page_title: Ion Creangă
section_title: Beginnings as schoolteacher and clash with the Orthodox Church
hierarchical_section_title: Ion Creangă / Biography / Beginnings as schoolteacher and clash with the Orthodox Church
caption_attribution_description: English: Ion Creanga House of Golia monastery in Iași , Iaşi , Romania Română: Casa Ion Creangă din incinta mănăstirii Golia , Iaşi , România This is a photo of a historic monument in județul Iași, classified with number IS-II-m-A-03852.04
context_page_description: Ion Creangă was a Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes. Creangă's main contribution to fantasy and children's literature includes narratives structured around eponymous protagonists, as well as fairy tales indebted to conventional forms. Widely seen as masterpieces of the Romanian language and local humor, his writings occupy the middle ground between a collection of folkloric sources and an original contribution to a literary realism of rural inspiration. They are accompanied by a set of contributions to erotic literature, collectively known as his "corrosives".
  A defrocked Romanian Orthodox priest with an unconventional lifestyle, Creangă made an early impact as an innovative educator and textbook author, while pursuing a short career in nationalist politics with the Free and Independent Faction. His literary debut came late in life, closely following the start of his close friendship with Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu and their common affiliation with the influential conservative literary society Junimea.
context_section_description: In 1860, Creangă enlisted at the Faculty of Theology, part of the newly founded University of Iași, and, in December 1860, fathered a son, Constantin. His life still lacked in stability, and he decided to move out of Grigoriu's supervision and into Bărboi Church, before his position as deacon was cut out of the budget and his belongings were evicted out of his temporary lodging in 1864. He contemplated leaving the city, and even officially requested a new assignment in the more remote Bolgrad. Since January 1864, when the Faculty of Theology had been closed down, he had been attending Iași's Trei Ierarhi Monastery normal school (Trisfetite or Trei Sfetite), where he first met the young cultural figure Titu Maiorescu, who served as his teacher and supervisor, and whence he graduated as the first in his class (June 1865). Embittered by his own experience with the education system, Creangă became an enthusiastic promoter of Maiorescu's ideas on education reform and modernization, and in particular of the new methods of teaching reading and writing. During and after completing normal school, he was assigned to teaching positions at Trisfetite. While there, he earned the reputation of a demanding teacher (notably by accompanying his reports on individual students with characterizations such as "idiot", "impertinent" or "envious"). Accounts from the period state that he made use of corporal punishment in disciplining his pupils, and even surpassed the standards of violence accepted at the time.
  In parallel, he was beginning his activities in support of education reform. By 1864, he and several others, among them schoolteacher V. Răceanu, were working on a new primer, which saw print in 1868 under the title Metodă nouă de scriere și cetire pentru uzul clasei I primară ("A New Method of Writing and Reading for the Use of 1st Grade Primary Course Students"). It mainly addressed the issues posed by the new Romanian alphabetical standard, a Romanization replacing Cyrillic spelling (which had been officially discarded in 1862). Largely based on Maiorescu's principles, Metodă nouă ... became one the period's most circulated textbooks. In addition to didactic texts, it also featured Creangă's isolated debut in lyric poetry, with a naïve piece titled Păsărica în timpul iernii ("The Little Bird in Wintertime"). The book was followed in 1871 by another such work, published as Învățătoriul copiilor ("The Children's Teacher") and co-authored by V. Răceanu. It included several prose fables and a sketch story, "Human Stupidity", to which later editions added Poveste ("A Story") and Pâcală (a borrowing of the fictional folk character better known as Păcală).
  In February 1866, having briefly served at Iași's Pantelimon Church, he was welcomed by hegumen Isaia Vicol Dioclias into the service of Golia Monastery. Around 1867, his wife Ileana left him. After that moment, Creangă began losing interest in performing his duties in the clergy, and, while doing his best to hide that he was no longer living with his wife, took a mistress. The marriage's breakup was later attributed by Creangă himself to Ileana's adulterous affair with a Golia monk, and rumors spread that Ileana's lover was a high-ranking official, the protopope of Iași. Creangă's accusations, Călinescu contends, are nevertheless dubious, because the deacon persisted in working for the same monastery after the alleged incident.
  By the second half of the 1860s, the future writer was also pursuing an interest in politics, which eventually led him to rally with the more nationalist group within the Romanian liberal current, known as Free and Independent Faction. An agitator for his party, Creangă became commonly known under the nickname Popa Smântână ("Priest Sour Cream"). In April 1866, shortly after Domnitor Cuza was toppled by a coup, and just before Carol I was selected to replace him, the Romanian Army intervened to quell a separatist riot in Iași, instigated by Moldavian Metropolitan Calinic Miclescu. It is likely that Creangă shared the outlook of other Factionalists, according to wh
caption: Ion Creangă's home (present-day Creangă Museum) in Golia Monastery
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