into recycled cloth, leading to the conclusion that "all things are not what they seem; they were something else once, they are something else now;—and shall become something else." The technique employed by Creangă has the flax plant teaching the less knowledgeable textile, a dialogue which Călinescu likened to that between old women in a traditional society. Included alongside the two stories were: Pâcală, a writing which, Mircea Braga argued, is not as much didactic as it is a study in dialogue; "The Bear Tricked by the Fox", which uses legendary and humorous elements in an attempt to explain why bears are the tail-less species among mammals; and Cinci pâini ("Five Loafs of Bread"), which serves as a condemnation of greed.
With "Human Stupidity", Creangă builds a fable about incompetence in its absolute forms. The story centers on a peasant's quest to find people who are less rational than his wife, having been infuriated by her panic at the remote possibility that a ball of salt could fall from its place of storage and kill their baby. This, essayist and chronicler Simona Vasilache argues, highlights "a family-based division" of illogical behavior, in which women are depicted as the main propagators of both "astonishing nonsense" and "prudent stupidity". Instead, literary critic Ion Pecie identified inside the narrative a meditation on "the link between spirit and nature", with the unpredictable ball of salt representing the equivalent of a "sphinx
". His colleague Gheorghe Grigurcu argued that such conclusions "may seem excessive", but that they were ultimately validated by the literary work being "a plurality of levels". A similar piece is the prose fable "The Story of a Lazy Man": fed up with the protagonist's proverbial indolence, which has led him as far as to view chewing food as an effort, his fellow villagers organize a lynching
. This upsets the sensibility of a noblewoman who happens to witness the incident. When she offers to take the lazy man into her care and feed him bread crumbs, he seals his own fate by asking: "But are your bread crumbs soft?" The peculiar effect of this moral is underlined by Anghelescu: "The lazy man dies as a martyr
of his own immobility." Braga interpreted the story as evidence of "the primacy of ethics" over social aspects in the local tradition. Ion Pecie saw in the story proof of Creangă's own support for capital punishment
with a preventive or didactic purpose, even in cases were the fault was trivial or imagined, concluding: "Here, [...] Creangă loses much of his depth." Pecie's conclusion was treated with reserve by Grigurcu, who believed that, instead, the narrator refrains from passing any judgment on "the community's instinctual eugenic
reaction".
Partly didactic in scope, several of Creangă's anecdote
s involve Ion Roată
, a representative to the ad-hoc Divan which voted in favor of Moldo-Wallachian union
, and the newly elected Domnitor
Alexander John Cuza
. The texts convey a sense of tension between the traditional boyar
aristocracy and the peasant category, closely reflecting, according to historian Philip Longworth, a conflict mounting during the second half of the 19th century. The same is argued by Ornea, who also proposes that the protagonist offers insight into Creangă's own conservative reflexes and his complex views on the union, while outlining several connections which the brand of social criticism
professed by Junimea. Although Roată, a real-life person, was a representative of the pro-union National Party, his main interest, according to the stories themselves, was in curbing the boyars' infringement of peasant rights. The stories' narrator directs his hostility not at boyars in general, but at the younger Romantic nationalist
ones, whom he portrays as gambling on Moldavia's future: "[There was] a clash of ideas opposing old boyars to the youth of Moldavia's ad-hoc Divan, even though both were in favor of 'Union'. It's only that the old ones wanted a negotiated 'Union', and the young ones a 'Union' done without proper thinking, as it came to pass." According to Muguraş Constantinescu: "[Roată] opposes the intelligence of common folk, their common sense, their humor and the pleasure of allegorical discourse to the pompous and hollow speeches of some politicians". In this context, Cuza's presence is depicted as both legitimate and serendipitous, as he takes a personal interest in curbing boyar abuse.
Moş Nichifor Coţcariul ("Old Man Nichifor Slyboots") establishes a connection with the language of fairy tales, being located in a legendary and non-historical age. It details the elaborate seduction of a young Jewish
bride by a worldly Moldavian wagoner, on the route between Târgu Neamţ
and Piatra
. The episode, which the text itself indicates is just one in a series of Nichifor's conquests among his female clients, highlights the seducer's verbose monologue, which covers accounts of his unhappy marriage, allusions about the naturalness of physical love, and intimidating suggestions that wolves may be tempted to attack the wagon (prompting the young woman to seek refuge in his arms). The seducer's behavior, Constantinescu notes, presents an alternative to the theme of old age as a time of immobility: "the still-green old man, the rake, the joker who enjoys his amorous escapades, while justifying them by the natural course of life". Nichifor mostly expresses himself with the help of folk sayings, which he casually mixes in with personal observations about the situation. The background to the plot is a record of various superstition
s, some anticlerical
or antisemitic: Nichifor voices the belief that priests crossing one's path will produce bad luck, as well as the claim that Jewish apothecaries
sold "poisons".
The reception of Moş Nichifor Coţcariul by Junimea illustrated its ambivalence toward Creangă. Maiorescu found the text "interesting in its way and decisively Romanian", but asked Convorbiri Literare journal to either modify it or refrain from publishing it altogether. This was complemented by its author's own self-effacing assessment: calling the text "a childish thing", he suggested to Maiorescu that revisions were needed, stating "I have written it long, because there was no time for me to write it short." Contrarily, the writer's posterity referred to it as one of the greatest Romanian contributions to the genre: according to George Călinescu, the insight into Nichifor's musings resulted in transforming the writing as a whole into "the first great Romanian novella with a stereotypical hero", while Voinescu described the entire story as "a true masterpiece."
The narrative approaches of Moş Nichifor Coţcariul bordered on Creangă's contributions to erotic literature
, pieces collectively known as "corrosives" and which have for long treated with discretion by literary historians. In Călinescu's view, this chapter in Creangă's literature created another link between the Moldavian writer and the Renaissance tradition of Rabelais: "All Rabelaisians have penetrated deeply into the realm of vulgarity." The taste for titillating accounts was also cultivated by Junimea members, who discreetly signaled their wish to hear more explicit content by asking Creangă to recount stories from "the wide street". A product of this context, Moş Nichifor Coţcariul itself is said to have had at least one sexually explicit variant, circulated orally.
Two stories with explicit pornographic
content survive as samples of Creangă's erotic authorship: "The Tale of Ionică the Fool" and "The Tale of All Tales" (also known as Povestea pulei, "Tale of the Dick" or "Tale of the Cock"). The former shows its cunning hero having intercourse with a priest's daughter, moving between prose and verse to describe the act. "The Tale of All Tales", which makes ample use of vulgar speech
, recounts how a peasant disrespectful of divinity has his entire maize harvest transformed into male genitalia, but is able to turn out a profit by catering to the sexual appetites of women. The final section, seen by Gârbea as a sample of anticlerical jeers recorded by "the defrocked Creangă", depicts the rape of a priest by one such sexual object. Although explicit, literary historian Alex. Ştefănescu argued, the text "is refined and full of charm". While acknowledging both "corrosives" for their "popular charm" in the line of Rabelais and Geoffrey Chaucer
, and noting that they still display the author's place as a "great stylist", Voinescu also signaled the texts' "very obvious" debt to folkloric sources. In his definition, Ion Creangă is "possibly the only writer" to draw on the legacy of "luscious popular jests" found in local "erotic folklore". Nevertheless, according to literary critic Mircea Iorgulescu, "The Tale of All Tales" may in fact be based on Parapilla, a pornographic leaflet circulating in Italian
and French
.
and Eduard Gruber, the latter of whom obtained the works from Tinca Vartic. The first edition was published as two volumes, in 1890–1892, but the project came to an abrupt halt due to Gruber's insanity and death. Creangă's final known work, the fragment of Făt-frumos, fiul iepei, was published by Convorbiri Literare in 1898. The Gruber copies were sold to a Dr. Mendel, and only a part of them was recovered by exegetes, alongside various fragments accidentally discovered at Iaşi market, where they were being used for wrapping paper. The collection, structured into a whole by folklorist Gheorghe T. Kirileanu, was published by Editura Minerva
in 1902 and 1906. In addition to being mentioned in the memoirs of several prominent Junimists, Creangă had his political career fictionalized and satirized by Iacob Negruzzi, who transformed him, as Popa Smântână, into a character of his satirical poems Electorale ("Electorals"). The same author referred to his counterpart in one of his epigram
s.
Shortly after her lover's death, Tinca Vartic married a man who lived in the same part of Iaşi. The target of organized tourism from as early as 1890, the Iaşi Bojdeuca nevertheless fell into disrepair. It was eventually purchased by a "Ion Creangă Committee", whose members included Constantin Creangă, Kirileanu and the ultra-nationalist politician A. C. Cuza
. It was set up as the first of Romania's "memorial houses" on April 15, 1918. Restored the same year and again in 1933–1934, it houses an important part of Creangă's personal items and the first known among Creangă's portraits, painted by his contemporary V. Muşneţanu. While Constantin Creangă had a successful career in the Romanian Army, one of the writer's two grandsons, Horia Creangă
, became one of the celebrated modern architect
of the interwar period
, earning his reputation by redisigning much of downtown Bucharest
.
The popularity of Ion Creangă's accounts outside his regional and dialectal context, together with his own contribution as an educator, played a part in the evolution of standard Romanian
, at a new phase in which many dialectal variations were incorporated into the spoken language. His primers Metodă nouă... and Învăţătoriul copiilor went through many editions during the late 19th century. The impact of his works was also a contributing factor to preserving a noted interest in rural subjects, a subsequent defining trait in modern Romanian literature. Discussing "stylistic harmony", which he believed to be bridging all of Romania's social and literary environments, philosopher Mircea Eliade
wrote: "Romanians consider Ion Creangă a classic writer belonging to the modern age. His work can be read and understood by the entire range of social classes, in all the provinces of our country. In spite of the abundant presence of Moldavian words in his writings, the work would not remain a stranger to its readers. What other European culture can take pride in having a classic writer read by all categories of readers?" The "thematic grip of the village" was noted by American
academic Harold Segel
, who investigated its impact on "some of the most revered names in the history of Romanian literature", from Creangă and Slavici to interwar novelist Liviu Rebreanu
.
A more thorough evaluation of Creangă's literature began after 1900. At the time, it became a topic of interest to the emerging traditionalist and populist trend, illustrated by the two venues rivaling Junimea: the right-wing Sămănătorul
, led by Nicolae Iorga
, and the left-wing Poporanists
, among which was Garabet Ibrăileanu
. The new editions of his works enlisted the collaboration of Sămănătorist intellectuals Ilarie Chendi and Ştefan Octavian Iosif
. Tudor Vianu however noted that, unlike Eminescu's outlook, Creangă's "authentic ruralism" did not complement the "spiritual complications", global social class
perspective and intellectual background associated with these trends, making Creangă "the least Sămănătorist among our writers." According to Ornea, Creangă has "nothing in common" with the Sămănătorul ideology in particular: while the group shared his nostalgic outlook on the rural past in stark contrast to the modernized world, the Moldavian author could "maintain, intelligently, the middle ground between contraries". Likewise, Mircea Braga reacted against the perception of Creangă as announcing a "series" of authors, noting that, for all imitation, he was "an exceptional and, as far as Romanian literary history goes, unique creator."
Directly influenced by Creangă, several early 20th century and interwar authors within the new traditionalist trend explicitly stood for the legacy of folkloric, spontaneous and unskilled literature: the peasant writer I. Dragoslav
, whose memoirs borrow stylistic elements from Creangă's accounts; Constantin Sandu-Aldea, an agriculturalist by profession, who took inspiration from his techniques of rendering dialogue; and Ion Iovescu, whom the Sburătorul
literary circle acclaimed as "a new Creangă", and who made ample use of a modernized Muntenia
n dialect. Similarly, the Aromanian
activist and author Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
, who divided his career between Romania and the southern Balkans
, combined Creangă's storytelling techniques with the traditions of Turkish literature
, while the reworking of regional folklore themes earned intellectual Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor
a reputation as "the Oltenia
n Creangă". During the 1910s, folklorist Tudor Pamfile
published a specialized magazine named Ion Creangă in honor of the writer. Creangă's various works also provided starting points for several other writers of diverse backgrounds. They included representatives of the Symbolist movement
, such as Victor Eftimiu
, who was inspired by Creangă's narrative style in writing his fantasy and verse play Înşir'te mărgărite. Another such author was poetess Elena Farago, whose didactic children's story Într-un cuib de rândunică ("Inside a Swallow's Nest") borrows from "The Flax and the Shirt".
With the interwar period and the spread of modernist literature
, a new generation of critics, most notably George Călinescu and Vladimir Streinu, dedicated important segments of their activity to the works of Ion Creangă. Other such figures were Şerban Cioculescu
, whose contribution attempts to elucidate the more mysterious parts of the writer's vocabulary, and educator Dumitru Furtună, whose biographical studies provided a main source for subsequent research. By then, interest in Creangă's life and writings had diversified. This phenomenon first touched Romanian theater when I. I. Mironescu dramatized a section of Creangă's Memories as Catiheţii de la Humuleşti ("The Catechists from Humuleşti")—a literary contribution judged "superfluous" by George Călinescu, who noted that the original was already "dramatic" in style. The writer's stories also became an inspiration for Alfred Mendelsohn and Alexandru Zirra, two Romanian composers who worked in children's musical theater, who adapted, respectively, "Harap Alb
" and "The Goat and Her Three Kids
". Creangă was also a secondary presence in Mite and Bălăuca, two biographical novels centered on Eminescu's amorous life, written by the prominent interwar critic Eugen Lovinescu
, to whom Călinescu reproached having largely ignored Creangă in his nonfictional texts. Creangă's writings also earned followers among the more radical wing of the modernist scene. The authenticity and originality of Creangă's prose were highlighted and treasured by the influential modernist venue Contimporanul
, in particular by its literary chroniclers Ion Vinea and Benjamin Fondane
. Likewise, while formally affiliating with Surrealism
, the avant-garde
author Ion Călugăru
contributed various prose works which borrow some of Creangă's storytelling techniques to depict the lives of Jewish Romanian
communities from Moldavia.
In stages after World War I
, the 19th century writer became better known to an international audience. This process produced translations into English, some of which, Călinescu argued, reached significant popularity among British
readers of Romanian literature. In contrast, writer Paul Bailey
assessed that the variants used antiquated words and "sounded terrible" in English. Among the series of early English-language versions was a 1920 edition of Creangă's Memories, translated by Lucy Byng and published by Marcu Beza. It was also during the interwar that Jean Boutière
published the first-ever French-language monograph
on the Romanian writer, originally as a Ph. D. thesis for the University of Paris
.
While their author continued to receive praise for his main contributions, the erotic tales were most often kept hidden from the public eye. George Călinescu summarized this contrast by stating: "The 'corrosives' left by Creangă are not known publicly." An exception to this rule was Kirileanu's Creangă reader of 1938, published by Editura Fundaţiilor Regale as the first critical edition of his entire literature. According to critic Adrian Solomon, the Romanian tradition of silencing obscene language
and sexually explicit literature through censorship
made "The Tale of All Tales" circulate "rather like a samizdat
", which left writers with "no solid tradition to draw on, and precious little chance to evade [...] the vigilant morals of a straitlaced public." The nationalist aspects of Ion Creangă's public discourse were however approved of and recovered by the far right
of the 1920s and '30s. High-ranking Orthodox cleric Tit Simedrea referred to Creangă as a predecessor when, in 1937, he urged his congregation to refrain from purchasing merchandise sold by Jews (a measure which he believed was a practical alternative to the Jews' forced eviction). In 1939, as part of a press campaign targeting Călinescu's work, the fascist
journal Porunca Vremii accused the literary historian of having exposed Creangă's biography for the sake of compromising the "genial Moldavian" by turning him into "an unfrocked epileptic and a drunk."
Creangă inspired a 1920 painting by Octav Băncilă
, which shows Creangă listening to Eminescu reading reading his poems. Two busts of the author were erected in Iaşi, respectively at his grave site and, in 1932, the gardens of Copou neighborhood. After 1943, another such piece was unveiled in Bucharest's Cişmigiu Gardens
, as part of Rotunda Scriitorilor monument.
During Romania's restrictive communist period
, which lasted between 1948 and 1989, the critical evaluation of Ion Creangă's work went through several periods, complementing political developments. Throughout the first part of this interval, when socialist realism
was politically imposed on Romanian letters, Creangă was spared the posthumous censorship which affected several other classical writers (see Censorship in Communist Romania
). His work was officially praised for its aesthetic qualities, but its association with the condemned Junimea was omitted from critical commentary, and readers were instead referred to Creangă as a realist critical of bourgeois society. In 1949, at the height of Soviet occupation
, official critic Barbu Lăzăreanu controversially described Creangă as a writer indebted to Russian folklore.
By the second half of communist rule, several new approaches in the critical assessment of Creangă's literature were emerging. His work became a main topic of critical interest and the sole subject of many works, to the point where Nicolae Manolescu
assessed that "everything has been said about Creangă". Within this exegetic phenomenon, an original interpretation of his stories from an esoteric
perspective was written by philosopher Vasile Lovinescu as Creangă şi Creanga de aur ("Creangă and the Golden Bough"). During the final two decades of communism, under Nicolae Ceauşescu
, the recovery of nationalist discourse into official dogma also encouraged the birth of Protochronism
. In one of its aspects, theorized by cultural historian Edgar Papu, this approach controversially reevaluated various Romanian writers, Creangă included, presenting them as figures who anticipated most developments on the world stage. Papu's own conclusion about "Harap Alb
", outlined in a 1983 volume, depicted Creangă as a direct predecessor of Italian
semiotician
Umberto Eco
and his celebrated volume The Open Work—a conclusion which literary historian Florin Mihăilescu has seen as proof of Papu's "exegetic obsession", lacking in "sense of humor, not just sense of reality." One of Papu's disciples, national communist
ideologue Dan Zamfirescu, claimed that Creangă was equal to, or even more important than world classics Homer
, William Shakespeare
and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, while asserting that the eponymous protagonist of "Ivan Turbincă
" stands as "the character who dominates world history in our century". Left outside the scope of this critical interest, the "corrosives" were left out of new Creangă readers (such as Iorgu Iordan
's 1970 edition), being, according to a 1976 essay by scholar George Munteanu, "still unpublishable" for lack of "a general level of aesthetic education" among Romanians.
A second museum entirely dedicated to the writer was opened at his Târgu Neamţ home in 1951, and donated to the state by his successors in 1965. During the following decades, it reportedly became the most visited memorial house in Romania. The authorities also financed a new cultural center, raised in the immediate vicinity of Bojdeuca during 1984–1989. In 1965, the Ion Creangă Children's Theater, a state-run institution, was founded in Bucharest, and its subsequent activity included staging several of the writer's fairy tales for a junior public. Among such contributions were two adaptation of "Harap Alb", directed respectively by Ion Lucian and Zoe Anghel Stanca. In 1983, Timişoara
-based author Şerban Foarţă
also completed work on a stage version of "Ivan Turbincă".
A new publishing house, Editura Ion Creangă
, was created as a main publisher of children's literature, and its output included editions of Creangă's own works. The new editions were illustrated by several visual artists of note, among them Corneliu Baba
, Eugen Taru
and Lívia Rusz
, while "Harap Alb" became a project of comic book
artist Sandu Florea
, earning him a Eurocon
prize. A major project of the time involved Creangă translations into other languages, including Hungarian
(a celebrated contribution by Hungarian-Romanian
author András Sütő
). During the same epoch, Creangă and his stories first became sources of inspiration for the Romanian film industry
. Among the first were two contributions of filmmaker Elisabeta Bostan, both released in the early 1960s and based on the Memories: Amintiri din copilărie (starring child actor Ion Bocancea as the young Nică and Ştefan Ciubotăraşu as the grown-up narrator), and Pupăza din tei (focusing on the hoopoe
story). In 1965, celebrated Romanian director Ion Popescu-Gopo
released De-aş fi Harap Alb, a loose adaptation of "Harap Alb", starring Florin Piersic
in the title role. Popescu-Gopo also directed the 1985 film Povestea dragostei, which was based on "The Story of the Pig". The series also includes Nicolae Mărgineanu's biographical film of 1989, Un bulgăre de humă, focuses on the friendship between Creangă (played by Dorel Vişan) and Eminescu (Adrian Pintea
).
The legacy of Ion Creangă was also tangible in the Soviet Union
, and especially in the Moldavian SSR
(which, as the larger section of Bessarabia
, had been part of interwar Greater Romania
, and later became independent Moldova
). Initially, his writings, titled Moldavian Stories, formed part of the Soviet curriculum in the Moldavian Autonomous Region
(Transnistria
). Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, Creangă was one of the Romanian-language writers whose works were still allowed for publishing by the new authorities. This provided local contributors to Romanian literature contact with older cultural models, directly inspiring the experimental
or Postmodern
prose pieces by Vlad Ioviţă
and Leo Butnaru. The endorsement of Creangă's public image within the Moldavian SSR was also reflected in art: in 1958, the writer's bust, the work of sculptor Lev Averbruh, was assigned to the Alley of Classics
in Chişinău
. His works were illustrated by one of the Moldavian SSR's leading visual artists, Igor Vieru, who also painted a portrait of the author. In 1967, Ioviţă and filmmaker Gheorghe Vodă
released Se caută un paznic: an adaptation of "Ivan Turbincă" and one of the successful samples of early Moldovan cinema
, it was also noted for the musical score, composed by Eugen Doga
. Also during that period, "The Goat..." and "The Purse a' Tuppence" were made into animated shorts (directed by Anton Mater and Constantin Condrea). In 1978, an operatic version of "The Goat and Her Three Kids" was created by composer Zlata Tkach
, based on a libretto
by Grigore Vieru
.
After the 1989 Revolution
, which signaled the end of communism, Creangă's work was subject to rediscovery and reevaluation. This implied the publishing of his "corrosives", most notably in a 1998 edition titled Povestea poveştilor generaţiei '80 ("The Tale of the Tales of the 80s Generation"). Edited by Dan Petrescu and Luca Piţu, it featured a Postmodern reworking of Povestea poveştilor by Mircea Nedelciu
, a leading theorist of the Optzecişti writers. A trilingual edition of Creangă's original text was published in 2006 as a Humanitas
project, with illustrations made for the occasion by graphic artist Ioan Iacob. The book included versions of the text in English (the work of Alistair Ian Blyth) and French (translated by Marie-France Ionesco, the daughter of playwright Eugène Ionesco
), both of which were noted for resorting exclusively to antiquated slang. In 2004, another one of Creangă's stories was subjected to a Postmodern interpretation, with Stelian Ţurlea's novel Relatare despre Harap Alb ("A Report about Harap Alb"). In 2009, Ţurlea followed up with a version of "The Old Man's Daughter and the Old Woman's Daughter"; a year later, his colleague Horia Gârbea
published a personal take on "The Story of a Lazy Man". Ion Creangă's own didactic tales have remained a presence in the Romanian curriculum
after 2000, particularly in areas of education targeting the youngest students.
New films based on Creangă's writings include, among others, Mircea Daneliuc
's Tusea şi junghiul of 1992 (an adaptation of "The Old Man's Daughter...") and Tudor Tătaru's Moldovan-Romanian co-production Dănilă Prepeleac (1996). There were also several post-1989 theatrical adaptations of Ion Creangă's texts, contributed by various Romanian dramaturge
s. Some of these are Cornel Todea's variant of "Harap Alb" (with music by Nicu Alifantis), Cristian Pepino's take on "The Goat and Her Three Kids", Mihai Mălaimare's Prostia omenească (from "Human Stupidity") and Gheorghe Hibovski's Povestea poveştilor, a fringe theater show using both Creangă's original and Nedelciu's text.
In 1993, answering a petition signed by a group of cultural personalities from Iaşi, Metropolitan Daniel
(the future Patriarch of All Romania
) signed a decision to posthumously revert the decision to exclude Ion Creangă from among the Moldavian clergy. The public polled during a 2006 program produced by the Romanian Television
nominated Creangă 43rd among the 100 greatest Romanians. New monuments honoring the writer include a bust unveiled in Târgu Neamţ, the work of sculptor Ovidiu Ciobotaru. The patrimony associated with Creangă's life has also sparked debates: local authorities in Târgu Neamţ were criticized for not maintaining the site near his house in its best condition, while the Fălticeni
where he once lived was controversially put up for sale by its private owners in 2009, at a time when city hall could not exercise its pre-emption right
.
Creangă's name was assigned to several education institutions, among them Bucharest's Ion Creangă National College, and to an annual prize granted by the Romanian Academy
. There is a Ion Creangă
commune, in Neamţ County
, and streets or squares were also named in the writer's honor in cities throughout Romania: Târgu Neamţ, Iaşi, Fălticeni, Bucharest, Arad
, Brăila
, Braşov
, Cluj-Napoca
, Craiova
, Drobeta-Turnu Severin
, Oradea
, Ploieşti
, Sibiu
, Suceava
, Târgu Mureş, Tecuci
, Timişoara
, Tulcea
etc. A quarter in northern Bucharest, near Colentina
, is also named Ion Creangă. Creangă's name was assigned to several landmarks and institutions in post-Soviet Moldova. Among them is the Ion Creangă Pedagogical State University
, founded on the basis of Chişinău's normal school
.
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
n-born Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
, he is best known for his Childhood Memories
Childhood Memories (Creangă)
Childhood Memories is one of the main literary contributions of Romanian author Ion Creangă...
volume, his novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s and short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, and his many anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
s. Creangă's main contribution to fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
and children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
includes narratives structured around eponymous protagonists ("Harap Alb
Harap Alb
"Harap Alb" or "Harap-Alb" , known in full as Povestea lui Harap Alb , is a Romanian-language fairy tale. Based on traditional themes found in Romanian folklore, it was recorded and reworked in 1877 by writer Ion Creangă, becoming one of his main contributions to fantasy and Romanian literature...
", "Ivan Turbincă
Ivan Turbincă
"Ivan Turbincă" is an 1880 short story, fairy tale and satirical text by Romanian writer Ion Creangă, echoing themes common in Romanian and European folklore. It recounts the adventures of an eponymous Russian soldier, who passes between the world of the living, Heaven and Hell, on a quest for...
", "Dănilă Prepeleac
Dănilă Prepeleac
"Dănilă Prepeleac" is an 1876 fantasy short story and fairy tale by Romanian author Ion Creangă, with a theme echoing influences from local folklore. The narrative is structured around two accounts...
", "Stan Păţitul"), as well as fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s indebted to conventional forms ("The Story of the Pig", "The Goat and Her Three Kids
The Goat and Her Three Kids
"The Goat and Her Three Kids" or "The Goat with Three Kids" is an 1875 short story, fable and fairy tale by Romanian author Ion Creangă. Figuratively illustrating for the notions of motherly love and childish disobedience, it recounts how a family of goats is ravaged by the Big Bad Wolf, allowed...
", "The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law", "The Old Man's Daughter and the Old Woman's Daughter"). Widely seen as masterpieces of the Romanian language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
and local humor, his writings occupy the middle ground between a collection of folkloric sources
Folklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
and an original contribution to a literary realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
of rural inspiration. They are accompanied by a set of contributions to erotic literature
Erotic literature
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, poetry, true-life memoirs, and sex manuals...
, collectively known as his "corrosives".
A defrocked
Defrocking
To defrock, unfrock, or laicize ministers or priests is to remove their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry. This may be due to criminal convictions, disciplinary matters, or disagreements over doctrine or dogma...
Romanian Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
priest with an unconventional lifestyle, Creangă made an early impact as an innovative educator and textbook author, while pursuing a short career in nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
politics with the Fracţiunea liberă şi independentă group. His literary debut came late in life, closely following the start of his close friendship with Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
and their common affiliation with the influential conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
literary society Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
. Although viewed with reserve by many of his colleagues there, and primarily appreciated for his records of oral tradition
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
, Creangă helped propagate the group's cultural guidelines in an accessible form. Later criticism has often described him, alongside Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
and Ioan Slavici
Ioan Slavici
Ioan Slavici was a Transylvanian-born Romanian writer and journalist. He made his debut in Convorbiri literare , with the comedy Fata de birău...
, as one of the most accomplished representatives of Junimist literature.
Ion Creangă was posthumously granted several honors, and is commemorated by a number of institutions in both Romania and neighboring Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
. These include the Bojdeuca building in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, which, in 1918, was opened as the first memorial house in Romania. His direct descendants include Horia Creangă
Horia Creangă
-References:...
, one of the leading Romanian architects during the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
.
Background and family
Ion Creangă was born in Humuleşti, a former village which has since been incorporated into Târgu NeamţTârgu Neamt
Târgu Neamţ is a town in Neamţ County, Romania, on the Neamţ River. It had, , a population of 20,496. Three villages are administered by the town: Blebea, Humuleşti and Humuleştii Noi.- History :...
city, the son of Orthodox trader Ştefan sin Petre Ciubotariul and his wife Smaranda. His native area, bordering on heavily forested areas, was in the Eastern Carpathian
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
foothills, and included into what was then the principality of Moldavia. The surrounding region's population preserved an archaic way of life, dominated by shepherd
Shepherd
A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...
ing, textile manufacturing and related occupations, and noted for preserving the older forms of local folklore
Folklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
. Another characteristic of the area, which left an impression on Creangă's family history, was related to the practice of transhumance
Transhumance
Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter. Herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Only the herds travel, with...
and the links between ethnic Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
communities on both sides of the mountains, in Moldavia and Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
: on his maternal side, the writer descended from Maramureş
Maramures
Maramureș may refer to the following:*Maramureș, a geographical, historical, and ethno-cultural region in present-day Romania and Ukraine, that occupies the Maramureș Depression and Maramureș Mountains, a mountain range in North East Carpathians...
-born peasants, while, according to literary historian George Călinescu
George Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
, his father's origin may have been further southwest, in Transylvania-proper.
The family had reached a significant position within their community: Ştefan sin Petre had made a steady income from his itinerant trade in wool, while his wife was the descendant of the Creangăs of Pipirig
Pipirig
Pipirig is a commune in Neamţ County, Romania. It is composed of seven villages: Boboieşti, Dolheşti, Leghin, Pâţâligeni, Pipirig, Pluton and Stânca....
, a family of community leaders. The latter's members included Moldavian Metropolitan
Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina
The Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina, in Iaşi, Romania, is one of the main bishoprics of the Romanian Orthodox Church.-History:Recognised, in 1401, by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Metropolis of Moldavia united, in 1872, with the Metropolis of Ungro-Wallachia to form the...
Iacob Stamati, as well as Smaranda's father, Vornic
Vornic
Vornic was a historical rank for an official in charge of justice and internal affairs. He was overseeing the Royal Court. It originated in the Slovak nádvorník. In the 16th century in Moldavia were two high vornics: one for "Ţara de Sus" , and other for "Ţara de Jos" ....
David, and her uncle Ciubuc Clopotarul, a monk at Neamţ Monastery
Neamt Monastery
The Neamţ Monastery is a Romanian Orthodox religious settlement, one of the oldest and most important of its kind in Romania. It was built in 14th century, and it is an example of medieval Moldavian architecture...
. Proud of this tradition, it was her who insisted for her son to pursue a career in the Church. According to his own recollection, the future writer was born on March 1, 1837—a date which has since been challenged. Creangă's other statements mention March 2, 1837, or an unknown date in 1836. The exactitude of other accounts is equally unreliable: community registers from the period gave the date of June 10, 1839, and mention another child of the same name being born to his parents on February 4, 1842 (the more probable birth date of Creangă's younger brother Zahei). The imprecision also touches other aspects of his family life: noting the resulting conflicts in data, Călinescu decided that it was not possible for one to know if the writer's parents were married to each other (and, if so, if they were on their first marriage), nor how many children they had together. At a time when family names were not legally required, and people were primarily known by various nicknames and patronymic
Patronymic
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...
s, the boy was known to the community as Nică, a hypocorism formed from Ion, or more formally as Nică al lui Ştefan a Petrei ("Nică of Ştefan of Petru", occasionally Nic-a lui Ştefan a Petrei).
Childhood, youth and ordination
Childhood Memories (Creangă)
Childhood Memories is one of the main literary contributions of Romanian author Ion Creangă...
, Ion Creangă was sent to primary school, an institution then in the care of Orthodox Church authorities, where he became noted for his rebellious attitude and appetite for truancy
Truancy
Truancy is any intentional unauthorized absence from compulsory schooling. The term typically describes absences caused by students of their own free will, and usually does not refer to legitimate "excused" absences, such as ones related to medical conditions...
. Among his colleagues was a female student, Smărăndiţa popii (known later as Smaranda Posea), for whom he developed an affection which lasted into his adult life, over decades in which the two no longer saw each other. He was taught reading and writing in Cyrillic alphabet
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
through peer tutor
Peer tutor
A peer tutor is anyone who is of a similar status as the person being tutored. In an undergraduate institution this would usually be other undergraduates, as distinct from the graduate students who may be teaching the writing classes; in an K-12 school this is usually a student from the same grade...
ing techniques, before the overseeing teacher, Vasile a Ilioaiei, was lasso
Lasso
A lasso , also referred to as a lariat, riata, or reata , is a loop of rope that is designed to be thrown around a target and tighten when pulled. It is a well-known tool of the American cowboy. The word is also a verb; to lasso is to successfully throw the loop of rope around something...
ed off the street and conscripted by the Moldavian military
Moldavian military forces
Moldavia had a military force for much of its history as an independent and, later, autonomous principality subject to the Ottoman Empire .-Middle Ages:Under the reign of Stephen the Great, all farmers and villagers had to bear arms...
at some point before 1848. After another teacher, whom the Memories portray as a drunk, died from cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
in late 1848, David Creangă withdrew his grandson from the local school and took him to a similar establishment in Broşteni
Brosteni, Suceava
Broşteni is a town located in Suceava County, Romania. The town administers nine villages: Cotârgaşi, Dârmova, Frasin, Hăleasa, Holda, Holdiţa, Lungeni, Neagra and Pietroasa....
, handing him into the care of a middle-aged woman, Irinuca. Ion Creangă spent several months at Irinuca's remote house on the Bistriţa River
Bistriţa River (Siret)
Bistrița is a river in the Romanian region of Moldavia. Near Bacău it flows into the Siret River. It flows through the counties Suceava, Neamț and Bacău...
, before the proximity of goats resulted in a scabies
Scabies
Scabies , known colloquially as the seven-year itch, is a contagious skin infection that occurs among humans and other animals. It is caused by a tiny and usually not directly visible parasite, the mite Sarcoptes scabiei, which burrows under the host's skin, causing intense allergic itching...
infection and his hastened departure for Pipirig, where he cured himself using birch
Birch
Birch is a tree or shrub of the genus Betula , in the family Betulaceae, closely related to the beech/oak family, Fagaceae. The Betula genus contains 30–60 known taxa...
extract, a folk remedy mastered by his maternal grandmother Nastasia.
After returning to school between late 1849 and early 1850, Creangă was pulled out by his financially struggling father, spent the following period working in wool-spinning
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
, and became known by the occupational nickname Torcălău ("Spinster"). He only returned in third grade some four years later, having been sent to the Târgu Neamţ public school, newly founded by Moldavian Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica
Grigore Alexandru Ghica
Grigore Alexandru Ghica or Ghika was a Prince of Moldavia between October 14, 1849 and June 1853, and again between October 30, 1854 and June 3, 1856...
as part of the Regulamentul Organic
Regulamentul Organic
Regulamentul Organic was a quasi-constitutional organic law enforced in 1834–1835 by the Imperial Russian authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia...
string of reforms. A colleague of future philosopher Vasile Conta
Vasile Conta
Vasile Conta was a Romanian philosopher, poet, and politician.He was born in Ghindăoani, a village in Bălţăteşti commune, Neamţ County....
in the class of priest and theologian Isaia "Popa Duhu" Teodorescu, Creangă was sent to the Fălticeni
Falticeni
Fălticeni is a city in Suceava County, Romania, capital of the former Baia County . As of 2003 the population is 28,899, and the city covers an area of 28,76 km², of which 25% are orchards and lakes. The city is 25 km away from Suceava, the capital of the county...
seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
in 1854. After having been registered as Ioan Ştefănescu (a variant of his given name and a family name based on his patronymic), the adolescent student eventually adopted his maternal surname of Creangă. According to Călinescu, this was done either "for aesthetic reasons" (as his new name, literally meaning "branch" or "bough", "sounds good") or because of a likely discovery that Ştefan was not his real father. Dan Grădinaru, a researcher of Creangă's work, believes that the writer had a special preference for the variant Ioan, generally used in more learned circles, instead of the variant Ion that was consecrated by his biographers.
Having witnessed, according to his own claim, the indifference and mundane preoccupations of his peers, Creangă admitted to having taken little care in his training, submitting to the drinking culture
Drinking culture
Drinking culture refers to the customs and practices associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Although alcoholic beverages and social attitudes toward drinking vary around the world, nearly every civilization has independently discovered the processes of brewing beer, fermenting...
, playing practical joke
Practical joke
A practical joke is a mischievous trick played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, indignity, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or...
s on his colleagues, and even shoplifting
Shoplifting
Shoplifting is theft of goods from a retail establishment. It is one of the most common property crimes dealt with by police and courts....
, while pursuing an affair with the daughter of a local priest. According to his own statement, he was a philanderer who, early in his youth, had already "caught the scent" of the catrinţă (the skirt in traditional costumes
Romanian dress
Romanian dress refers to the traditional clothing worn by Romanians, who live primarily in Romania and Moldova, with smaller communities in Ukraine and Serbia. Today, a strong majority of Romanians wear Western-style dress on most occasions, and the garments described here largely fell out of use...
). In August 1855, circumstances again forced him to change schools: confronted with the closure of his Fălticeni school, Creangă left for the Central Seminary attached to Socola Monastery
Socola Monastery
Socola Monastery or Schimbarea la Faţă was a Romanian Orthodox establishment located in the eponymous quarter of southern Iaşi, Romania. Founded during Moldavia's existence as a state, it was erected and dedicated by Moldavian Prince Alexandru Lăpuşneanu in 1562, and originally functioned as nunnery...
, in Moldavia's capital of Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
. Ştefan sin Petre's 1858 death left him without means of support, and he requested being directly ordained
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
, but, not being of the necessary age, was instead handed a certificate to attest his school attendance. He was soon after married, after a brief courtship, to the 15-year old Ileana, daughter of Priest Ioan Grigoriu from the church of the Forty Saints, where he is believed to have in training as a schoolteacher. The ceremony took place in August 1859, several months after the personal union
United Principalities
The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, also known as the Romanian Principalities, was the official name of Romania following the 1859 election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince or domnitor of both territories...
between Moldavia and its southern neighbor Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
, effected by the election of Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza was a Moldavian-born Romanian politician who ruled as the first Domnitor of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia between 1859 and 1866.-Early life:...
as Domnitor
Domnitor
Domnitor was the official title of the ruler of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia between 1859 and 1866....
. Having been employed as a cantor
Cantor (church)
A cantor is the chief singer employed in a church with responsibilities for the ecclesiastical choir; also called the precentor....
by his father in law's church, he was ordained in December of the same year, assigned to the position of deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
in Holy Trinity Church, and, in May 1860, returned to Forty Saints. The relationship between Creangă and Grigoriu was however exceptionally tense. Only weeks after his wedding, the groom, who had probably agreed to marriage only because it could facilitate succeeding Grigoriu, signed a complaint addressed to Metropolitan Sofronie Miclescu, denouncing his father in law as "a killer", claiming to have been mistreated by him and cheated out of his wife's dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
, and demanding to be allowed a divorce. The response to this request was contrary to his wishes: he was ordered into isolation by the Dicasterie, the supreme ecclesiastical court
Ecclesiastical court
An ecclesiastical court is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages in many areas of Europe these courts had much wider powers than before the development of nation states...
, being allowed to go free only on promise to reconcile with Grigoriu.
Beginnings as schoolteacher and clash with the Orthodox Church
In 1860, Creangă enlisted at the Faculty of Theology, part of the newly founded University of Iaşi, and, in December 1860, fathered a son, Constantin. His life still lacked in stability, and he decided to move out of Grigoriu's supervision and into Bărboi ChurchBarboi Church
The Bărboi Church , dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, is a Romanian Orthodox parish church located at 12 Bărboi Street, Iaşi, Romania.-History:...
, before his position as deacon was cut out of the budget and his belongings were evicted out of his temporary lodging in 1864. He contemplated leaving the city, and even officially requested a new assignment in the more remote Bolgrad
Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi
Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi is a city situated on the right bank of the Dniester Liman in the Odessa Oblast of southwestern Ukraine, in the historical region of Bessarabia...
. Since January 1864, when the Faculty of Theology had been closed down, he had been attending Iaşi's Trei Ierarhi Monastery
Trei Ierarhi Monastery
Biserica Trei Ierarhi is a seventeenth-century monastery located in Iaşi, Romania. The monastery is listed in the National Register of Historic Monuments and included on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Site....
normal school
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
(Trisfetite or Trei Sfetite), where he first met the young cultural figure Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
, who served as his teacher and supervisor, and whence he graduated as the first in his class (June 1865). Embittered by his own experience with the education system
Education in Romania
According to the Law on Education adopted in 1995, the Romanian Educational System is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Research . Each level has its own form of organization and is subject to different legislation. Kindergarten is optional between 3 and 6 years old...
, Creangă became an enthusiastic promoter of Maiorescu's ideas on education reform
Education reform
Education reform is the process of improving public education. Small improvements in education theoretically have large social returns, in health, wealth and well-being. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed.A continuing motivation has...
and modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
, and in particular of the new methods of teaching reading and writing. During and after completing normal school, he was assigned to teaching positions at Trisfetite. While there, he earned the reputation of a demanding teacher (notably by accompanying his reports on individual students with characterizations such as "idiot", "impertinent" or "envious"). Accounts from the period state that he made use of corporal punishment in disciplining his pupils, and even surpassed the standards of violence accepted at the time.
In parallel, he was beginning his activities in support of education reform. By 1864, he and several others, among them schoolteacher V. Răceanu, were working on a new primer
Primer (textbook)
A primer is a first textbook for teaching of reading, such as an alphabet book or basal reader. The word also is used more broadly to refer to any book that presents the most basic elements of a subject....
, which saw print in 1868 under the title Metodă nouă de scriere şi cetire pentru uzul clasei I primară ("A New Method of Writing and Reading for the Use of 1st Grade Primary Course Students"). It mainly addressed the issues posed by the new Romanian alphabet
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...
ical standard, a Romanization
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
replacing Cyrillic spelling
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
(which had been officially discarded in 1862). Largely based on Maiorescu's principles, Metodă nouă... became one the period's most circulated textbooks. In addition to didactic
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
texts, it also featured Creangă's isolated debut in lyric poetry
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
, with a naïve piece titled Păsărica în timpul iernii ("The Little Bird in Wintertime"). The book was followed in 1871 by another such work, published as Învăţătoriul copiilor ("The Children's Teacher") and co-authored by V. Răceanu. It included several prose fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
s and a sketch story
Sketch story
A sketch story, or sketch, is a piece of writing that is generally shorter than a short story, and contains very little, if any, plot. The term was most popularly-used in the late nineteenth century. As a literary work, it is also often referred to simply as the sketch.-Style:A sketch is mainly...
, "Human Stupidity", to which later editions added Poveste ("A Story") and Pâcală (a borrowing of the fictional folk character better known as Păcală
Păcală
Păcală is a fictional character in Romanian folklore, literature and humor. An irreverent young man, seemingly a peasant, he reserves contempt and irony for the village authorities , but often plays the fool...
).
In February 1866, having briefly served at Iaşi's Pantelimon Church, he was welcomed by hegumen
Hegumen
Hegumen, hegumenos, igumen, or ihumen is the title for the head of a monastery of the Eastern Orthodox Church or Eastern Catholic Churches, similar to the one of abbot. The head of a convent of nuns is called hegumenia or ihumenia . The term means "the one who is in charge", "the leader" in...
Isaia Vicol Dioclias into the service of Golia Monastery
Golia Monastery
The Golia Monastery is a Romanian Orthodox monastery located in Iaşi, Romania. The monastery is listed in the National Register of Historic Monuments.-History:...
. Around 1867, his wife Ileana left him. After that moment, Creangă began losing interest in performing his duties in the clergy, and, while doing his best to hide that he was no longer living with his wife, took a mistress. The marriage's breakup was later attributed by Creangă himself to Ileana's adulterous
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
affair with a Golia monk, and rumors spread that Ileana's lover was a high-ranking official, the protopope
Protopope
A Protopope , or Protopresbyter, is a priest of higher rank in the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches, corresponding in general to the Western archpriest or Latin dean.-History:...
of Iaşi. Creangă's accusations, Călinescu contends, are nevertheless dubious, because the deacon persisted in working for the same monastery after the alleged incident.
By the second half of the 1860s, the future writer was also pursuing an interest in politics, which eventually led him to rally with the more nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
group within the Romanian liberal current
Liberalism and radicalism in Romania
This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...
, known as Fracţiunea liberă şi independentă. An agitator for his party, Creangă became commonly known under the nickname Popa Smântână ("Priest Sour Cream"). In April 1866, shortly after Domnitor Cuza was toppled by a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
, and just before Carol I
Carol I of Romania
Carol I , born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was reigning prince and then King of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected prince of Romania on 20 April 1866 following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup...
was selected to replace him, the Romanian Army intervened to quell a separatist
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...
riot in Iaşi, instigated by Moldavian Metropolitan
Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina
The Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina, in Iaşi, Romania, is one of the main bishoprics of the Romanian Orthodox Church.-History:Recognised, in 1401, by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Metropolis of Moldavia united, in 1872, with the Metropolis of Ungro-Wallachia to form the...
Calinic Miclescu. It is likely that Creangă shared the outlook of his fellow Fracţiunea members, according to which secession was preferable to Carol's rule, and was probably among the rioters. At around the same time, the priest also began circulating antisemitic tracts, and is said to have demanded that Christians boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
Jewish business. He is thought to have coined the expression Nici un ac de la jidani ("Not even a needle from the kike
Kike
Kike is a derogatory slur used to refer to a Jew.-Etymology:The source of the term is uncertain. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it may be an alteration of the endings –ki or –ky common in the personal names of Jews in eastern Europe who immigrated to the United States in the early...
s"). He was eventually selected as one of the Fracţiunea candidates for a Iaşi seat in the Romanian Deputies' Chamber
Chamber of Deputies of Romania
The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house in Romania's bicameral parliament. It has 315 seats, to which deputies are elected by direct popular vote on a proportional representation basis to serve four-year terms...
, as documented by the memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s of writer Iacob Negruzzi, who was his conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
adversary for the same seat. The episode is supposed to have taken place at the earliest during the 1871 suffrage.
By 1868, Creangă's rebellious stance was irritating his hierarchical superiors, and, according to Călinescu, his consecutive actions show that he was "going out of his way for scandal". He was initially punished for attending a Iaşi Theater performance, as well as for defiantly claiming that there was "nothing scandalous or demoralizing" in what he had seen, and reportedly further antagonized the monks by firing a gun to scare off the rooks nesting on his church. The latter incident, which some commentators believe fabricated by Creangă's detractors, was judged absurd by the ecclesiastical authorities, who had been further alarmed by negative reporting in the press. When told that no clergyman other than him had been seen using a gun, Creangă issued a reply deemed "Nasreddin
Nasreddin
Nasreddin was a Seljuq satirical Sufi figure, sometimes believed to have lived during the Middle Ages and considered a populist philosopher and wise man, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes. He appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but often, too, a fool or...
esque" by George Călinescu, maintaining that, unlike others, he was not afraid of doing so. Confronted by Metropolitan Calinic himself, Creangă allegedly argued that he could think of no other way to eliminate rooks, being eventually pardoned by the prelate when it was ruled that he had not infringed on canon law
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
.
Defrocking and the Bojdeuca years
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
intent, chopped off his long hair, one of the traditional marks of an Orthodox priest. The latter gesture scandalized his superiors, particularly since Creangă explained himself using an ancient provision of canon law, which stipulated that priests were not supposed to grow their hair long. After some assessment, his superiors agreed not to regard this action as more than a minor disobedience. He was temporarily suspended in practice but, citing an ambiguity in the decision (which could be read as a banishment in perpetuity), Creangă considered himself defrocked
Defrocking
To defrock, unfrock, or laicize ministers or priests is to remove their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry. This may be due to criminal convictions, disciplinary matters, or disagreements over doctrine or dogma...
. He relinquished his clerical clothing
Clerical clothing
Clerical clothing is non-liturgical clothing worn exclusively by clergy. It is distinct from vestments in that it is not reserved specifically for services. Practices vary: clerical clothing is sometimes worn under vestments, and sometimes as the everyday clothing or street wear of a priest,...
altogether and began wearing lay
Laity
In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the...
clothes everywhere, a matter which caused public outrage.
By then a teacher at the 1st School for Boys, on Română Street, Creangă was ordered out of his secular assignment in July 1872, when news of his status and attitude reached Education Minister Christian Tell
Christian Tell
Christian Tell was a Transylvanian-born Wallachian and Romanian politician.-Early life:Born in Braşov, Tell studied at Gheorghe Lazăr's school, and then at the Saint Sava Academy in Bucharest, and became close to Ion Heliade Rădulescu's version of Radicalism...
. Upset by the circumstances, and objecting in writing on grounds that it did not refer to his teaching abilities, he fell back on income produced by a tobacconist
Tobacconist
A tobacconist is an expert dealer in tobacco in various forms and the related accoutrements .Such accoutrements include pipes, lighters, matches, pipe cleaners, pipe tampers, ashtrays, humidification devices, hygrometers, humidors, cigar cutters, and more. Books and magazines, especially ones...
's shop he had established shortly before being dismissed. This stage marked a final development in Creangă's conflict with the church hierarchy. Summoned to explain why he was living the life of a shopkeeper, he responded in writing by showing his unwillingness to apologize, and indicated that he would only agree to face secular courts. The virulent text notably accused the church officials of being his enemies on account of his "independence, sincerity, honesty" in supporting the cause of "human dignity". After the gesture of defiance, the court recommended his defrocking, its decision being soon after confirmed by the synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
.
In the meantime, Creangă moved into what he called Bojdeuca (or Bujdeuca, both being Moldavian regional speech
Moldavian subdialect of Romanian
The Moldavian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language...
for "tiny hut"), a small house located on the outskirts of Iaşi. Officially divorced in 1873, he was living there with his lover Ecaterina "Tinca" Vartic. A former laundress who had earlier leased one of the Bojdeuca rooms, she shared Creangă's peasant-like existence. This lifestyle implied a number of eccentricities, such as the former deacon's practice of wearing loose shirts throughout summer and bathing in a natural pond. His voracious appetite, called "proverbial gluttony" by George Călinescu, was attested by contemporary accounts. These depict him consuming uninterrupted successions of whole meals on a daily basis.
In May 1874, soon after taking over Minister of Education in the Conservative Party cabinet of Lascăr Catargiu
Lascar Catargiu
Lascăr Catargiu was a Romanian conservative statesman born in Moldavia. He belonged to an ancient Wallachian family, one of whose members had been banished in the 17th century by Prince Matei Basarab, and had settled in Moldavia.-Biography:...
, his friend Maiorescu granted Creangă the position of schoolteacher in the Iaşi area of Păcurari. During the same period, Ion Creangă met and became best friends with Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, posthumously celebrated as Romania's national poet. This is said to have taken place in summer 1875, when Eminescu was working as an inspector for Maiorescu's Education Ministry, overseeing schools in Iaşi County
Iasi County
Iași is a county of Romania, in Moldavia, with the administrative seat at Iași.-Demographics:As of 1 July 2007, Iași County had a population of 825,100, making it the second most populous county in Romania after Bucharest, with a population density of 150/km².*Romanians - 98.1%*Roma -...
: reportedly, Eminescu was fascinated with Creangă's talents as a raconteur, while the latter admired Eminescu for his erudition.
Junimea reception
At around the same time, Creangă also began attending JunimeaJunimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
, an upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
literary club presided upon by Maiorescu, whose cultural and political prestige was increasing. This event, literary historian Z. Ornea argued, followed a time of indecision: as a former Fracţiunea affiliate, Creangă was a natural adversary of the mainstream Junimist "cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...
orientation", represented by both Maiorescu and Negruzzi, but was still fundamentally committed to Maiorescu's agenda in the field of education. Literary historians Carmen-Maria Mecu and Nicolae Mecu also argue that, after attending Junimea, the author was able to assimilate some of its innovative teachings into his own style of pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
, and thus helped diffuse its message outside the purely academic environment.
The exact date of his reception is a mystery. According to Maiorescu's own recollections, written some decades after the event, Creangă was in attendance at a Junimea meeting of 1871, during which Gheorghe Costaforu proposed to transform the club into a political party. The information was considered dubious by Z. Ornea, who argued that the episode may have been entirely invented by the Junimist leader, and noted that it contradicted both Negruzzi's accounts and minutes
Minutes
Minutes, also known as protocols, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. They typically describe the events of the meeting, starting with a list of attendees, a statement of the issues considered by the participants, and related responses or decisions for the issues.Minutes may be...
kept by A. D. Xenopol. According to Ornea's assessment, with the exception of literary critic Vladimir Streinu, all of Creangă's biographers have come to dismiss Maiorescu's statement. Several sources mention that the future writer was introduced to the society by Eminescu, who was an active member around 1875. This and other details lead Ornea to conclude that membership was granted to Creangă only after the summer break of 1875.
Gradually or instantly, Creangă made a positive impression by confirming with the Junimist ideal of authenticity. He also became treasured for his talkative and jocular nature, self-effacing references to himself as a "peasant", and eventually his debut works, which became subjects of his own public readings. His storytelling soon earned him dedicated spectators, who deemed Creangă's fictional universe a "sack of wonders" at a time when the author himself had started casually using the pseudonym Ioan Vântură-Ţară ("Ioan Gadabout"). Although still in his forties, the newcomer was also becoming colloquially known to his colleagues as Moş Creangă ("Old Man Creangă" or "Father Creangă"), which was a sign of respect and sympathy. Among Ion Creangă's most dedicated promoters were Eminescu, his former political rival Iacob Negruzzi, Alexandru Lambrior and Vasile Pogor
Vasile Pogor
Vasile Pogor , was a Romanian poet, translator, politician, and founding member of the Junimea literary society....
, as well as the so-called caracudă (roughly, "small game") section, which comprised Junimists who rarely took the floor during public debates, and who were avid listeners of his literary productions (it was to this latter gathering that Creangă later dedicated his erotic texts
Erotic literature
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, poetry, true-life memoirs, and sex manuals...
). In parallel to his diversified literary contribution, the former priest himself became a noted voice in Junimist politics, and, like his new friend Eminescu, voiced support for the group's nationalist faction, in disagreement with the more cosmopolitan and aristocratic segment led by Maiorescu and Petre P. Carp
Petre P. Carp
Petre P. Carp , commonly rendered as P. P. Carp, was a Romanian conservative politician and literary critic who served as a Prime Minister of Romania for two terms...
. By that the late 1870s, he was secretly redirecting the political support of some former Fracţiunea colleagues toward his new colleagues, as confirmed by an encrypted
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
letter he addressed to Negruzzi in March 1877.
Literary consecration
Autumn 1875 is also often described as his actual debut in fiction prose, with "The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law", a short storyShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
first publish in October by the club's magazine Convorbiri Literare. In all, Convorbiri Literare would publish 15 works of fiction and the four existing parts of his Childhood Memories
Childhood Memories (Creangă)
Childhood Memories is one of the main literary contributions of Romanian author Ion Creangă...
before Creangă's death. Reportedly, the decision to begin writing down his stories had been the direct result of Eminescu's persuasion. His talent for storytelling and its transformation into writing fascinated his new colleagues. Several among them, including poet Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu in Bucharest was a nineteenth century Romanian poet and translator noted for his fables with political undertones.Of a noble family, he participated in secret revolutionary societies...
, tasked experimental psychologist
Experimental psychology
Experimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...
Eduard Gruber with closely studying Creangă's methods, investigations which produced a report evidencing Creangă's laborious and physical approach to the creative process. The latter also involved his frequent exchanges of ideas with Vartic, in whom he found his primary audience. In addition to his fiction writing, the emerging author followed Maiorescu's suggestion and, in 1876, published a work of educational methodology
Methodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
and the phonemic orthography
Phonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
favored by Junimea: Povăţuitoriu la cetire prin scriere după sistema fonetică ("Guide to Reading by Writing in the Phonetic System"). It was supposed to become a standard textbook for the training of teachers, but was withdrawn from circulation soon afterward, when the Catargiu cabinet fell.
After losing his job as school inspector following the decisions of a hostile National Liberal
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
executive, Mihai Eminescu spent much of his time in Bojdeuca, where he was looked after by the couple. For five months after quarreling with Samson Bodnărescu
Samson Bodnarescu
Samson L. Bodnărescu was a Romanian poet.He was a member of the cultural society Junimea and his poetry often reflected his idealistic philosophical views...
, his fellow poet and previous landlord, Eminescu even moved inside the house, where he reputedly pursued his discreet love affair with woman writer Veronica Micle
Veronica Micle
Veronica Micle was an Imperial Austrian-born Romanian poet, whose work was influenced by Romanticism. She is best known for her love affair with the poet Mihai Eminescu, one of the most important Romanian writers.-Biography:Born in Năsăud, Micle was the second child of the shoemaker Ilie Câmpeanu...
, and completed as many as 22 of his poems. Creangă introduced his younger friend to a circle of companions which included Zahei Creangă, who was by then a cantor, as well as Răceanu, priest Gheorghe Ienăchescu, and clerk Nicşoi (all of whom, Călinescu notes, had come to share the raconteur's lifestyle choices and his nationalist opinions). Eminescu was especially attracted by their variant of simple life, the rudimentary setting of Creangă's house and the group's bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
escapades. Circumstances drew the two friends apart: by 1877, Eminescu had relocated in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, the capital city, regularly receiving letters in which Creangă was asking him to return. He was however against Eminescu's plan to marry Veronica Micle, and made his objection known to the poet. In 1879, as a sign that he was formalizing his own affair with Tinca Vartic, Creangă purchased the Bojdeuca in her name, paying his former landlord 40 Austrian gulden
Austro-Hungarian gulden
The Gulden or forint was the currency of the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1754 and 1892 when it was replaced by the Krone/korona as part of the introduction of the gold standard. In Austria, the Gulden was initially divided into 60 Kreuzer, and in Hungary, the...
in exchange. That same year, he, Răceanu and Ienăchescu published the textbook Geografia judeţului Iaşi ("The Geography of Iaşi County"), followed soon after by a map of the same region, researched by Creangă and Răceanu. A final work in the area of education followed in 1880, as a schoolteacher's version of Maiorescu's study of Romanian grammar
Romanian grammar
Standard Romanian shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Eastern Romance, viz...
, Regulile limbei române ("Rules of the Romanian Language").
Illness and death
By the 1880s, Creangă had become afflicted with epilepsyEpilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, suffering accelerated and debilitating episodes. He was also severely overweight, weighing some 120 kilograms (over 250 pounds), with a height of 1.85 meters (6 feet), and being teasingly nicknamed Burduhănosul ("Tubby") by his friends (although, according to testimonies by his son and daughter-in-law, he did not actually look his size).
Despite his activity being much reduced, he still kept himself informed about the polemics agitating Romania's cultural and political scene. He was also occasionally hosting Eminescu, witnessing his friend's struggle with mental disorder. The two failed to reconnect, and their relationship ended. After one of the meetings, he recorded that the delusional poet was carrying around a revolver with which to fend off unknown attackers—among the first in a series of episodes which ended with Eminescu's psychiatric confinement and death during June 1889. Around that time, Creangă, like other Junimists, was involved in a clash of ideas with the emerging Romanian socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and atheistic
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
group, rallied around Contemporanul
Contemporanul
Contemporanul is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891 being sponsored by the socialist circle of the city....
magazine. This occurred after Contemporanul founder Ioan Nădejde publicly ridiculed Învăţătoriul copiilor over its take on creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
, quoting its claim that "the invisible hand of God" was what made seeds grow into plants. Creangă replied with a measure of irony, stating that "had God not pierced the skin over our eyes, we would be unable to see each other's mistakes". Nevertheless, Călinescu argued, Nădejde's comments had shaken his adversary's religious sentiment, leading Creangă to question the immortality of the soul in a letter he addressed to one of his relatives in the clergy. According to other assessments, he was himself an atheist, albeit intimately so.
In 1887, the National Liberal Ministry of Dimitrie Sturdza
Dimitrie Sturdza
Dimitrie Sturdza was a Romanian statesman of the late 19th century, and president of the Romanian Academy between 1882 and 1884.-Biography:Born in Iaşi, Moldavia, and educated there at the Academia Mihăileană, he continued his studies in Germany, took part in the political movements of the time,...
removed Creangă from his schoolteacher's post, and he subsequently left for Bucharest in order to petition for his pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
rights. Having hoped to be granted assistance by Maiorescu, he was disappointed when the Junimea leader would not respond to his request, and, during his final years, switched allegiance to the literary circle founded by Nicolae Beldiceanu (where he was introduced by Gruber). Among Creangă's last works was a fourth and final part of his Memories, most likely written during 1888. The book remained unfinished, as did the story Făt-frumos, fiul iepei ("Făt-Frumos
Fat-Frumos
Făt-Frumos is a knight hero in Romanian folklore, usually present in fairy tales....
, Son of the Mare"). He died after an epileptic crisis, on the last day of 1889, his body being buried in Iaşi's Eternitatea Cemetery
Eternitatea cemetery
Eternitatea is the bigest cemetery from Iași, Romania.-Notable interments:* writers: Ion Creangă, Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea, Garabet Ibrăileanu, Dimitrie Anghel, Otilia Cazimir, George Topârceanu, Nicolae Beldiceanu...
. His funeral ceremony was attended by several of Iaşi's intellectuals (Vasile Burlă, A. C. Cuza
A. C. Cuza
A. C. Cuza was a Romanian far right politician and theorist.-Early life:Born in Iaşi, after attending secondary school in his native city and in Dresden, Cuza studied law at the University of Paris, the Universität unter den Linden, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles...
, Dumitru Evolceanu, Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
and Artur Stavri among them).
Cultural context
The impact of Ion Creangă's work within its cultural context was originally secured by Junimea. Seeking to revitalize Romanian literatureLiterature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
by recovering authenticity, and reacting against those cultural imports it deemed excessive, the group notably encouraged individual creativity among peasants. Reflecting back on Maiorescu's role in the process, George Călinescu wrote: "A literary salon where the personal merit would take the forefront did not exist [before Junimea] and, had Creangă been born two decades earlier, he would not have been able to present 'his peasant material' to anyone. Summoning the creativity of the peasant class and placing it in direct contact with the aristocrats is the work of Junimea." His cogenerationist and fellow literary historian Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
issued a similar verdict, commenting: "Junimea is itself [...] an aristocratic society. Nevertheless, it is through Junimea that surfaced the first gesture of transmitting a literary direction to some writers of rural extraction: a phenomenon of great importance, the neglect of which would render unexplainable the entire subsequent development of our literature." Also referring to cultural positioning within and outside the group, Carmen-Maria Mecu and Nicolae Mecu took the acceptance of "literate peasants" such as Creangă as exemplary proof of Junimist "diversity" and "tolerance".
Maiorescu is known to have had much appreciation for Creangă and other writers of peasant origin, such as Ion Popovici-Bănăţeanu and Ioan Slavici
Ioan Slavici
Ioan Slavici was a Transylvanian-born Romanian writer and journalist. He made his debut in Convorbiri literare , with the comedy Fata de birău...
. Late in life, he used this connection to challenge accusations of Junimist elitism
Elitism
Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of people with intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most...
in the face of criticism from more populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
traditionalists. Nonetheless, Junimea members in general found Creangă more of an entertainer rather than a serious writer, and treasured him only to the measure where he illustrated their theories about the validity of rural literature as a source of inspiration for cultured authors. Therefore, Iacob Negruzzi sympathetically but controversially referred to his friend as "a primitive and uncouth talent". Maiorescu's critical texts also provide little individual coverage of Creangă's contributions, probably because these failed to comply exactly with his stratification of literary works into poporane ("popular", that is anonymous or collective) and otherwise. Tudor Vianu's theory defines Creangă as a prime representative of the "popular realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
" guidelines (as sporadically recommended by the Junimist doyen himself), cautioning however that Creangă's example was never mentioned in such a context by Maiorescu personally.
Although he occasionally downplayed his own contribution to literature, Creangă himself was aware that his texts went beyond records of popular tradition, and made significant efforts to be recognized as an original author (by corresponding with fellow writers and willingly submitting his books to critical scrutiny). Vianu commented at length on the exact relationship between the narrative borrowed from oral tradition
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
and Creangă's "somewhat surreptitious" method of blending his own style into the folkloric standard, likening it to the historical process whereby local painters improvised over the strict canons of Byzantine art
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....
. Creangă's complex take on individuality and the art of writing was attested by the his own foreword to an edition of his collected stories, in which he addressed the reader directly: "You may have read many stupid things since you were put on this Earth. Please read these as well, and where it should be that they don't agree with you, take hold of a pen and come up with something better, for this is all I could see myself doing and did."
An exception among Junimea promoters was Eminescu, himself noted for expressing a dissenting social perspective which only partly mirrored Maiorescu's take on conservatism. According to historian Lucian Boia
Lucian Boia
Lucian Boia is a Romanian historian, known especially for his works debunking Romanian nationalism and Communism.-Bibliography:* Eugen Brote: Litera, 1974...
, the "authentic Moldavian peasant" that was Creangă also complemented Eminescu's own "more metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
" peasanthood. Similarly, Z. Ornea notes that the poet used Creangă's positions to illustrate his own ethnonationalist
Ethnic nationalism
Ethnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...
take on Romanian culture
Culture of Romania
Romania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
, an in particular his claim that rural authenticity lay hidden by a "superimposed stratum" of urbanized ethnic minorities
Minorities of Romania
Officially, 10.5% of Romania's population is represented by minorities . The principal minorities in Romania are Hungarians and Roma people, with a declining German population and smaller numbers of Poles in Bucovina...
. 20th century critics have described Creangă as one of his generation's most accomplished figures, and a leading exponent of Junimist literature. This verdict is found in several of Vianu's texts, which uphold Creangă as a great exponent of his generation's literature, comparable to fellow Junimea members Eminescu, Slavici and Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
. This view complements George Călinescu's definition, placing the Moldavian author in the company of Slavici and Caragiale as one of the "great prose writers" of the 1880s. Lucian Boia, who noted that "the triad of Romanian classics" includes Creangă alongside Eminescu and Caragiale, also cautioned that, compared to the other two (with whom "the Romanians have said almost all there is to say about themselves"), Creangă has "a rather more limited register".
The frequent comparison between Creangă and Caragiale in particular is seen by Vianu as stemming from both their common "wide-ranging stylistic means" and their complementary positions in relations to two superimposed phenomenons, with Caragiale's depiction of the petite bourgeoisie
Petite bourgeoisie
Petit-bourgeois or petty bourgeois is a term that originally referred to the members of the lower middle social classes in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
as the rough equivalent of Creangă's interest in the peasantry. The same parallelism is explained by Ornea as a consequence of the two authors' social outlook: "[Their works] have cemented aesthetically the portrayal of two worlds. Creangă's is the peasant world, Caragiale's the suburban and urban one. Two worlds which represent, in fact, two characteristic steps and two sociopolitical models in the evolution of Romanian structures which [...] were confronting themselves in a process that would later prove decisive." According to the same commentator, the two plus Eminescu are their generation's great writers, with Slavici as one "in their immediate succession." While listing what he believes are elements bridging the works of Creangă and Caragiale, other critics have described as strange the fact that the two never appear to have mentioned each other, and stressed that, although not unlikely, a direct encounter between them was never recorded in sources.
Narrative style and language
Highlighting Ion Creangă's recourse to the particularities of Moldavian regionalismsMoldavian subdialect of Romanian
The Moldavian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language...
and archaism
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...
s, their accumulation making Creangă's work very difficult to translate, George Călinescu reacted against claims that the narratives reflected antiquating patterns. He concluded that, in effect, Creangă's written language was the equivalent of a "glossological
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
museum", and even contrasted by the writer's more modern everyday parlance. Also discussing the impression that Creangă's work should be read with a Moldavian accent, noted for its "softness of sound" in relation to standard Romanian phonology
Romanian phonology
This article discusses the phonology of the Romanian language. For other details on this language the reader is referred to that article....
, Călinescu cautioned against interpretative exaggerations, maintaining that the actual texts only offer faint suggestions of regional pronunciation. Contrasting Creangă with the traditions of literature produced by Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
ns in what became the standard literary language
Literary language
A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
, Călinescu also argued in favor of a difference in mentality: the "balance" evidenced by Moldavian speech and illustrated in Ion Creangă's writings is contrasted by the "discoloration and roughness" of "Wallachianism
Wallachian subdialect of Romanian
The Wallachian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect. Its geographic distribution covers approximately the historical region of Wallachia, occupying the southern part of Romania, roughly between the Danube and the Southern...
". He also criticized those views according to which Creangă's variant of the literary language was "beautiful", since it failed to "please everyone on account of some acoustical
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
beauty", and since readers from outside the writer's native area could confront it "with some irritation." For Călinescu, the result nevertheless displays "an enormous capacity of authentic speech", also found in the works of Caragiale and, in the 20th century, Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu
Mihail Sadoveanu was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting republican head of state under the communist regime . One of the most prolific Romanian-language writers, he is remembered mostly for his historical and adventure novels, as...
. According to the same commentator, the dialectical interventions formed a background to a lively vocabulary, a "hermetic
Hermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
" type of "argot
Argot
An Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job,...
", which contained "hilarious double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
s and indecent onomatopoeia", passing from "erudite beauty" to "obscene laughter". Some of the expressions characteristic of Creangă's style are obscure in meaning, and some other, such as "drought made the snake scream inside the frog's mouth", appear to be spontaneous and nonsensical. Another specific trait of this language, commented upon by Vianu's and compared by him to the aesthetics of Classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
, sees much of Creangă's prose being set to a discreet poetic meter
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
.
The recourse to oral literature
Oral literature
Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do...
schemes made it into his writings, were it became a defining trait. As part of this process, Călinescu assessed, "Creangă acts as all his characters in turn, for his stories are almost entirely spoken. [...] When Creangă recounts, the composition is not extraordinary, but once his heroes begin talking, their gesticulation and wording reach a height in typical storytelling." According to the critic, discovering this "fundamental" notion about Creangă's work was the merit of literary historian and Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
editor Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
, who had mentioned it as a main proof of affiliation to realism. The distinctive manner of characterization through "realistic dialogues" is seen by Vianu as a highly personal intervention and indicator of the Moldavian writer's originality. Both Vianu and Călinescu discussed this trait, together with the technique of imparting subjective narration
Unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...
in-between characters' replies, as creating other meeting points between Creangă and his counterpart Caragiale. Partly replicating in paper the essence of social gatherings, Ion Creangă often tried to transpose the particular effects of oral storytelling into writing. Among these characteristic touches were interrogations addressed to the readers as imaginary listeners, and pausing for effect with the visual aid of ellipsis
Ellipsis
Ellipsis is a series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word, sentence or whole section from the original text being quoted. An ellipsis can also be used to indicate an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence...
. He also often interrupted his narratives with concise illustrations of his point, often in verse form, and usually introduced by vorba ceea (an expression literally meaning "that word", but covering the sense of "as word goes around"). One example of this connects the notions of abundance and personal satisfaction:
De plăcinte râde gura, De vărzare si mai tare. |
The mouth will laugh for pie, It will laugh even harder for cabbage pie. |
In other cases, the short riddles relate to larger themes, such as divine justification for one's apparent fortune:
Dă-mi, Doamne, ce n-am avut, Să mă mir ce m-a găsit. |
Lord, give me that I did not own, So that I may marvel at things having found me. |
Creangă's specificity
Despite assuming the external form of traditional literature, Ion Creangă's interests and creative interventions, Călinescu noted, separated him from his roots: "peasants do not have [his] entirely cultured gifts [...]. Too much 'atmosphere', too much dialogic 'humor', too much polychromy at the expense of linear epic movements. The peasant wants the bare epic and desires the unreal." The commentator passed a similar judgment on the author's use of ancient sayings, concluding that, instead of crystallizing and validating local folkloreFolklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
, the accounts appeal to cultured tastes, having as the generation of comedy and volubility as their main purpose. According to Vianu's assessment Creangă was "a supreme artist" whose use of "typical sayings" attests "a man of the people, but not an anonymous and impersonal sample." These verdicts, directly contradicting Junimist theories, were mirrored by several other 20th century exegetes belonging to distinct schools of thought: Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu
Pompiliu Constantinescu was a Romanian literary critic.-Biography:He was born on 17 May 1901, "in a place where he saw the light of day for the first time, on Sabines Street no...
, Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
and Ion Negoiţescu
Ion Negoitescu
Ion Negoiţescu was a Romanian literary historian, critic, poet, novelist and memoirist, one of the leading members of the Sibiu Literary Circle. A rebellious and eccentric figure, Negoiţescu began his career while still an adolescent, and made himself known as a literary ideologue of the 1940s...
. Writing during the second half of the century, critic Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu is a Romanian literary critic. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he has reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years...
passed a similar judgment, believing that Creangă was motivated by a "strictly intellectual sensuousness" and the notion that "pleasure arises from gratuitousness", while Manolescu's colleague Mircea Braga referred to "the great secret of the man who has managed to transfer unaltered the code of popular creativity into the immanence of the cultured one." In Braga's assessment, this synthesis managed "the impossible", but the difficulty of repeating it with each story also resulted in mediocre writings: "from among his few texts, even fewer are located on the relatively highest level of the relative aesthetic hierarchy".
Călinescu viewed such intellectual traits as shared by Creangă with his Wallachian counterpart Anton Pann
Anton Pann
Anton Pann , was an Ottoman-born Wallachian composer, musicologist, and Romanian-language poet, also noted for his activities as a printer, translator, and schoolteacher...
, in turn linking both writers to the satirical component of Renaissance literature
Renaissance literature
Renaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature that began in Italy during the 14th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century...
, and specifically to François Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
. Within local tradition, the literary historian saw a symbolic connection between Creangă and the early 18th century figure, Ion Neculce
Ion Neculce
Ion Neculce was a Moldavian chronicler. His main work, Letopiseţul Ţărâi Moldovei [de la Dabija Vodă până la a doua domnie a lui Constantin Mavrocordat] was meant to extend Ion Neculce's narrative, covering events from 1661 to 1743.-Life:Ion Neculce...
, one of Moldavia's leading chroniclers. While he made his own comparison between Creangă and Pann, Tudor Vianu concluded that the Moldavian writer was in fact superior, as well as being more relevant to literature than Petre Ispirescu
Petre Ispirescu
Petre Ispirescu was a Romanian printer and publicist.-Biography:Born in Bucharest, his parents wanted him to be a priest and he was entrusted to study with a monk at the Metropolitan Church, after he studied with a priest at the Doamna Bălaşa Church....
, the prime collector of tales in 19th century Wallachia. Also making use of the Rabelais analogy, literary chronicler Gabriela Ursachi found another analogy in local letters: Ion Budai-Deleanu, an early 19th century representative of the Transylvanian School
Transylvanian School
The Transylvanian School was a cultural movement which was founded after part of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Habsburg-ruled Transylvania accepted the leadership of the Pope and became the Greek-Catholic Church . The links with Rome brought to the Romanian Tranylvanians the ideas of the Age of...
, whose style mixes erudite playfulness with popular tastes. These contextual traits, researchers assess, did not prevent Creangă's overall work from acquiring a universal aspect, particularly since various of his writings use narrative sequences common throughout world literature.
George Călinescu also assessed that these literary connections served to highlight the elevated nature of Creangă's style, his "erudite device", concluding: "Writers such as Creangă can only show up in places where the word is ancient and equivocal, and where experience has been condensed into unchanging formulas. It would have been more natural for such a prose writer to have emerged a few centuries later, into an era of Romanian humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
. Born much earlier, Creangă showed up where there exists an ancient tradition, and therefore a species of erudition, [...] in a mountain village [...] where the people is unmixed and keeping [with tradition]." Outlining his own theory about the aspects of "national specificity" in Romanian letters, he expanded on these thoughts, listing Creangă and Eminescu as "core Romanians" who illustrated a "primordial note", complemented by the "southern" and "Balkan
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
" group of Caragiale and others. Claiming that the "core" presence had "not primitive, but ancient" origins, perpetuated by "stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
d wisdom" and "energetic fatalism
Fatalism
Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.Fatalism generally refers to several of the following ideas:...
", he asserted: "Creangă shows our civilization's contemporaneity with the world's oldest civilizations, our Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n age." The alternating national and regional characteristics in Creangă's writings are related by historian Neagu Djuvara
Neagu Djuvara
Neagu Djuvara is a Romanian historian, essayist, philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat.-Early life:A native of Bucharest, he descended from an aristocratic Aromanian family...
with the writer's place of birth, an affluent village in an isolated region, contrasting heavily with the 19th century Wallachian countryside: "if the mud hut villages of the Danube flood plain are to be taken into account, one finds himself in a different country." Ornea, who noted that Eminescu effectively shared Creangă's worldview, believed the latter to have been dominated by nostalgia
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
for a world of independent landowning peasants, and argued that Creangă's literary and political outlook were both essentially conservative. Ornea commented: "One could say that it was through [this form of nostalgia] that the writer debuted and that, within the space of his work it became, in its own right, an expression of the world that was about to vanish." Commenting on Creangă's "robust realism" and lack of "sentimentality
Sentimentality
Sentimentality originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but current usage defines it as an appeal to shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason....
", Vianu contrarily asserted: "Creangă's nostalgia [...] has an individual, not social, sense."
The witty and playful side of Creangă's personality, which became notorious during his time at Junimea and constituted a significant part of his appeal, was reflected into a series of anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
s. These accounts detail his playing the ignorant in front of fellow Junimists in order not to antagonize sides during literary debates (notably, by declaring himself "for against" during a two-option vote), his irony in reference to his own admirers (such as when he asked two of them to treasure the photograph of himself in the middle and the two of them on either side, while comparing it to the crucifixion scene
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
and implicitly assigning them the role of thieves), and his recourse to puns and proverbs which he usually claimed to be citing from oral tradition and the roots of Romanian humor. The latter habit was notably illustrated by his answer to people who would ask him for money: "not since I born was I as poor as I was poor yesterday and the day before yesterday and last week and last week and throughout life". His joyfulness complemented his overall Epicureanism
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
and his gourmand
Gourmand
A gourmand is a person who takes great pleasure in food. The word has different connotations from the similar word gourmet, which emphasises an individual with a highly refined discerning palate, but in practice the two terms are closely linked, as both imply the enjoyment of good food.An older...
habits: his accounts are often marked by a special interest in describing acts related to food and drink. Overall, Eduard Gruber's report contended, Creangă's writing relied on him being "a strong sensual and auditive type", and a "very emotional" person.
Ion Creangă's sense of humor was instrumental in forging the unprecedented characteristics of his work. American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
critic Ruth S. Lamb, the writer's style merges "the rich vocabulary of the Moldavian peasant" with "an original gaiety and gusto comparable to that of Rabelais." According to George Călinescu: "[Creangă] got the idea that he was a clever man, like all men of the people, and therefore used irony to make himself seem stupid." In Călinescu's view, the author's antics had earned him a status equivalent to that of his Wallachian Junimist counterpart Caragiale, with the exception that the latter found his inspiration in urban settings, matching "Nasreddin
Nasreddin
Nasreddin was a Seljuq satirical Sufi figure, sometimes believed to have lived during the Middle Ages and considered a populist philosopher and wise man, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes. He appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but often, too, a fool or...
isms" with "Miticism
Mitica
Mitică is a fictional character who appears in several sketch stories by Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale, and whose name is a common hypocoristic form of Dumitru or Dimitrie...
". Z. Ornea sees the main protagonists in Creangă's comedic narratives as, in effect, "particularized incarnations of the same symbolic character", while the use of humor itself reflects the traditional mindset, "a survival through intelligence, that of a people with an old history, whose life experience has for centuries been concentrated into gestures and words."
Main tales
Part of Ion Creangă's contribution to the short storyShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
and children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
genres involved collecting and transforming narratives circulating throughout his native region, which intertwine with his characteristic storytelling to the point where they become original contributions. According to Călinescu, the traditional praise for Ion Creangă as a creator of literary types is erroneous, since his characters primarily answered to ancient and linear narrative designs. The conclusion is partly shared by Braga, who links Creangă's tales to ethnological
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
and anthropological
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
takes on the themes and purposes of fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s, postulating the prevalence of three ancient and related narrative pretexts throughout his contributions: the preexistence of a "perturbing situation" (attributable to fatality), the plunging of the hero into a rite of passage
Rites of Passage
Rites of Passage is an African American History program sponsored by the Stamford, Connecticut US public schools. The program consists of an extra day of schooling on Saturday for 12 weeks, service projects, and a culminating educational trip to Gambia and Senegal. Gambia and Senegal are the...
-type challenge, a happy ending
Happy ending
A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which almost everything turns out for the best for the protagonists, their sidekicks, and almost everyone except the villains....
which brings the triumph of good over evil (often as a brutal and uncompromising act). Like their sources and predecessors in folklore, these accounts also carry transparent moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
s, ranging from the regulation of family life to meditations about destiny and lessons about tolerating the marginals. However, Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
researcher Tom Sandqvist argues, they also illustrate the absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
vein of some traditional narratives, by featuring "grotesqueries" and "illogical surprises".
With "The Goat and Her Three Kids
The Goat and Her Three Kids
"The Goat and Her Three Kids" or "The Goat with Three Kids" is an 1875 short story, fable and fairy tale by Romanian author Ion Creangă. Figuratively illustrating for the notions of motherly love and childish disobedience, it recounts how a family of goats is ravaged by the Big Bad Wolf, allowed...
", written mainly as a picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
illustration of motherly love, Creangă produced a fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
in prose, opposing the eponymous characters, caricatures of a garrulous but hard-working woman and her restless sons, to the sharp-toothed Big Bad Wolf
Big Bad Wolf
The Big Bad Wolf is a term used to describe a fictional wolf who appears in several precautionary folkloric stories, including some of Aesop's Fables and Grimm's Fairy Tales.-Interpretations:...
, a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
depiction of the cunning and immoral stranger. The plot shows the wolf making his way into the goat's house, where he eats the two older and less obedient kids, while the youngest one manages to escape by hiding up the chimney—the symbolism of which was psychoanalyzed
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
by Dan Grădinaru, who claims it constitutes an allusion to Creangă's own childhood. The dénouement sees an inversion of the natural roles, an episode which, ethnologist Şerban Anghelescu notes, is dominated by "the culinary fire": the goat exercises her brutal revenge by trapping and slowly cooking the predator. This approach partly resonates with that of "The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law", in which Creangă makes ample use of a traditional theme in Romanian humor, which portrays mothers-in-law as mean, stingy and oppressive characters. The embodiment of such offensive traits, she is also shown to be ingenious, pretending that she has a hidden third eye
Third eye
The third eye is a mystical and esoteric concept referring in part to the ajna chakra in certain spiritual traditions. It is also spoken of as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness...
which always keeps things under watch. The narrator sides with the three young women in depicting their violent retribution, showing them capturing their oppressor, torturing her until she is left speech impaired, and leaving her on the brink of death. The mother-in-law's end turns into a farce: the eldest and most intelligent of the killers manipulates her victim's dying sounds into a testament partitioning her wealth, and a thin decorum is maintained at the funeral ceremony by the daughters' hypocritical sobbing.
"The Story of the Pig" partly illustrates the notion that parental love subdues even physical repulsion, showing an elderly peasant couple cherishing their adopted porcine son, who, unbeknown to them, is enchanted. The creature instantly offsets his parents' sadness and immobility by his witty intelligence. Having applied his perseverance and spells to erect a magical bridge, the piglet fulfills the requirement for marrying the emperor's daughter, after which it is uncovered that he is a Făt-Frumos
Fat-Frumos
Făt-Frumos is a knight hero in Romanian folklore, usually present in fairy tales....
or Prince Charming
Prince Charming
Prince Charming is a stock character who appears in a number of fairy tales. He is the prince who comes to rescue of the damsel in distress, and stereotypically, must engage in a quest to liberate her from an evil spell...
character who assumes his real identity only by night. Although the plot is supposed to deal with imperial magnificence in fairy tale fashion, the setting is still primarily rural, and the court itself is made to look like an elevated peasant community. According to researcher Marcu Beza, the text is, outside of its humorous context, a distant reworking of ancient legends such as Cupid and Psyche
Cupid and Psyche
Cupid and Psyche , is a legend that first appeared as a digressionary story told by an old woman in Lucius Apuleius' novel, The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century CE. Apuleius likely used an earlier tale as the basis for his story, modifying it to suit the thematic needs of his novel.It has...
. The story introduces three additional characters, old women who assess and reward the efforts of the virtuous: Holy Wednesday, Holy Friday and Holy Sunday. They represent a mix of Christian and pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
traditions, by being both personifications of the liturgical calendar
Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar
The Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar describes and dictates the rhythm of the life of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Associated with each date are passages of Holy Scripture, Saints and events for commemoration, and many times special rules for fasting or feasting that correspond to the day of...
and fairy
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
-like patrons of the wilderness (zâne
Zâna
Zână is the Romanian equivalent of the Greek Charites. They are the opposite of monsters like Muma Padurii. These characters make positive appearances in fairy tales and reside mostly in the woods...
).
A similar perspective was favored by "The Old Man's Daughter and the Old Woman's Daughter". Here, the theme echoes Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
, but, according to Călinescu, the rural setting provides a sharp contrast to the classical motif. Persecuted by her stepmother and stepsister, the kind and loving daughter of the old man is forced into a position of servitude reflecting the plight of many peasant women in Creangă's lifetime. In this case, the old man is negatively depicted as cowardly and entirely dominated by his mean wife. The focal point of the narrative is the meeting between the good daughter and Holy Sunday. The latter notices and generously rewards the girl's helpful nature and mastery of cooking; in contrast, when her envious sister attempts the same and fails, she ends up being eaten by serpent-like creatures (balaur
Balaur
A balaur is a creature in Romanian folklore, similar to a European dragon. A bălaur is quite large, has fins, feet, and is polycephalous...
i). The happy ending
Happy ending
A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which almost everything turns out for the best for the protagonists, their sidekicks, and almost everyone except the villains....
sees the good girl marrying not Prince Charming, but a simple man described as "kind and industrious"—this outcome, Călinescu assessed, did not in effect spare the old man's daughter from a life of intense labor. A story very similar to "The Old Man's Daughter..." is "The Purse a' Tuppence", which teaches that greed can shatter families, while offering symbolic retribution to men who are unhappy in marriage. The old man's rooster, chased away by the old woman for being unproductive, ends up amassing a huge fortune, which he keeps inside his belly and regurgitates back into the courtyard; the jealous old woman ends up killing her favorite hen, who has failed in replicating the rooster's feat.
Stories about devils and "Harap Alb"
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s are infused with themes from Christian mythology
Christian mythology
Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. In the study of mythology, the term "myth" refers to a traditional story, often one which is regarded as sacred and which explains how the world and its inhabitants came to have their present form.Classicist G.S. Kirk defines a...
, fictionalizing God, Saint Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
and the army of devils, most often with the comedic intent of showing such personages behaving like regular people. A defining story in this series is "Dănilă Prepeleac
Dănilă Prepeleac
"Dănilă Prepeleac" is an 1876 fantasy short story and fairy tale by Romanian author Ion Creangă, with a theme echoing influences from local folklore. The narrative is structured around two accounts...
", whose eponymous peasant hero is characterized by what Şerban Anghelescu calls "idiocy serving to initiate", or, according to Gabriela Ursachi, "complete, and therefore sublime, stupidity." The first part of the story shows Dănilă exchanging his oxen for an empty bag—a set of dialogues which, George Călinescu argued, is almost exactly like a comedy play. In what was described as a complete reversal in characterization, the hero uses intelligence and ruse to trick and frighten several devils. Contrarily, "Stan Păţitul" shows its hero fraternizing with a lesser demon. Following the opening episode, in which the latter accidentally eats a bit of mămăligă
Mamaliga
Mămăligă is a porridge made out of yellow maize flour, traditional in Romania and Moldova. It is similar to the Italian polenta.In Transylvania and in Carpathia mămăligă is also called puliszka...
dedicated by Stan to those who honor God, Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
himself condemns his subordinate to service the peasant. Călinescu highlights the naturalness of exchanges between the two protagonists, the latter of whom assumes the endearing form of a frail boy, Chirică, who ends up moving in with Stan and entering his service. The writing was also noted for other realistic elements alluding to everyday life, such as the overtly colloquial exchange between Chirică and Satan, or the episodes in which the young devil helps Stan woo a peasant woman. Although relatively young, Stan himself is referred to as stătut ("frowzy" or "lacking in freshness"), and the wording reflects rural attitudes about men who fail to marry during a certain age interval. Toward the end, the story focuses on a corrupt old woman who tries to trick Stan's new wife into committing adultery, but fails and is banished to the remotest area of Hell. Viewed by Călinescu as Creangă's "most original manner of dealing with the fabulous", and paralleled by him with Caragiale's Kir Ianulea
Kir Ianulea
Kir Ianulea or Kyr Ianulea is a fantasy and historical fiction novella or short story, published by Romanian author Ion Luca Caragiale in 1909...
on account of its realist approach to the supernatural, "Stan Păţitul" is, according to Vianu, untraceable in its inspiration: "[its] folk origin could not be identified, but it is not dismissible".
Another account in this series is "Ivan Turbincă
Ivan Turbincă
"Ivan Turbincă" is an 1880 short story, fairy tale and satirical text by Romanian writer Ion Creangă, echoing themes common in Romanian and European folklore. It recounts the adventures of an eponymous Russian soldier, who passes between the world of the living, Heaven and Hell, on a quest for...
", whose protagonist, a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n serviceman, is shown rebelling against Heaven and Hell, and ultimately accomplishing the human ideal of cheating Death
Cheating Death
The phrase cheating death is commonly used to describe the manner in which a person avoids a possibly fatal event or who prolongs their life in spite of considerable odds...
. The plot retells a theme present in both Romanian tradition and Ukrainian folklore
Ukrainian folklore
Ukrainian folklore is the folk tradition which has developed in Ukraine and among ethnic Ukrainians. The earliest examples of folklore found in Ukraine is the layer of pan-slavic folklore that dates back to the ancient Slavic mythology of the Eastern Slavs. Gradually, Ukrainians developed a layer...
, while, according to researcher of children's literature Muguraş Constantinescu, the main character is similar to German tradition
German folklore
German folklore shares many characteristics with Scandinavian folklore and English folklore due to their origins in a common Germanic mythology. It reflects a similar mix of influences: a pre-Christian pantheon and other beings equivalent to those of Norse mythology; magical characters associated...
's Till Eulenspiegel
Till Eulenspiegel
Till Eulenspiegel was an impudent trickster figure originating in Middle Low German folklore. His tales were disseminated in popular printed editions narrating a string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France...
. In the beginning of the account, God rewards the soldier's exemplary charity by granting him a pouch (turbincă), which can miraculously trap anything in existence. In order to circumvent the laws of nature, Ivan subsequently makes use of both his magical item and his innate shrewdness. In one such episode, pretending not to understand the proper position of bodies inside a coffin, he tricks impatient Death into taking his place, and traps her inside. Eventually, he is allowed to keep his life, but is promised an eternity of old age, which he ingeniously counterbalances by attending an endless succession of wedding parties, and therefore never having to feel sad.
"Harap Alb
Harap Alb
"Harap Alb" or "Harap-Alb" , known in full as Povestea lui Harap Alb , is a Romanian-language fairy tale. Based on traditional themes found in Romanian folklore, it was recorded and reworked in 1877 by writer Ion Creangă, becoming one of his main contributions to fantasy and Romanian literature...
", one of Ion Creangă's most complex narratives, carries a moral defined by Călinescu as "the gifted man will earn a reputation under any guise." The story opens with a coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
quest, handed down by a king to his three sons: the most fit among them is supposed to reach the court of the Green Emperor, who is the king's brother, and succeed him to the throne. According to Călinescu, the mission bases itself on travels undertaken by young men in Creangă's native region, while the subsequent episodes in the narrative reinforce the impression of familiarity, from the "peasant speech" adopted by the villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
known as the Bald Man, to the "crass vulgarity" evidenced by the antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
Red Emperor. Forced to pass himself off as a foreign servant (or "Moor
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
"), the prince is three times tested and aided by Holy Sunday, who doubles as the queen of zâne
Zâna
Zână is the Romanian equivalent of the Greek Charites. They are the opposite of monsters like Muma Padurii. These characters make positive appearances in fairy tales and reside mostly in the woods...
creatures. Călinescu described as "playful realism" the method through which Creangă outlined the mannerisms of several other characters, in particular the allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
creatures who provide the youngest prince with additional and serendipitous assistance. In one noted instance, the characters Setilă ("Drink-All") and Flămânzilă ("Eat-All") help the hero overcome seemingly impossible tasks set by the Red Emperor, by ingesting unnaturally huge amounts of food and drink.
The tale builds on intricate symbolism stemming from obscure sources. It features what Muguraş Constantinescu calls "the most complex representation of Holy Sunday", with mention of her isolated and heavenly abode on "flower island". A background antithesis
Antithesis
Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...
opposes the two fictional monarchs, with the Red Emperor replicating an ancient tradition which attributes malignant characteristics to the color. By contrast, the Green Emperor probably illustrates the ideals of vitality and healthy lifestyle, as hinted by his culinary preference for "lettuce from the garden of the bear". Historian Adrian Majuru, building on earlier observations made by linguist Lazăr Şăineanu
Lazăr Şăineanu
Lazăr Şăineanu was a Romanian-born philologist, linguist, folklorist and cultural historian. A specialist in Oriental and Romance studies, as well as a Hebraist and a Germanist, he was primarily known for his contribution to Yiddish and Romanian philology, his work in evolutionary linguistics, and...
, also connects the servant-prince's antagonists with various reflections of ethnic strife in Romanian folklore: the Red Emperor as standing for the medieval Khazars
Khazars
The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...
("Red Jews
Red Jews
The Red Jews were a legendary Jewish nation that appear in vernacular sources in Germany during the medieval era until about 1600. According to these texts, the Red Jews were an epochal threat to Christendom, and would invade Europe during the tribulations leading to the end of the world.Andrew...
"), the Bald Man as a popular view of the Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
.
Childhood Memories
Childhood Memories (Creangă)
Childhood Memories is one of the main literary contributions of Romanian author Ion Creangă...
is, together with a short story about his teacher Isaia Teodorescu (titled "Popa Duhu"), one of Creangă's two memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s. George Călinescu proposed that, like his fairy tales, the book illustrates popular narrative conventions, a matter accounting for their special place in literature: "The stories are true, but typical, without depth. Once retold with a different kind of gesticulation, the subject would lose all of its lively atmosphere." Also based on the techniques of traditional oral accounts, it features the topical interventions of a first-person narrator
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
in the form of soliloquies
Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters, and is delivered often when they are alone or think they are alone. Soliloquy is distinct from monologue and...
, and reflects in part the literary canon set by frame stories
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
. The resulting effect, Călinescu argued, was not that of "a confession or a diary", but that of a symbolic account depicting "the childhood of the universal child." According to Vianu, the text is especially illustrative of its author's "spontaneous passage" between the levels of "popular" and "cultured" literature: "The idea of fictionalizing oneself, of outlining one's formative steps, the steady accumulation of impressions from life, and then the sentiment of time, of its irreversible flow, of regret for all things lost in its consumption, of the charm relived through one's recollections are all thoughts, feelings and attitudes defining a modern man of culture. No popular model could have ever stood before Creangă when he was writing his Memories, but, surely, neither could the cultured prototypes of the genre, the first autobiographies and memoirs of the Renaissance". Grădinaru and essayist Mircea Moţ analyzed the volume as a fundamentally sad text, in stated contrast with its common perception as a recollection of joyful moments: the former focused on moments which seem to depict Nică as a loner, the latter highlighted those sections which include Creangă's bitter musings about destiny and the impregnability of changes. A distinct interpretation was provided by critic Luminiţa Marcu, who reacted against the tradition of viewing Creangă's actual childhood as inseparable from his own subjective rendition.
Several of the book's episodes have drawn attention for the insight they offer into the culture, structure and conflicts of traditional society before 1900. Commenting on this characteristic, Djuvara asserted: "even if we take into account that the grown-up will embellish, transfigure, 'enrich' the memories of his childhood, how could we not recognize the sincerity in Creangă's heart-warming evocation of his childhood's village?" The book stays true to life in depicting ancient customs: discussing the impact of paganism on traditional Romanian customs, Marcu Beza communicated a detail of Creangă's account, which shows how January 1 celebrations of Saint Basil
Basil of Caesarea
Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, was the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor . He was an influential 4th century Christian theologian...
opposed the loud buhai
Buhay
For another meaning, see Buhay Hayaan YumabongThe buhay . Hornbostel-Sachs classification number 232.11-92The buhay is a percussive...
players reenacting a fertility rite
Fertility rite
Fertility rites are religious rituals that reenact, either actually or symbolically, sexual acts and/or reproductive processes: 'sexual intoxication is a typical component of the...rites of the various functional gods who control reproduction, whether of man, beast, cattle, or grains of seed'..They...
to people preferring a quieter celebration. The work also offers details on the traditional roles of a rural society such as that of Humuleşti, in the context of social change. Muguraş Constantinescu highlights the important roles of old men and women within Nică's universe, and especially that of his grandfather and "clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
leader" David Creangă. The latter, she notes, is an "enlightened man" displaying "the wisdom and balance of the ripe age", a person able to insist on the importance of education, and a churchgoer who frowns on "his wife's bigotry
Bigotry
A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs...
." The seniors' regulatory role within the village is evidenced throughout the book, notoriously so in the episode where the boy captures a hoopoe
Hoopoe
The Hoopoe is a colourful bird that is found across Afro-Eurasia, notable for its distinctive 'crown' of feathers. It is the only extant species in the family Upupidae. One insular species, the Giant Hoopoe of Saint Helena, is extinct, and the Madagascar subspecies of the Hoopoe is sometimes...
who bothers his morning sleep, only to be tricked into releasing it by old man, who understands the bird's vital role as village alarm clock.
Another significant part of the account, detailing Creangă's education, shows him frustrated by the old methods of teaching, insisting on the absurd image of children learning by heart and chanting elements of Romanian grammar
Romanian grammar
Standard Romanian shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Eastern Romance, viz...
and even whole texts. The narrator refers to this method as "a terrible way to stultify the mind". The negative portrayal of teaching priests was commented by writer and critic Horia Gârbea
Horia Gârbea
Horia-Răzvan Gârbea or Gîrbea is a Romanian playwright, poet, essayist, novelist and critic, also known as an academic, engineer and journalist. Known for his work in experimental theater and his Postmodernist contributions to Romanian literature, he is a member of the Writers' Union of Romania ,...
as proof of the author's anticlericalism, in line with various satirical works targeting the Romanian clergy: "Creangă's Memories of the catechism
Catechism
A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...
school would discourage any candidate."
Didactic writings
Creangă's contribution to literature also covers a series of didacticDidacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
fables written as lively dialogues, among them "The Needle and the Sledge Hammer", in which the objects of traditional metalworking
Metalworking
Metalworking is the process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large scale structures. The term covers a wide range of work from large ships and bridges to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry. It therefore includes a correspondingly wide range of skills,...
scold the byproducts of their work for having forgotten their lowly origin. The inspiration behind this theme was identified by Călinescu as "The Story of a Gold Coin", written earlier by Creangă's Junimist colleague Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian poet, playwright, politician, and diplomat. He collected Romanian folk songs and was one of the principal animators of the 19th century movement for Romanian cultural identity and union of Moldavia and Wallachia....
. A similar piece, "The Flax and the Shirt", reveals the circuit of fibers from weed-like plants into recycled cloth, leading to the conclusion that "all things are not what they seem; they were something else once, they are something else now;—and shall become something else." The technique employed by Creangă has the flax plant teaching the less knowledgeable textile, a dialogue which Călinescu likened to that between old women in a traditional society. Included alongside the two stories were: Pâcală, a writing which, Mircea Braga argued, is not as much didactic as it is a study in dialogue; "The Bear Tricked by the Fox", which uses legendary and humorous elements in an attempt to explain why bears are the tail-less species among mammals; and Cinci pâini ("Five Loafs of Bread"), which serves as a condemnation of greed.
With "Human Stupidity", Creangă builds a fable about incompetence in its absolute forms. The story centers on a peasant's quest to find people who are less rational than his wife, having been infuriated by her panic at the remote possibility that a ball of salt could fall from its place of storage and kill their baby. This, essayist and chronicler Simona Vasilache argues, highlights "a family-based division" of illogical behavior, in which women are depicted as the main propagators of both "astonishing nonsense" and "prudent stupidity". Instead, literary critic Ion Pecie identified inside the narrative a meditation on "the link between spirit and nature", with the unpredictable ball of salt representing the equivalent of a "sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
". His colleague Gheorghe Grigurcu argued that such conclusions "may seem excessive", but that they were ultimately validated by the literary work being "a plurality of levels". A similar piece is the prose fable "The Story of a Lazy Man": fed up with the protagonist's proverbial indolence, which has led him as far as to view chewing food as an effort, his fellow villagers organize a lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
. This upsets the sensibility of a noblewoman who happens to witness the incident. When she offers to take the lazy man into her care and feed him bread crumbs, he seals his own fate by asking: "But are your bread crumbs soft?" The peculiar effect of this moral is underlined by Anghelescu: "The lazy man dies as a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
of his own immobility." Braga interpreted the story as evidence of "the primacy of ethics" over social aspects in the local tradition. Ion Pecie saw in the story proof of Creangă's own support for capital punishment
Capital punishment in Romania
Capital punishment in Romania was abolished in 1989, and has been prohibited by the Constitution of Romania since 1991.-Antecedents:The death penalty has a long and varied history in present-day Romania. Vlad III the Impaler was notorious for executing thousands by impalement...
with a preventive or didactic purpose, even in cases were the fault was trivial or imagined, concluding: "Here, [...] Creangă loses much of his depth." Pecie's conclusion was treated with reserve by Grigurcu, who believed that, instead, the narrator refrains from passing any judgment on "the community's instinctual eugenic
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
reaction".
Partly didactic in scope, several of Creangă's anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
s involve Ion Roată
Ion Roata
Ion Roată was a Moldavian-born Romanian peasant and political figure. Roată was representative in the Moldavian ad-hoc Divan for the peasant electoral college of Putna County...
, a representative to the ad-hoc Divan which voted in favor of Moldo-Wallachian union
United Principalities
The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, also known as the Romanian Principalities, was the official name of Romania following the 1859 election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince or domnitor of both territories...
, and the newly elected Domnitor
Domnitor
Domnitor was the official title of the ruler of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia between 1859 and 1866....
Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza was a Moldavian-born Romanian politician who ruled as the first Domnitor of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia between 1859 and 1866.-Early life:...
. The texts convey a sense of tension between the traditional boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
aristocracy and the peasant category, closely reflecting, according to historian Philip Longworth, a conflict mounting during the second half of the 19th century. The same is argued by Ornea, who also proposes that the protagonist offers insight into Creangă's own conservative reflexes and his complex views on the union, while outlining several connections which the brand of social criticism
Social criticism
The term social criticism locates the reasons for malicious conditions of the society in flawed social structures. People adhering to a social critics aim at practical solutions by specific measures, often consensual reform but sometimes also by powerful revolution.- European roots :Religious...
professed by Junimea. Although Roată, a real-life person, was a representative of the pro-union National Party, his main interest, according to the stories themselves, was in curbing the boyars' infringement of peasant rights. The stories' narrator directs his hostility not at boyars in general, but at the younger Romantic nationalist
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
ones, whom he portrays as gambling on Moldavia's future: "[There was] a clash of ideas opposing old boyars to the youth of Moldavia's ad-hoc Divan, even though both were in favor of 'Union'. It's only that the old ones wanted a negotiated 'Union', and the young ones a 'Union' done without proper thinking, as it came to pass." According to Muguraş Constantinescu: "[Roată] opposes the intelligence of common folk, their common sense, their humor and the pleasure of allegorical discourse to the pompous and hollow speeches of some politicians". In this context, Cuza's presence is depicted as both legitimate and serendipitous, as he takes a personal interest in curbing boyar abuse.
Moş Nichifor Coţcariul and "corrosives"
Seen by Romanian critic Radu Voinescu as an extended anecdote, the novellaNovella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
Moş Nichifor Coţcariul ("Old Man Nichifor Slyboots") establishes a connection with the language of fairy tales, being located in a legendary and non-historical age. It details the elaborate seduction of a young Jewish
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
bride by a worldly Moldavian wagoner, on the route between Târgu Neamţ
Târgu Neamt
Târgu Neamţ is a town in Neamţ County, Romania, on the Neamţ River. It had, , a population of 20,496. Three villages are administered by the town: Blebea, Humuleşti and Humuleştii Noi.- History :...
and Piatra
Piatra Neamt
Piatra Neamț , , ; is the capital city of Neamţ County, in the historical region of Moldavia, eastern Romania. Because of its privileged location in the Eastern Carpathian mountains, it is considered one of the most picturesque cities in Romania...
. The episode, which the text itself indicates is just one in a series of Nichifor's conquests among his female clients, highlights the seducer's verbose monologue, which covers accounts of his unhappy marriage, allusions about the naturalness of physical love, and intimidating suggestions that wolves may be tempted to attack the wagon (prompting the young woman to seek refuge in his arms). The seducer's behavior, Constantinescu notes, presents an alternative to the theme of old age as a time of immobility: "the still-green old man, the rake, the joker who enjoys his amorous escapades, while justifying them by the natural course of life". Nichifor mostly expresses himself with the help of folk sayings, which he casually mixes in with personal observations about the situation. The background to the plot is a record of various superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
s, some anticlerical
Anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence, real or alleged, in all aspects of public and political life, and the involvement of religion in the everyday life of the citizen...
or antisemitic: Nichifor voices the belief that priests crossing one's path will produce bad luck, as well as the claim that Jewish apothecaries
Apothecary
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....
sold "poisons".
The reception of Moş Nichifor Coţcariul by Junimea illustrated its ambivalence toward Creangă. Maiorescu found the text "interesting in its way and decisively Romanian", but asked Convorbiri Literare journal to either modify it or refrain from publishing it altogether. This was complemented by its author's own self-effacing assessment: calling the text "a childish thing", he suggested to Maiorescu that revisions were needed, stating "I have written it long, because there was no time for me to write it short." Contrarily, the writer's posterity referred to it as one of the greatest Romanian contributions to the genre: according to George Călinescu, the insight into Nichifor's musings resulted in transforming the writing as a whole into "the first great Romanian novella with a stereotypical hero", while Voinescu described the entire story as "a true masterpiece."
The narrative approaches of Moş Nichifor Coţcariul bordered on Creangă's contributions to erotic literature
Erotic literature
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, poetry, true-life memoirs, and sex manuals...
, pieces collectively known as "corrosives" and which have for long treated with discretion by literary historians. In Călinescu's view, this chapter in Creangă's literature created another link between the Moldavian writer and the Renaissance tradition of Rabelais: "All Rabelaisians have penetrated deeply into the realm of vulgarity." The taste for titillating accounts was also cultivated by Junimea members, who discreetly signaled their wish to hear more explicit content by asking Creangă to recount stories from "the wide street". A product of this context, Moş Nichifor Coţcariul itself is said to have had at least one sexually explicit variant, circulated orally.
Two stories with explicit pornographic
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
content survive as samples of Creangă's erotic authorship: "The Tale of Ionică the Fool" and "The Tale of All Tales" (also known as Povestea pulei, "Tale of the Dick" or "Tale of the Cock"). The former shows its cunning hero having intercourse with a priest's daughter, moving between prose and verse to describe the act. "The Tale of All Tales", which makes ample use of vulgar speech
Romanian profanity
Romanian profanity refers to a set of words considered blasphemous or inflammatory in the Romanian language.Romanian is considered to have a huge set of inflammatory terms and phrases...
, recounts how a peasant disrespectful of divinity has his entire maize harvest transformed into male genitalia, but is able to turn out a profit by catering to the sexual appetites of women. The final section, seen by Gârbea as a sample of anticlerical jeers recorded by "the defrocked Creangă", depicts the rape of a priest by one such sexual object. Although explicit, literary historian Alex. Ştefănescu argued, the text "is refined and full of charm". While acknowledging both "corrosives" for their "popular charm" in the line of Rabelais and Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
, and noting that they still display the author's place as a "great stylist", Voinescu also signaled the texts' "very obvious" debt to folkloric sources. In his definition, Ion Creangă is "possibly the only writer" to draw on the legacy of "luscious popular jests" found in local "erotic folklore". Nevertheless, according to literary critic Mircea Iorgulescu, "The Tale of All Tales" may in fact be based on Parapilla, a pornographic leaflet circulating in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
Estate, family and early cultural impact
Soon after the Creangă's death, efforts began to collect his manuscript writings and the updated versions of his printed works. This project involved his son Constantin, alongside A. D. Xenopol, Grigore AlexandrescuGrigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu in Bucharest was a nineteenth century Romanian poet and translator noted for his fables with political undertones.Of a noble family, he participated in secret revolutionary societies...
and Eduard Gruber, the latter of whom obtained the works from Tinca Vartic. The first edition was published as two volumes, in 1890–1892, but the project came to an abrupt halt due to Gruber's insanity and death. Creangă's final known work, the fragment of Făt-frumos, fiul iepei, was published by Convorbiri Literare in 1898. The Gruber copies were sold to a Dr. Mendel, and only a part of them was recovered by exegetes, alongside various fragments accidentally discovered at Iaşi market, where they were being used for wrapping paper. The collection, structured into a whole by folklorist Gheorghe T. Kirileanu, was published by Editura Minerva
Editura Minerva
Editura Minerva is one of the largest publishing houses in Romania. Located in Bucharest, it is known, among other things, for publishing classic Romanian literature, children's books, and scientific books.-External links:**...
in 1902 and 1906. In addition to being mentioned in the memoirs of several prominent Junimists, Creangă had his political career fictionalized and satirized by Iacob Negruzzi, who transformed him, as Popa Smântână, into a character of his satirical poems Electorale ("Electorals"). The same author referred to his counterpart in one of his epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
s.
Shortly after her lover's death, Tinca Vartic married a man who lived in the same part of Iaşi. The target of organized tourism from as early as 1890, the Iaşi Bojdeuca nevertheless fell into disrepair. It was eventually purchased by a "Ion Creangă Committee", whose members included Constantin Creangă, Kirileanu and the ultra-nationalist politician A. C. Cuza
A. C. Cuza
A. C. Cuza was a Romanian far right politician and theorist.-Early life:Born in Iaşi, after attending secondary school in his native city and in Dresden, Cuza studied law at the University of Paris, the Universität unter den Linden, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles...
. It was set up as the first of Romania's "memorial houses" on April 15, 1918. Restored the same year and again in 1933–1934, it houses an important part of Creangă's personal items and the first known among Creangă's portraits, painted by his contemporary V. Muşneţanu. While Constantin Creangă had a successful career in the Romanian Army, one of the writer's two grandsons, Horia Creangă
Horia Creangă
-References:...
, became one of the celebrated modern architect
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
of the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, earning his reputation by redisigning much of downtown Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
.
The popularity of Ion Creangă's accounts outside his regional and dialectal context, together with his own contribution as an educator, played a part in the evolution of standard Romanian
History of the Romanian language
-Dacia and Romanization:The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacians, an Indo-European people. They were defeated by the Roman Empire in 106 and part of Dacia became a Roman province...
, at a new phase in which many dialectal variations were incorporated into the spoken language. His primers Metodă nouă... and Învăţătoriul copiilor went through many editions during the late 19th century. The impact of his works was also a contributing factor to preserving a noted interest in rural subjects, a subsequent defining trait in modern Romanian literature. Discussing "stylistic harmony", which he believed to be bridging all of Romania's social and literary environments, philosopher Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
wrote: "Romanians consider Ion Creangă a classic writer belonging to the modern age. His work can be read and understood by the entire range of social classes, in all the provinces of our country. In spite of the abundant presence of Moldavian words in his writings, the work would not remain a stranger to its readers. What other European culture can take pride in having a classic writer read by all categories of readers?" The "thematic grip of the village" was noted by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
academic Harold Segel
Harold Segel
Harold B. Segel is professor emeritus of Slavic literatures and of comparative literature at Columbia University.-Works:*Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia: A History and Anthology *The Major Comedies of Alexander Fredro...
, who investigated its impact on "some of the most revered names in the history of Romanian literature", from Creangă and Slavici to interwar novelist Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist.- Life :Born in Târlișua , Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the second of thirteen children born to Vasile Rebreanu, a schoolteacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, descendants of peasants...
.
Early 20th century and interwar echoes
Sămănătorul
Sămănătorul or Semănătorul was a literary and political magazine published in Romania between 1901 and 1910. Founded by poets Alexandru Vlahuţă and George Coşbuc, it is primarily remembered as a tribune for early 20th century traditionalism, neoromanticism and ethnic nationalism...
, led by Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, poet and playwright. Co-founder of the Democratic Nationalist Party , he served as a member of Parliament, President of the Deputies' Assembly and Senate, cabinet minister and briefly as Prime Minister...
, and the left-wing Poporanists
Poporanism
The word “poporanism” is derived from “popor”, meaning “people” in the Romanian language. The ideology of Romanian Populism and poporanism are interchangeable. Founded by Constantin Stere in the early 1890s, populism is distinguished by its opposition to socialism, promotion of voting rights for...
, among which was Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
. The new editions of his works enlisted the collaboration of Sămănătorist intellectuals Ilarie Chendi and Ştefan Octavian Iosif
Stefan Octavian Iosif
Ştefan Octavian Iosif was a Romanian poet and translator of Aromanian origin.-Life:Born in Braşov, Transylvania , he studied in his native town and in Sibiu before completing his education in Paris. While in France, he met Dimitrie Anghel, who would became a long-time friend...
. Tudor Vianu however noted that, unlike Eminescu's outlook, Creangă's "authentic ruralism" did not complement the "spiritual complications", global social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
perspective and intellectual background associated with these trends, making Creangă "the least Sămănătorist among our writers." According to Ornea, Creangă has "nothing in common" with the Sămănătorul ideology in particular: while the group shared his nostalgic outlook on the rural past in stark contrast to the modernized world, the Moldavian author could "maintain, intelligently, the middle ground between contraries". Likewise, Mircea Braga reacted against the perception of Creangă as announcing a "series" of authors, noting that, for all imitation, he was "an exceptional and, as far as Romanian literary history goes, unique creator."
Directly influenced by Creangă, several early 20th century and interwar authors within the new traditionalist trend explicitly stood for the legacy of folkloric, spontaneous and unskilled literature: the peasant writer I. Dragoslav
I. Dragoslav
I. Dragoslav or Ion Dragoslav, pen names of Ion V. Ivaciuc or Ion Sumanariu Ivanciuc , was a Romanian writer...
, whose memoirs borrow stylistic elements from Creangă's accounts; Constantin Sandu-Aldea, an agriculturalist by profession, who took inspiration from his techniques of rendering dialogue; and Ion Iovescu, whom the Sburătorul
Sburatorul
Sburătorul was a Romanian modernist literary magazine and literary society, established in Bucharest in April 1919. Led by Eugen Lovinescu, the circle was instrumental in developing new trends and styles in Romanian literature, ranging from a new wave of Romanian Symbolism to an urban-themed...
literary circle acclaimed as "a new Creangă", and who made ample use of a modernized Muntenia
Muntenia
Muntenia is a historical province of Romania, usually considered Wallachia-proper . It is situated between the Danube , the Carpathian Mountains and Moldavia , and the Olt River to the west...
n dialect. Similarly, the Aromanian
Aromanians
Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
activist and author Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
Nicolae Constantin Batzaria
Nicolae Constantin Batzaria, Besaria, Basarya or Bazaria , was a Macedonian-born Aromanian cultural activist, Ottoman statesman and Romanian writer...
, who divided his career between Romania and the southern Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, combined Creangă's storytelling techniques with the traditions of Turkish literature
Turkish literature
Turkish literature comprises both oral compositions and written texts in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman form or in less exclusively literary forms, such as that spoken in the Republic of Turkey today...
, while the reworking of regional folklore themes earned intellectual Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor
Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor
Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor or Nicolaescu-Plopşor was a Romanian historian, archeologist, anthropologist and ethnographer, also known as a and folkorist and children's writer, whose diverse activities were primarily focused on his native region of Oltenia...
a reputation as "the Oltenia
Oltenia
Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....
n Creangă". During the 1910s, folklorist Tudor Pamfile
Tudor Pamfile
Tudor Pamfile was a Romanian writer.Tudor Pamfile was born on June 11, 1883 in the village of Ţepu in Tecuci County . He attended primary school and the gimnasium in Tecuci, and the transferred to the Military School in Bucharest...
published a specialized magazine named Ion Creangă in honor of the writer. Creangă's various works also provided starting points for several other writers of diverse backgrounds. They included representatives of the Symbolist movement
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts...
, such as Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....
, who was inspired by Creangă's narrative style in writing his fantasy and verse play Înşir'te mărgărite. Another such author was poetess Elena Farago, whose didactic children's story Într-un cuib de rândunică ("Inside a Swallow's Nest") borrows from "The Flax and the Shirt".
With the interwar period and the spread of modernist literature
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
, a new generation of critics, most notably George Călinescu and Vladimir Streinu, dedicated important segments of their activity to the works of Ion Creangă. Other such figures were Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu
Şerban Cioculescu was a Romanian literary critic, literary historian and columnist, who held teaching positions in Romanian literature at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, as well as membership of the Romanian Academy and chairmanship of its Library...
, whose contribution attempts to elucidate the more mysterious parts of the writer's vocabulary, and educator Dumitru Furtună, whose biographical studies provided a main source for subsequent research. By then, interest in Creangă's life and writings had diversified. This phenomenon first touched Romanian theater when I. I. Mironescu dramatized a section of Creangă's Memories as Catiheţii de la Humuleşti ("The Catechists from Humuleşti")—a literary contribution judged "superfluous" by George Călinescu, who noted that the original was already "dramatic" in style. The writer's stories also became an inspiration for Alfred Mendelsohn and Alexandru Zirra, two Romanian composers who worked in children's musical theater, who adapted, respectively, "Harap Alb
Harap Alb
"Harap Alb" or "Harap-Alb" , known in full as Povestea lui Harap Alb , is a Romanian-language fairy tale. Based on traditional themes found in Romanian folklore, it was recorded and reworked in 1877 by writer Ion Creangă, becoming one of his main contributions to fantasy and Romanian literature...
" and "The Goat and Her Three Kids
The Goat and Her Three Kids
"The Goat and Her Three Kids" or "The Goat with Three Kids" is an 1875 short story, fable and fairy tale by Romanian author Ion Creangă. Figuratively illustrating for the notions of motherly love and childish disobedience, it recounts how a family of goats is ravaged by the Big Bad Wolf, allowed...
". Creangă was also a secondary presence in Mite and Bălăuca, two biographical novels centered on Eminescu's amorous life, written by the prominent interwar critic Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu
Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was the father of Monica Lovinescu, and the uncle of Horia Lovinescu, Vasile Lovinescu, and Anton Holban...
, to whom Călinescu reproached having largely ignored Creangă in his nonfictional texts. Creangă's writings also earned followers among the more radical wing of the modernist scene. The authenticity and originality of Creangă's prose were highlighted and treasured by the influential modernist venue Contimporanul
Contimporanul
Contimporanul was a Romanian avant-garde literary and art magazine, published in Bucharest between June 1922 and 1932...
, in particular by its literary chroniclers Ion Vinea and Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
. Likewise, while formally affiliating with Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
author Ion Călugăru
Ion Călugăru
Ion Călugăru was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and critic. As a figure on Romania's modernist scene throughout the early interwar period, he was noted for combining a picturesque perspective on the rural Jewish-Romanian community, to which he belonged, with traditionalist and...
contributed various prose works which borrow some of Creangă's storytelling techniques to depict the lives of Jewish Romanian
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
communities from Moldavia.
In stages after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the 19th century writer became better known to an international audience. This process produced translations into English, some of which, Călinescu argued, reached significant popularity among British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
readers of Romanian literature. In contrast, writer Paul Bailey
Paul Bailey
Paul Bailey is a British writer and critic, author of several novels as well as biographies of Cynthia Payne and Quentin Crisp.-Biography:...
assessed that the variants used antiquated words and "sounded terrible" in English. Among the series of early English-language versions was a 1920 edition of Creangă's Memories, translated by Lucy Byng and published by Marcu Beza. It was also during the interwar that Jean Boutière
Jean Boutière
Jean Boutière was a French philologist, specialist in Romance philology. Was born in Mallemort, Bouches-du-Rhône in France....
published the first-ever French-language monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...
on the Romanian writer, originally as a Ph. D. thesis for the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
.
While their author continued to receive praise for his main contributions, the erotic tales were most often kept hidden from the public eye. George Călinescu summarized this contrast by stating: "The 'corrosives' left by Creangă are not known publicly." An exception to this rule was Kirileanu's Creangă reader of 1938, published by Editura Fundaţiilor Regale as the first critical edition of his entire literature. According to critic Adrian Solomon, the Romanian tradition of silencing obscene language
Romanian profanity
Romanian profanity refers to a set of words considered blasphemous or inflammatory in the Romanian language.Romanian is considered to have a huge set of inflammatory terms and phrases...
and sexually explicit literature through censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
made "The Tale of All Tales" circulate "rather like a samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
", which left writers with "no solid tradition to draw on, and precious little chance to evade [...] the vigilant morals of a straitlaced public." The nationalist aspects of Ion Creangă's public discourse were however approved of and recovered by the far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
of the 1920s and '30s. High-ranking Orthodox cleric Tit Simedrea referred to Creangă as a predecessor when, in 1937, he urged his congregation to refrain from purchasing merchandise sold by Jews (a measure which he believed was a practical alternative to the Jews' forced eviction). In 1939, as part of a press campaign targeting Călinescu's work, the fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
journal Porunca Vremii accused the literary historian of having exposed Creangă's biography for the sake of compromising the "genial Moldavian" by turning him into "an unfrocked epileptic and a drunk."
Creangă inspired a 1920 painting by Octav Băncilă
Octav Bancila
Octav Băncilă was a Romanian realist painter and left-wing activist. He was the brother of Sofia Nădejde, a feminist journalist, and the brother-in-law of Ion Nădejde .-Biography:...
, which shows Creangă listening to Eminescu reading reading his poems. Two busts of the author were erected in Iaşi, respectively at his grave site and, in 1932, the gardens of Copou neighborhood. After 1943, another such piece was unveiled in Bucharest's Cişmigiu Gardens
Cismigiu Gardens
The Cişmigiu Gardens are a public park near the center of Bucharest, Romania, spanning areas on all sides of an artificial lake. The gardens' creation was an important moment in the history of Bucharest. They form the oldest and, at 17 hectares, the largest park in city's central area...
, as part of Rotunda Scriitorilor monument.
Under communism
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, which lasted between 1948 and 1989, the critical evaluation of Ion Creangă's work went through several periods, complementing political developments. Throughout the first part of this interval, when socialist realism
Socialist realism in Romania
After World War II, socialist realism on the Soviet model was imposed on the USSR's new satellites, including Romania. This was accompanied by a series of organisational and repressive moves, for instance the incarceration of numerous poets...
was politically imposed on Romanian letters, Creangă was spared the posthumous censorship which affected several other classical writers (see Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania
Censorship in Communist Romania was widespread and virtually every published document, be it a newspaper article or a book, had to pass the censor's approval...
). His work was officially praised for its aesthetic qualities, but its association with the condemned Junimea was omitted from critical commentary, and readers were instead referred to Creangă as a realist critical of bourgeois society. In 1949, at the height of Soviet occupation
Soviet occupation of Romania
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania...
, official critic Barbu Lăzăreanu controversially described Creangă as a writer indebted to Russian folklore.
By the second half of communist rule, several new approaches in the critical assessment of Creangă's literature were emerging. His work became a main topic of critical interest and the sole subject of many works, to the point where Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu is a Romanian literary critic. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he has reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years...
assessed that "everything has been said about Creangă". Within this exegetic phenomenon, an original interpretation of his stories from an esoteric
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
perspective was written by philosopher Vasile Lovinescu as Creangă şi Creanga de aur ("Creangă and the Golden Bough"). During the final two decades of communism, under Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, the recovery of nationalist discourse into official dogma also encouraged the birth of Protochronism
Protochronism
Protochronism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretations, an idealised past to the country as a whole...
. In one of its aspects, theorized by cultural historian Edgar Papu, this approach controversially reevaluated various Romanian writers, Creangă included, presenting them as figures who anticipated most developments on the world stage. Papu's own conclusion about "Harap Alb
Harap Alb
"Harap Alb" or "Harap-Alb" , known in full as Povestea lui Harap Alb , is a Romanian-language fairy tale. Based on traditional themes found in Romanian folklore, it was recorded and reworked in 1877 by writer Ion Creangă, becoming one of his main contributions to fantasy and Romanian literature...
", outlined in a 1983 volume, depicted Creangă as a direct predecessor of Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
semiotician
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
and his celebrated volume The Open Work—a conclusion which literary historian Florin Mihăilescu has seen as proof of Papu's "exegetic obsession", lacking in "sense of humor, not just sense of reality." One of Papu's disciples, national communist
National communism
The term National Communism describes the ethnic minority communist currents that arose in the former Russian Empire after Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power in October 1917....
ideologue Dan Zamfirescu, claimed that Creangă was equal to, or even more important than world classics Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, while asserting that the eponymous protagonist of "Ivan Turbincă
Ivan Turbincă
"Ivan Turbincă" is an 1880 short story, fairy tale and satirical text by Romanian writer Ion Creangă, echoing themes common in Romanian and European folklore. It recounts the adventures of an eponymous Russian soldier, who passes between the world of the living, Heaven and Hell, on a quest for...
" stands as "the character who dominates world history in our century". Left outside the scope of this critical interest, the "corrosives" were left out of new Creangă readers (such as Iorgu Iordan
Iorgu Iordan
Iorgu Iordan was a Romanian linguist, philologist, diplomat, journalist, and left-wing agrarian, later communist, politician. The author of works on a large variety of topics, most of them dealing with issues of the Romanian language and Romance languages in general, he was elected a full member...
's 1970 edition), being, according to a 1976 essay by scholar George Munteanu, "still unpublishable" for lack of "a general level of aesthetic education" among Romanians.
A second museum entirely dedicated to the writer was opened at his Târgu Neamţ home in 1951, and donated to the state by his successors in 1965. During the following decades, it reportedly became the most visited memorial house in Romania. The authorities also financed a new cultural center, raised in the immediate vicinity of Bojdeuca during 1984–1989. In 1965, the Ion Creangă Children's Theater, a state-run institution, was founded in Bucharest, and its subsequent activity included staging several of the writer's fairy tales for a junior public. Among such contributions were two adaptation of "Harap Alb", directed respectively by Ion Lucian and Zoe Anghel Stanca. In 1983, Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
-based author Şerban Foarţă
Şerban Foarţă
Şerban Foarţă is a contemporary Romanian writer.-Works:* Texte pentru Phoenix , Litera Publishing House, Bucharest, 1976 * Simpleroze , Facla Publishing House, Timişoara, 1978* Şalul, eşarpele Isadorei/Şalul e şarpele...
also completed work on a stage version of "Ivan Turbincă".
A new publishing house, Editura Ion Creangă
Editura Ion Creangă
Editura Ion Creangă was a publishing house based in Bucharest, Romania. Founded as a state-run company under communist rule and named after the 19th century writer Ion Creangă, it ranked high among Romanian publishers of children's literature, fantasy literature and science fiction...
, was created as a main publisher of children's literature, and its output included editions of Creangă's own works. The new editions were illustrated by several visual artists of note, among them Corneliu Baba
Corneliu Baba
Corneliu Baba was a Romanian painter, primarily a portraitist, but also known as a genre painter and an illustrator of books.-Early life:Having first studied under his father, the academic painter Gheorghe Baba, Baba studied briefly at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bucharest, but did not receive a...
, Eugen Taru
Eugen Taru
Eugen Taru was a Romanian graphic artist, best known for his work in the political cartoon, caricature, comic strip and book illustration genres...
and Lívia Rusz
Lívia Rusz
Lívia or Livia Rusz is a Romanian and Hungarian graphic artist, best known for her work in illustration, comic strip and comic book genres...
, while "Harap Alb" became a project of comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
artist Sandu Florea
Sandu Florea
Sandu Florea is a Romanian-American comic book and comic strip creator, also known as an inker and book illustrator. A trained architect and a presence on the science fiction scene during the 1970s, he became a professional in the comics genre with albums such as Galbar, and was allegedly the only...
, earning him a Eurocon
Eurocon
Eurocon is an annual science fiction convention held in Europe. The organising committee of each Eurocon is selected by vote of the participants of the previous event. The procedure is coordinated by the European Science Fiction Society. The first Eurocon was held in Trieste, Italy, in 1972. Unlike...
prize. A major project of the time involved Creangă translations into other languages, including Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
(a celebrated contribution by Hungarian-Romanian
Hungarians in Romania
The Hungarian minority of Romania is the largest ethnic minority in Romania, consisting of 1,431,807 people and making up 6.6% of the total population, according to the 2002 census....
author András Sütő
András Süto
András Sütő was an ethnic Hungarian writer and politician in Romania, one of the leading Hungarian writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...
). During the same epoch, Creangă and his stories first became sources of inspiration for the Romanian film industry
Cinema of Romania
The cinema of Romania is the art of motion-picture making within the nation of Romania or by Romanian filmmakers abroad.As upon much of the world's early cinema, the ravages of time have left their mark upon Romanian film prints. Tens of titles have been destroyed or lost for good...
. Among the first were two contributions of filmmaker Elisabeta Bostan, both released in the early 1960s and based on the Memories: Amintiri din copilărie (starring child actor Ion Bocancea as the young Nică and Ştefan Ciubotăraşu as the grown-up narrator), and Pupăza din tei (focusing on the hoopoe
Hoopoe
The Hoopoe is a colourful bird that is found across Afro-Eurasia, notable for its distinctive 'crown' of feathers. It is the only extant species in the family Upupidae. One insular species, the Giant Hoopoe of Saint Helena, is extinct, and the Madagascar subspecies of the Hoopoe is sometimes...
story). In 1965, celebrated Romanian director Ion Popescu-Gopo
Ion Popescu-Gopo
Ion Popescu-Gopo was a Romanian graphic artist and animator, but also writer, movie director and actor born in Bucharest, Romania. He was a prominent personality in the Romanian cinematography and the founder of the modern Romanian cartoon school. He was, together with Liviu Ciulei and Mirel...
released De-aş fi Harap Alb, a loose adaptation of "Harap Alb", starring Florin Piersic
Florin Piersic
-Biography:His family left Cluj when it was ceded to Hungary in 1940, and moved to Cernăuţi after the city's occupation by Romania the following year. There, his father was appointed to the role of chief municipal veterinary. Later they returned home, and Florin graduated from the High School for...
in the title role. Popescu-Gopo also directed the 1985 film Povestea dragostei, which was based on "The Story of the Pig". The series also includes Nicolae Mărgineanu's biographical film of 1989, Un bulgăre de humă, focuses on the friendship between Creangă (played by Dorel Vişan) and Eminescu (Adrian Pintea
Adrian Pintea
Adrian Virgil Pintea was a Romanian actor.-Career:Pintea graduated from the Theatrical and Cinematographical Arts Institute in Romania . He appeared in the 2005 Romanian film Femeia visurilor directed by Dan Piţa. Pintea made his last appearance in Francis Ford Coppola's 2007 film Youth Without...
).
The legacy of Ion Creangă was also tangible in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and especially in the Moldavian SSR
Moldavian SSR
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
(which, as the larger section of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, had been part of interwar Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
, and later became independent Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
). Initially, his writings, titled Moldavian Stories, formed part of the Soviet curriculum in the Moldavian Autonomous Region
Moldavian ASSR
The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , shortened to Moldavian ASSR or, less frequently, Moldovan ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing modern Transnistria The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...
(Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
). Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, Creangă was one of the Romanian-language writers whose works were still allowed for publishing by the new authorities. This provided local contributors to Romanian literature contact with older cultural models, directly inspiring the experimental
Experimental literature
Experimental literature refers to written works - often novels or magazines - that place great emphasis on innovations regarding technique and style.-Early history:...
or Postmodern
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
prose pieces by Vlad Ioviţă
Vlad Ioviţă
Vlad Ioviţă was a writer from Moldova.- Biography :George Meniuc was born on December 23, 1935 in Cocieri...
and Leo Butnaru. The endorsement of Creangă's public image within the Moldavian SSR was also reflected in art: in 1958, the writer's bust, the work of sculptor Lev Averbruh, was assigned to the Alley of Classics
Alley of Classics, Chisinau
The Alley of Classics is a sculptural complex located in the Stephen the Great Park in Downtown Chişinău, Moldova.- Overview :The alley is decorated on both sides with red granite busts of classic Romanian literary figures and political leaders from Moldova...
in Chişinău
Chisinau
Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...
. His works were illustrated by one of the Moldavian SSR's leading visual artists, Igor Vieru, who also painted a portrait of the author. In 1967, Ioviţă and filmmaker Gheorghe Vodă
Gheorghe Vodă
Gheorghe Vodă was a writer from Moldova.He died on February 24, 2007 in Chişinău. Among the participants of the funeral of the late Gheorghe Vodă were Arcadie Suceveanu, vice president Moldovan Writers' Union, Ion Ungureanu, Vladimir Beşleagă, Anatol Codru, Andrei Vartic, Andrei Strâmbeanu, Mihai...
released Se caută un paznic: an adaptation of "Ivan Turbincă" and one of the successful samples of early Moldovan cinema
Cinema of Moldova
The Cinema of Moldova developed in the early 1960s during the Soviet period, experiencing a flowering of about a decade and a half. Stagnation followed, and after the Moldavian SSR became independent in 1991, the industry almost completely disappeared....
, it was also noted for the musical score, composed by Eugen Doga
Eugen Doga
Eugen Doga is a Moldovan/Romanian composer. After the fall of the Soviet Union he lives in Moscow, Russia.-Biography:Doga was born on March 1, 1937 in the village of Mocra in the Rîbniţa district of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...
. Also during that period, "The Goat..." and "The Purse a' Tuppence" were made into animated shorts (directed by Anton Mater and Constantin Condrea). In 1978, an operatic version of "The Goat and Her Three Kids" was created by composer Zlata Tkach
Zlata Tkach
Zlata Moiseyevna Tkach was a Moldovan composer and music educator. She was the first woman to become a professional composer in Moldova.-Biography:...
, based on a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Grigore Vieru
Grigore Vieru
Grigore Vieru was a Moldavian poet and writer. He is mostly known for his poems and books for children. His poetry is characterized by vivid natural scenery, patriotism, as well as a venerated image of the sacred mother...
.
After 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, which signaled the end of communism, Creangă's work was subject to rediscovery and reevaluation. This implied the publishing of his "corrosives", most notably in a 1998 edition titled Povestea poveştilor generaţiei '80 ("The Tale of the Tales of the 80s Generation"). Edited by Dan Petrescu and Luca Piţu, it featured a Postmodern reworking of Povestea poveştilor by Mircea Nedelciu
Mircea Nedelciu
Mircea Nedelciu was a Romanian short-story writer, novelist, essayist and literary critic, one of the leading exponents of the Optzecişti generation in Romanian letters...
, a leading theorist of the Optzecişti writers. A trilingual edition of Creangă's original text was published in 2006 as a Humanitas
Humanitas publishing house
Humanitas is an independent Romanian publishing house, founded on February 1, 1990 in Bucharest by the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu...
project, with illustrations made for the occasion by graphic artist Ioan Iacob. The book included versions of the text in English (the work of Alistair Ian Blyth) and French (translated by Marie-France Ionesco, the daughter of playwright Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
), both of which were noted for resorting exclusively to antiquated slang. In 2004, another one of Creangă's stories was subjected to a Postmodern interpretation, with Stelian Ţurlea's novel Relatare despre Harap Alb ("A Report about Harap Alb"). In 2009, Ţurlea followed up with a version of "The Old Man's Daughter and the Old Woman's Daughter"; a year later, his colleague Horia Gârbea
Horia Gârbea
Horia-Răzvan Gârbea or Gîrbea is a Romanian playwright, poet, essayist, novelist and critic, also known as an academic, engineer and journalist. Known for his work in experimental theater and his Postmodernist contributions to Romanian literature, he is a member of the Writers' Union of Romania ,...
published a personal take on "The Story of a Lazy Man". Ion Creangă's own didactic tales have remained a presence in the Romanian curriculum
Education in Romania
According to the Law on Education adopted in 1995, the Romanian Educational System is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Research . Each level has its own form of organization and is subject to different legislation. Kindergarten is optional between 3 and 6 years old...
after 2000, particularly in areas of education targeting the youngest students.
New films based on Creangă's writings include, among others, Mircea Daneliuc
Mircea Daneliuc
Mircea Daneliuc is a Romanian film director, screenwriter and actor. He has directed 19 films since 1970.In 1993, his film The Conjugal Bed was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival...
's Tusea şi junghiul of 1992 (an adaptation of "The Old Man's Daughter...") and Tudor Tătaru's Moldovan-Romanian co-production Dănilă Prepeleac (1996). There were also several post-1989 theatrical adaptations of Ion Creangă's texts, contributed by various Romanian dramaturge
Dramaturge
A dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...
s. Some of these are Cornel Todea's variant of "Harap Alb" (with music by Nicu Alifantis), Cristian Pepino's take on "The Goat and Her Three Kids", Mihai Mălaimare's Prostia omenească (from "Human Stupidity") and Gheorghe Hibovski's Povestea poveştilor, a fringe theater show using both Creangă's original and Nedelciu's text.
In 1993, answering a petition signed by a group of cultural personalities from Iaşi, Metropolitan Daniel
Patriarch Daniel of Romania
Daniel, born Dan Ilie Ciobotea is the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The elections took place on September 12, 2007. Daniel won with a majority of 95 votes out of 161. He was officially enthroned on September 30, 2007 in the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest...
(the future Patriarch of All Romania
Patriarch of All Romania
The Patriarch of All Romania is the title of the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church. As of September 12, 2007, the chair is occupied by Daniel Ciobotea.-Metropolitans of Ungro-Wallachia:* Maxim * Macarie II * Ilarion II...
) signed a decision to posthumously revert the decision to exclude Ion Creangă from among the Moldavian clergy. The public polled during a 2006 program produced by the Romanian Television
Romanian television
Romanian television may refer to:* Communications media in Romania* Televiziunea Română, TVR, the national television network* List of Romanian language television channels...
nominated Creangă 43rd among the 100 greatest Romanians. New monuments honoring the writer include a bust unveiled in Târgu Neamţ, the work of sculptor Ovidiu Ciobotaru. The patrimony associated with Creangă's life has also sparked debates: local authorities in Târgu Neamţ were criticized for not maintaining the site near his house in its best condition, while the Fălticeni
Falticeni
Fălticeni is a city in Suceava County, Romania, capital of the former Baia County . As of 2003 the population is 28,899, and the city covers an area of 28,76 km², of which 25% are orchards and lakes. The city is 25 km away from Suceava, the capital of the county...
where he once lived was controversially put up for sale by its private owners in 2009, at a time when city hall could not exercise its pre-emption right
Pre-emption right
A pre-emption right is a right to acquire certain property in preference to any other person. It comes from the Latin verb emo, emere, emi, emptum, to buy or purchase, plus the inseparable preposition pre, before. It usually refers to property newly coming into existence...
.
Creangă's name was assigned to several education institutions, among them Bucharest's Ion Creangă National College, and to an annual prize granted by the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
. There is a Ion Creangă
Ion Creanga, Neamt
Ion Creangă is a commune in Neamţ County, Romania. It is composed of six villages: Avereşti, Ion Creangă , Izvoru, Muncelu, Recea and Stejaru....
commune, in Neamţ County
Neamt County
Neamț is a county of Romania, in the historic region of Moldavia, with the county seat at Piatra Neamț. It has three communes, Bicaz-Chei, Bicazu Ardelean and Dămuc in Transylvania.-Demographics:...
, and streets or squares were also named in the writer's honor in cities throughout Romania: Târgu Neamţ, Iaşi, Fălticeni, Bucharest, Arad
Arad, Romania
Arad is the capital city of Arad County, in western Romania, in the Crişana region, on the river Mureş.An important industrial center and transportation hub, Arad is also the seat of a Romanian Orthodox archbishop and features two universities, a Romanian Orthodox theological seminary, a training...
, Brăila
Braila
Brăila is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County, in the close vicinity of Galaţi.According to the 2002 Romanian census there were 216,292 people living within the city of Brăila, making it the 10th most populous city in Romania.-History:A...
, Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
, Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
, Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
, Drobeta-Turnu Severin
Drobeta-Turnu Severin
Drobeta-Turnu Severin is a city in Mehedinţi County, Oltenia, Romania, on the left bank of the Danube, below the Iron Gates.The city administers three villages: Dudaşu Schelei, Gura Văii, and Schela Cladovei...
, Oradea
Oradea
Oradea is the capital city of Bihor County, in the Crișana region of north-western Romania. The city has a population of 204,477, according to the 2009 estimates. The wider Oradea metropolitan area has a total population of 245,832.-Geography:...
, Ploieşti
Ploiesti
Ploiești is the county seat of Prahova County and lies in the historical region of Wallachia in Romania. The city is located north of Bucharest....
, Sibiu
Sibiu
Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
, Suceava
Suceava
Suceava is the Suceava County seat in Bukovina, Moldavia region, in north-eastern Romania. The city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1388 to 1565.-History:...
, Târgu Mureş, Tecuci
Tecuci
Tecuci is a city in the Galaţi county of Romania , situated among wooded hills, on the right bank of the Bârlad River, and at the junction of railways from Galaţi, Bârlad and Mărăşeşti.-History:...
, Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
, Tulcea
Tulcea
Tulcea is a city in Dobrogea, Romania. It is the administrative center of Tulcea county, and has a population of 92,379 as of 2007. One village, Tudor Vladimirescu, is administered by the city.- History :...
etc. A quarter in northern Bucharest, near Colentina
Colentina, Bucharest
Colentina is one of the main neighborhoods in Bucharest's 2nd district located on the north-east of the city. A local folk etymology says that the name is derived from "colea-n-tină" , this being the answer given by a spătar to Matei Basarab, who asked the former where he had defeated the Ottoman...
, is also named Ion Creangă. Creangă's name was assigned to several landmarks and institutions in post-Soviet Moldova. Among them is the Ion Creangă Pedagogical State University
Ion Creanga Pedagogical State University
Ion Creangă Pedagogical State University is an educational institute in Chişinău , Moldova. It was formed in August 1940 as the Pedagogical Institute Moldovan State, being renamed the State Pedagogical Institute Ion Creanga in Chişinău in 1952, and receiving its current name on 21 May 1992...
, founded on the basis of Chişinău's normal school
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
.
External links
- translations in the Romanian Cultural InstituteRomanian Cultural InstituteThe Romanian Cultural Institute is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and civilization in Romania and abroad. The ICR was formerly set up through reorganization of the Romanian Cultural Foundation and Romanian Cultural Publishing Foundation...
's Plural Magazine (various issues): "Danillo Nonsuch" ("Dănilă Prepeleac"), Childhood Memories (excerpt), "The Mother with Three Daughters-in-Law", Childhood Memories (excerpt), "The Purse a' Tuppence", Childhood Memories (excerpt), "The Tale of All Tales", "The Tale of Ionică the Fool" - Roumanian Stories. Translated by Lucy Byng, at the University of WashingtonUniversity of WashingtonUniversity of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
's DXARTS/CARTAH Electronic Text Archive - "The Story of the Pig". Hog Bridegrooms (tales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 441 in which a beautiful maiden is forced to marry a hog or a hedgehog), University of PittsburghUniversity of PittsburghThe University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
, Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts edited and/or translated by D. L. AshlimanD. L. AshlimanD. L. Ashliman is an American folklorist and writer. He maintains a website on folk and fairy tales through the University of Pittsburgh.-Works:*Fairy Lore: A Handbook. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005....