Amintiri din copilărie
Ion Creangă
Amintiri din copilărie
Nică, a peasant boy from Humulești at the foot of the Carpathians, skips work to bathe in the river, raids his aunt's cherry tree and hides in the hemp, and is sent off to one school after another while his mother hopes he will become a priest. Creangă tells his own childhood in the voice of a village storyteller, full of proverbs, mischief and affection for a world he had already left.
About the book
Amintiri din copilărie appeared in four parts in the Iași review Convorbiri literare: the first two in 1881, the third in 1882 and the fourth in 1892, three years after Ion Creangă's death. It follows Nică, the author's younger self, from his earliest memories in the Moldavian village of Humulești through the village school, the school at Broșteni and the seminary town of Fălticeni, to the moment he leaves home for the school of priests at Socola, near Iași. The book is less a plot than a sequence of remembered episodes — the cherries in his aunt's garden, the hoopoe in the lime tree, the summer days spent bathing in the river instead of working — told in the rich spoken Romanian of northern Moldavia. Its humour, its proverbs and its tenderness towards a vanished peasant world have made it one of the best-loved books in Romanian, and a standard part of every Romanian childhood. This edition is the original Romanian text.
Characters
Nică — Narrator
The author's younger self, a mischievous boy from Humulești who would rather bathe in the river than go to school.
Smaranda — Nică's mother
A devout, energetic woman who wants her son to become a priest and keeps sending him back to school.
Ștefan a Petrei — Nică's father
A hard-working peasant, doubtful that learning will put bread on the table.
David Creangă — Nică's grandfather
His grandfather from Pipirig, who takes him to school at Broșteni.
Bădița Vasile — The village teacher
The young deacon who teaches the village school in Humulești.
Smărăndița popii — The priest's daughter
The quick, lively girl in Nică's class who is the first to catch his eye.
Mătușa Mărioara — Nică's aunt
The aunt whose cherry tree Nică raids, and who chases him through the hemp.
Irinuca — Landlady at Broșteni
The woman in whose house Nică lodges while at school in Broșteni.
About the author
Ion Creangă (1837–1889) was a Romanian writer, born in the village of Humulești in Moldavia, the son of a peasant family. Trained for the priesthood, he was ordained a deacon in Iași but was expelled from the clergy for his unruly conduct, and became a schoolteacher and the co-author of reading primers. His friendship with the poet Mihai Eminescu brought him to the Junimea literary society, where he read his work aloud. His fairy tales — Capra cu trei iezi, Punguța cu doi bani, Povestea lui Harap-Alb — and his memoir Amintiri din copilărie are among the classics of Romanian literature, admired above all for the life of their spoken village language.