160 years: I.L.Caragiale, stormy nights and lost letters...

On this very day, January 30, 2012, Romania commemorates 160 years since the birth of Ion Luca Caragiale. The Google-Doodle presents a graphic picture of him with an envelope in one corner - an innuendo to one of his most famous plays, The lost letter (O scrisoare pierduta).

Though Caragiale earned his living variously as a journalist, translator, and prose writer (amongst others), he is best known for plays such as the aforementioned O scrisoare pierduta (1884), in which he satirised the vanity and smugness of the bourgeoisie. Caragiale enjoyed a few minor successes during his lifetime, but his work was often plagued by government censorship and legal woes, not to mention a generally tepid response from the public. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, critics had recognised him as a writer of great insight. Today, one looks back on the writings of Caragiale with huge admiration. His understanding of what made his compatriots tick is as true now - if not all the more so - as it was in the 19th century. It is uncontested - Ion Luca Caragiale was simply a genius.

(Photo source: Sonar) According to THIS site, Caragiale's family of Greek descent (Kefalonia - for more, see here) was well acquainted with the stage. He was discreet about his ethnic origin for the larger part of his life, says Wikipedia, but that, in parallel, his foreign roots came to the attention of his adversaries, who used them as arguments in various polemics. As Mihai Eminescu's relations with Caragiale degenerated into hostility (Caragiale had a love affair with Veronica Micle), the poet is known to have referred to his former friend as "that Greek swindler". Aware of such treatment, the writer considered all references to his lineage to be insults. On several occasions, he preferred to indicate that he was "of obscure birth". Perhaps this explains why so many of his characters have Greek names - or at least, names that have a suffix that can only come from Greek. 

His father, a lawyer, had been an actor for a time, and two of his uncles were managers of theatre troupes and very influential in the development of early Romanian theatre.  Born in the tiny village of Haimanale in Dambovita County, Caragiale went to school in the larger nearby city of Ploesti, and at sixteen moved to Bucharest. From 1868 to 1870, he studied acting, mime, and dramatic recitation under his uncle Costache, an established actor who ran the Bucharest Drama Conservatory, and in 1870 went to work with the other uncle as a prompter at the National Theatre. That same year, his studies were cut short when his father died, leaving Caragiale to provide for his mother and sister. Over the next thirty years, Caragiale - of whom it was said "made more reputation than money" - battled to feed his family. In addition, he became romantically involved with an unmarried young woman, Maria Constantinescu, who worked for the Bucharest Town Hall - in 1885, she gave birth to Mateiu, whom Caragiale recognized as his son and duly also supported. 

Caragiale had a creative variety of jobs, including tutor, journalist and copyist for the Prahova County Court House. His first literary successes came in 1873 with humorous stories in the Ghîmpele newspaper, followed by his much welcomed translation of a collection of poetry by Dominique-Alexandre Parodi in 1876. He then moved on to working as a freelance journalist, often writing theatre criticism for a number of publications including Romania libera and Convorbiri literare. Thus, says THIS site, before Caragiale had even established himself as a playwright, he was somewhat known, at least in Bucharest, for his literary flare. Through his work for Convorbiri literare, Caragiale became a recognised member of the literary circle, Junimea (youth) since the journal was their publication. He eventually became a leader of the group, but was forced out ten years later in the early 1880s due to his critical attitude.

By the late 1870s, Caragiale began writing the plays which cemented his reputation as an important playwright in Romania. In both plays and prose, he showed an incredible sense of the Romanian language, customs, and mannerisms, especially in the common person, and successfully used them for comedy and satire. Caragiale was highly observant of the human condition, particularly our tendency towards mistakes. He used what he saw and heard in his stories which generally focused on social conflicts and political corruption. The plays, especially, were full of fast-moving action and farce, employing solid characters with witty dialogue who usually failed in their goals.

(Photo source) In 1879, when he was twenty-seven, Caragiale saw the production of his first play, O noapte furtunoasa sau numaral 9 (A Stormy Night, or Number 9), which only had minor success. Though the play was later considered important, it was originally banned from performance and labeled immoral and unpatriotic. In A Stormy Night, or Number 9, the city man Dumitrache has entrusted his right-hand man Chiriac to spy on his wife, who he is convinced is having an affair. She is, as the audience discover - except that her lover is Chiriac himself. Meanwhile the wife's sister's lover goes to visit the sister, but because of an upside-down nine (which looks like a six) on the house number, ends up inside Dumitrache's house instead. He nearly gets himself killed by both Dumitrache and Chiriac before the sister identifies him, and her explanation convinces Dumitrache that his wife has remained faithful to him after all. See the marvellous O noapte furtunoasa from 1943 HERE with Stefan Iordanescu-Bruno and Alexandru Giugaru.

A second significant play from the same time period was also a satire, but more of a political comedy with similar elements of social commentary. Conul Leonida fata cu reaciunea (Mr. Leonida and the Reactionries; 1880) also featured a couple at its centre. The provincial man, Mr. Leonida, relates the story of the Romanian republic that existed for a brief three weeks, to his wife Efimita. A republican, he also tells her his ideas for a utopian society. Later that night, shots ring out. At first, Leonida believes that the revolution is taking place, and then, that the reactionaries are after him because of his ideas. Both assumptions are wrong, and he learns that the shots are coming from a Shrove Tuesday celebration.

Though Conul Leonida did not have the same controversial opening as A Stormy Night, when Caragiale originally wrote it, the play featured two main aristocratic characters. Theatre officials would not allow the play to be performed until he changed them for two provincials. This allowed the characters to be viewed as more farcical and satirical by the audience.

While Caragiale was gaining much notoriety as a playwright, he was also still holding other jobs to support his family. From 1881 to 1884, he served as an inspector of schools and was also the proprietor of a beer garden! Certainly, Caragiale was owner of a chequered resumé.

(Photo source) He reached the summit of his career in 1884 with The Lost Letter, considered a masterpiece. A comic satire about political corruption, petty ambitions, and incoherent demagogy, it explored the victory of a blackmailer in a provincial government election and was an instant hit with the public. The critic and politician Titu Maiorescu was pleased by its success, and believed that it was a sign of maturity in Romanian society, which, as he put it, was "starting to laugh" at the National Liberal rhetoric.

Stepan Tipatescu, a candidate for office in a small-town election, discovers that his opponent has obtained an old love letter that he wrote to somebody else's wife. In vain, Tipatescu tries to persuade the opponent, Catavencu, to give up the letter. But when the government announces its support for a third candidate, Tipatescu withdraws himself from the race and puts his support behind Catavencu. In the meantime, Catavencu manages to lose the letter which ends up in the hands of Zoe the town drunk - and Zoe is, in fact, none other than the woman to whom the letter had been originally written. By the end of the play, the opponents are reconciled, and the government's candidate wins. Caragiale's depiction of the events surrounding the election is sharply cynical, with most of the characters totally lacking in the charisma department. Despite, or perhaps because of this, the play has had a long and much-loved life, performed for many years. You can see the whole play HERE  in two parts, starring Grigore Vasiliu Birlic as Branzovenescu, Ion Fintesteanu as Farfuridi and Alexandru Giugaru as Trahanache from 1953. 

Even the names in Caragiale's works are cleverly significant: farfurie means plate and with the ending "idi" is certainly a name of Greek origin. Catavencu comes from catza, translated roughly as 'a royal pain in the neck', whilst Branzovenescu  is another irony... very few have normal names like Popescu (except, perhaps, Lefter Popescu - which means 'to be broke' - in Doua Lozuri). Caragiale makes fun of these provincial bourgeois who think so terribly highly of themselves.

During the same year, Caragiale's D-ale carnavalului, a lighter satire of suburban morals and amorous misadventures, was received with booing and hissing from members of the public - critics deemed it "immoral", due to its frank depiction of adultery gone unpunished. Maiorescu took his friend's side and published a paper entitled Comediile Domnului Caragiale that was highly critical of National Liberal cultural tenets. The paper played an essential rôle in reconciling the dramatist to the general public, says Wikipedia.

In 1889/1890, he wrote Napasta  (known as False Accusations, Injustice, and False Witness), a tragie-comedy more serious than his other works and often compared to Fydor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment and Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness. The central character is a woman named Anca, a widow remarried to Dragomir, her husband's murderer. He was not convicted of the crime, and instead, the blame fell on his friend, Ion. The play focuses on Anca's revenge. Like his other plays, Napasta was controversial at the time and in 1901, Caragiale ended up in court over it, accused of plagiarism by a critic. He was eventually able to prove his innocence, but the toll of the scandal affected him deeply. In January 1889, he married Alexandrina, the daughter of architect Gaetano Burelly. She was a member of the Bucharest elite, which also served to improve Caragiale's social standing.

In 1904, he came by a long-disputed inheritance from an aunt and moved to Berlin. Caragiale had never been truly happy in Romania, partly because he felt unappreciated as a writer and partly because of his continual battles to support his wife and children.

(Photo source: Sarah In Romania) He died there in Berlin on July 9, 1912 from arteriosclerosis but was later re-interred in Bellu Cemetery, Bucharest. Though Caragiale had a following in Romania during his lifetime, he had just as many critics. After his death, he became better recognised for his importance to Romanian drama. Fifty years after his death, he was given a week-long festival tribute in which his plays were performed.

Caragiale's plays seemed especially relevant to the people of Romania under Communist oppression in more ways than one. One can well visualise the ball the communist literary critics had analysing Caragiale's works - how well he ironised the rotten bourgeois class. So much literature was twisted in political manipulation and Caragiale did not escape this, for his work fed the convictions of the working class that everything that had come before communism was putrid. In the 1980s, Caragiale's plays were banned until the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was executed in 1989.

According to Tudor Vianu, Caragiale's writings signify "the highest expression" of Romanian theatre, mirroring and complimenting the contribution that Mihai Eminescu had to Romanian-language poetry. Literary critic Pompiliu Constantinescu credited Caragiale's sense of irony with having corrected the tendencies of his day, and, through this, with helping create an urban literature.

It is impossible to give a 100% complete account of Ion Luca Caragiale's life, for he was also an excellent professor and very much involved in politics which was rarely (if ever) to his advantage - his political views are as present in his plays as the observations made of his compatriots - and in the end, they amount to one of the same. After all, everything in Romania eventually boils down to the same thing in the end - politics. To learn more, please see HERE, in greater detail.

My own personal sadness is that a true understanding of Caragiale can never belong to a non-Romanian. We can never truly grasp the depths of the characterisations, no matter how well we think we know the country, its history and its people. The language, names and jeux de mots need often lengthy explanations along with the mannerisms which require insight before we can either shake our heads at the irony of it all or burst out laughing at the utter silliness. Culturally, we cannot possess them unless we are specifically told (and even then, it can often seem like a mine-field) - the digs, parallels and references are so subtle, so innately brilliant. But the little of Caragiale I do know, the plays I have loved (my first baptisms were Bubico - see HERE with the incomparable Horatiu Malaele - and D-l Goe which had me crying with laughter. I even tried to translate it HERE), read, watched over the last decade are clearly written by a genius - of that, there is no doubt. Each one is a window in to Romanian society as real today as it was when written. The Romanian mentality has not changed. No other writer, at least to my knowledge, has ever been so completely accurate in the characterisation of his compatriots as Ion Luca Caragiale. Just imagine the plays he would have written had he been alive today... but then again, just pick up a copy of O scrisoare pierduta and it's all there in a nutshell.

Genius.

Comments

[Sarah In Romania]

Depends on the calendar, Peter

[Peter Fay]

I am sorry Sarah, but search engines all tell me that ILC was born on 13th February 1852....

[Chris]

He also kept a pub, which lost money. I find this rather endearing. Am I right?

[marin]

i spent a few dollars and bought a lost letter a stormy night

i enjhoyed it tremendously

the translator did something remarkable, but only for the american enlish speakers.

i read his (Cristian Saileanu's) commentaries and he says he modeled the english version on Mark Twain, which makes some sense at least

[sairj]

It has? Wow! I didn't think it was possible since it is so very very Romanian. i'll go and see. Thank you ILC.