Mitică () is a fictional character who appears in several sketch stories by Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale. The character's name is a common hypocoristic form of Dumitru or Dimitrie (Romanian for Demetrius). He is one of the best-known figures in Caragiale's 1901 collection Momente și schițe, as well as in Romanian humor at large. Mitică is a male resident of Bucharest whose background and status are not always clear, generally seen as an allegory of the average Bucharester or through extension, inhabitants of Romania's southern regions—Wallachia and Muntenia. According to accounts, he was based on a resident of Sinaia, whom Caragiale had befriended.
Caragiale used Mitică as a stock character to feature in satirical contexts; the biographical insights he provided are short and often contradict each other. Among Mitică's traits are his tendency to generate sarcastic comebacks and sententious catchphrases, a Francized speech, as well as inclinations to waste time and easily find his way out of problematic situations. His existence is connected to events in the history of Bucharest which he occasionally references in his jokes. Like Lache and Mache, who are present in Caragiale's fiction, the character is usually portrayed as a civil servant who has a hard time making ends meet, but who is well liked by his peers.
On account of his caricature-like nature, Mitică survived in common reference beyond Caragiale's age. The character was portrayed by several actors, and most notably by Ștefan Iordache in the film De ce trag clopotele, Mitică?. In contemporary Romanian, his name was turned into a common noun, and often pluralized under the form mitici. During and after the 1990s, the terms surfaced in polemics surrounding Romania's centralism and the alternative projects for Transylvania's regional autonomy. In this context, it was used in reference to administrators from Bucharest or the Old Kingdom. In parallel, the term was adapted into a stereotype of modern Bucharesters and inhabitants of other regions over the Southern Carpathians, who are often portrayed as belonging to the Balkans, as opposed to the Central European traditions of Transylvania. Under these definitions, Mitică and mitici were notably present in essays authored by the Transylvanian activist Sabin Gherman.
Eponymous sketch
Ion Luca Caragiale first introduced Mitică to his readers in an eponymous sketch of 1900, where he evidenced the character's universal traits and indicates that the first name is enough to define the character. Ion Luca Caragiale, Mitică (wikisource) The opening passage notably draws a parallel between Bucharest and Paris (at a time when the Romanian capital was colloquially known as "little Paris" or "Paris of the East"), and mentions Gambrinus, a pub owned and managed by the writer himself: "Of course we all ought to know [Mitică]: we bump into him so very often—in shops, in the trolley, in the tram car, on a bicycle, in the train wagon, at the restaurant, at Gambrinus—in short, everywhere.Mitică is the Bucharester par excellence. And given that Bucharest is a little Paris, Mitică himself is, obviously, a little Parisian.He is neither young nor old, neither handsome nor ugly, he is so so; he is a lad whose features are all balanced; but that which sets him apart, that which makes him have a marked character is his original and inventive spirit."
With sarcasm, Caragiale proceeds to indicate that the character's main trait is his inventive use of Romanian and his tendency to coin terms and make jokes, with which "First and foremost, our little Parisian astounds the provincials". The remainder of the sketch lists Mitică's remarks, part of which are platitudes or clichés. Some of them are isolated observations, which the author defines as "sentimental, lyrical, and melancholic": "The most beautiful girl can only offer what she has to offer", "Life is a dream, death is an awakening", and "Every rose has its thorn".
Most of Mitică's lines are comebacks in dialogue, and Caragiale notes that his character takes pride in "being unrivaled" when it comes to these. The writer implicates himself in the story, portraying himself as his character's good friend and a main target for such remarks—for instance, he recounts that, soon after New Year's Eve 1900, Mitică pretended not to have recognized him because "it's been a century since we last saw each other!" He writes how, when he was ordering a țuică in the presence of Mitică, the latter jokingly asked the bartender not to comply, "for [Caragiale] is likely to drink it".
The character's lines offer glimpses into his financial and social status. Thus, he claims that he does not carry change because the metal might attract lightning, refuses to listen to his friends' confessions because they did not pay the revenue stamp for complaints, and, when told that cabs are available, he sarcastically tells the drivers that they may go home. In one instance, he publicizes his goal to run in elections, but explains that he is going to contest a non-existing seat—at a time when the Romanian Kingdom made use of the census suffrage and had established electoral colleges to stand for the three wealth-based categories, he claims his intention to enlist in the fourth college, for the sparsely populated area of Bucureștii-Noi. The sketch shows him to be married and to resent his mother-in-law, but to be courting a young female telegraph-operator.
In this context, Mitică is shown to have developed a series of jargon-like expressions. When recounting this to his friends that a clerk had been fired from office, he refers to this "a promotion", elaborating that the new office involves "chasing flies out of [the park in] Cișmigiu". Caragiale provides some of his character's one-liner jokes, which include references to garlic as "Serbian vanilla", and to Romanian leu banknotes as "Trajan's pictures" (alluding to their design, which, at the time, featured a portrait of the Roman Emperor). His absurd requests include asking a shopkeeper to sell him "a few centimeters" of yogurt, and telling friends to drink their beer "before it cools itself" or to "climb on top of a sheet of paper" in order to reach for clothes placed higher on a stand. Several of his puns refer to the switch from horse-drawn trams to trolley poles, for instance showing him blaming unexpected stops on horses not having been properly fed.
Other texts Mitică was again present in Caragiale's Tot Mitică ("Mitică Still"), a sketch which only comprises sections of dialog. It begins with an exchange of lines between an unnamed character and Mitică, which was to become one of the best known puns in this sequence. When asked the general interest question De ce trage clopotele, Mitică? ("What are they sounding the [church] bells for, Mitică?", which, in the Romanian original, may be interpreted as "What are they pulling the bells by?"), the protagonist answers De frânghie, monşer ("By the string, my dear"). Ion Luca Caragiale, Tot Mitică (wikisource)
Tot Mitică offers other glimpses into the character's financial problems, showing him complaining that he has been "pulling the devil's tail"—using a traditional proverb to indicate that he has had a hard time getting by. To this, he adds that the devil would be suing him for injuries. He claims that he is going to spend his vacation in the mountains, and elaborates that he is talking about the pawnbroking institution known as muntele de pietate (from the French for "Mountain of Piety"; see Mont de Piété). Mitică enters a restaurant to order only things which he knows are free ("a toothpick, a match, a glass of water and a newspaper"). In other such sequences of events, he is shown eating in a pub as a means to "defend himself from death", and borrowing money which he promises not to return.
When, in order to converse with a friend in a different compartment, he is traveling second class on a first class train ticket, Mitică asks the conductor to pay him the difference. He is shown anxiously walking about in the Bucharest Tribunal hall, and asking to see a lawyer for his defense, jokingly claims that he wants to be defended "from flies". When invited for a walk in the Herăstrău Park, which was heavily forested at the time, he pretends to have understood this as an invitation to chop trees, and stresses that he buys his firewood.
Mitică still frequents the beer garden, and one of the dialogs mentions that he spends entire nights there. He is shown to be flirting with women, including the telephone operator, and boasts that several ladies visit him in his home.
The sketch includes several references to well-known characters of the day, including the Conservative Party leader Petre P. Carp, the archaeologist Grigore Tocilescu, the Royal administrator Ioan Kalinderu, the actor Ion Niculescu (as Iancu Niculescu), as well as the dentist Kibrik. The character reveals his tendencies toward political satire, with a one-liner introduced by Caragiale's definition of "Mitică as a chauvinist"—Mitică is shown announcing that the only song he wants to have played at his funeral is the nationalist tune Deşteaptă-te, române! (which translates as "Awaken Thee, Romanian!").
In addition to the main sketch and Tot Mitică, Caragiale introduced a character of this name in a longer piece, titled 1 Aprilie ("The 1st of April"), which centers on an April Fool gone wrong. Late in the evening, this Mitică decides to hide in Cişmigiu while his lover Cleopatra pretends to court their common friend Mişu Poltronul—with simulated indignation, he takes Mişu by surprise as Cleopatra embraces him. Mitică dies hours after Mişu, who reacts out of instinct to his threatening voice, hits him over the forehead with a cane. Ion Luca Caragiale, 1 Aprilie (wikisource) Another Mitică—"Mr. Mitică the haberdasher", whose family name is probably Georgescu—is present in the 1900 sketch La Moşi ("At the Fair in Obor"), where he is shown accompanied by his family and ridiculing his mother-in-law in public. Ion Luca Caragiale, La Moşi (wikisource) In another such piece, titled Iniţiativa... ("The Initiative..."), Caragiale recounts another dialog with "my buddy Mitică", who is shown to be unnerved that the Romanian state "is indifferent" to the fact that infants, his daughter included, do not have wet nurses assigned to them, and that breastfeeding has to rely on the private sector. Ion Luca Caragiale, Iniţiativa... (wikisource) Another or the same Mitică makes a brief appearance in Inspecţiune ("An Inspection"), where he is one of the clerks investigating the bizarre suicide of the civil servant Anghelache. Garabet Ibrăileanu, Spiritul critic în cultura românească: Spiritul critic în Muntenia – Critica socială extremă: Caragiale (wikisource)
A Mitică is present in the piece called Ţal!...—the title comes from a face ţal ("to make ţal"), an antiquated expression which, as Caragiale explains in the beginning of his story, means "to make a payment" (from the German zahlen). Ion Luca Caragiale, Ţal!... (wikisource) The writer illustrates this concept by invoking a meeting between him, Mitică, and Mitică's wife Graziella. Caragiale recounts how his friend served him and others a copious dinner in his house, and then made them sit through Graziella's reading of her own lengthy essay on women as portrayed in Romanian folklore. To this goal, Caragiale explains, Mitică discreetly claimed that it was ţal and added, using a quasi-official parlance, that "all bills are to be paid". The piece ends with Caragiale exiting Mitică's house in haste and: as the latter shouts "to be seeing each other", he exclaims "to be left alone, Mitică".
Background themes and sources of inspiration