Ciocoii vechi și noi
Nicolae Filimon
Ciocoii vechi și noi
Bucharest, 1814. Dinu Păturică, a penniless young man with a sharp mind and no scruples, enters the service of a corrupt Phanariot boyar and sets out to rise by any means — flattery, intrigue, theft and the help of the beautiful courtesan Duduca. The first modern Romanian novel is a satire of the ciocoi, the grasping social climber, set in the last years of Greek rule over Wallachia.
About the book
Ciocoii vechi și noi, sau Ce se naște din pisică șoareci mănâncă (Upstarts Old and New, or What's Born of a Cat Will Catch Mice) was serialised in 1862 and published as a book in 1863. It is generally counted as the first modern Romanian novel. Its story follows Dinu Păturică from 1814, when he arrives at the house of the Phanariot postelnic Andronache Tuzluc, through his schemes to supplant his master, to his downfall during the upheavals of 1821. Around it Filimon paints a broad picture of Bucharest under Prince Caragea — its boyars and servants, its money-lenders, music, theatre and fashions — and sets against Păturică the honest Gheorghe, a man of the old Romanian virtues. Filimon's own footnotes on the customs and history of the period are kept in this edition, with the source edition's explanations of old Turkish and Greek words. This edition is the original Romanian text.
Characters
Dinu Păturică — Protagonist
A penniless, ambitious young man who rises by flattery, intrigue and theft, the ciocoi of the title.
Andronache Tuzluc — Phanariot boyar
The corrupt postelnic whose household Păturică enters and sets out to ruin.
Chera Duduca — Courtesan
Tuzluc's beautiful and grasping mistress, who becomes Păturică's accomplice.
Gheorghe — Honest servant
A man of the old Romanian virtues, set against Păturică's greed.
Banul C. — Upright boyar
An honourable boyar who stands for the patriotic old aristocracy.
About the author
Nicolae Filimon (1819–1865) was a Romanian writer, music critic and civil servant, born in Bucharest, the son of a priest. He sang in church choirs and played the flute in the orchestra of the National Theatre, and wrote some of the first serious music and theatre criticism in Romanian. He also published travel notes and short stories, but his lasting work is the novel Ciocoii vechi și noi (1863), generally regarded as the first modern Romanian novel. He died of tuberculosis two years after it appeared.