Ion Cristoiu: The effect of the Russians on the maids

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, after the declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire, Russian troops entered Romania, on their way to Turkey. As a result of this fact, the people of Bucharest in 1877 are stormed by Russian officers, ready to spend their money madly. Taverns, casinos, currency trading and smuggling flourish. The Romanians learn from the Russians how to defraud the state and how to shoot the Tsar. The Russians take from the Romanians the pleasure of cursing the King out loud. Constantin Bacalbaşa tells in Bucharest of yesteryear that the masked Russian occupation had devastating effects on tailoring workshops and the institution of maids:

“All tailoring workshops, milliners, laundry, etc. they were starting to empty themselves of workers. Through these workshops, only the old workers, the completely ugly ones and some too childish apprentices had remained; all the rest were in the hands of the Russian officers.

The same deficit in the world of maids. Every day, the housewives complained that their maid had disappeared, when she was young and clean; in a few days they would see her on the road, overturned in a Muscal, next to a Russian officer.”

Savory realities could not escape Caragiale’s satirical eye. Some of the jewels published in capon1877, number 1, I scold the Romanians for the enthusiasm with which they await the Russians:

Donut 1

“The slum dwellers are always terrible to imagine, but their imagination has never risen higher, as since the joke about the East has grown. Midwife Sevastița Hurdubiloaia from Popa Nan told me the following news:”

In Dušumea, a pregnant woman gave birth to a boy the day before yesterday, dressed from top to bottom in a muscular pihotaş, with boots with kerzimb on his feet and a cap with a mot on his head. As soon as his nose hit the light, the child stood handsomely on his heels, pointed the gun at his shoulder and shouted:

– Hello, brother! Davai cuşai!!

Midwife Sevastiţa is able to tell me tomorrow that another client of hers gave birth to a Cossack, riding on a horse and with a spear in his hand, who, without saying good morning to the midwife, spurred the horse and started at a great run in Plevna, with the navel uncut.”

…

Donut 6

“The boyar and the cocoana drink coffee after the meal and talk politics about the matter of the Orient. Let me not forget to say that the cocoana is one of the Mazurcă schoolgirls of the knight Corvin, and that the boyar, although he has been married to the cocoana for about ten years, does not yet enjoy any heir.

– Let the Muscals come, let more money enter the country, sister.

– Of course, dear, answers the cocoon. And then where do you think the world is also multiplying!

Donut 7

“Since cocoons can be constant in politics: In the slum of OȘetarii, about ten cocoons sit at the table and do politics. A local monk enters to bring them the news that the convention with Russia has been concluded, which he begins to read to them.

At each article, all the cocoons clap their hands with joy, shouting in one voice: “Bravo govern!”

But when the monk reads the article in which it is said that Muscals have nothing to do in Bucharest, the whole syndrofe gives a great scream and faints in corpore.

When they woke up, they were all in opposition.”

Although after August 23, 1944, a lot was written about Russia’s role in Romania’s obtaining of Independence, even now the enigma has not been resolved:

Were Romanian women prettier than Russian women who stayed at home or more available to foreign soldiers?