page_title: Kir Ianulea
section_title: Introductory episodes
hierarchical_section_title: Kir Ianulea / Plot / Introductory episodes
caption_attribution_description: Romania, Bucarest, Ostello Manuc (esterno)
context_page_description: Kir Ianulea or Kyr Ianulea is a fantasy and historical fiction novella or short story, published by Romanian author Ion Luca Caragiale in 1909. Borrowing the elements of a fairy tale, satire and frame story, it has become recognized as one of Caragiale's leading contributions to short prose, and is often described as one of the seminal works written by him during the last decade of his life. While its narrative structure is largely based on Belfagor arcidiavolo, a story by 16th century writer and political thinker Niccolò Machiavelli, Kir Ianulea employs additional elements such as anecdotes to evolve into a social fresco of late 18th-century Wallachia and the Ottoman-ruled Balkans as a whole. Caragiale primarily adapts Machiavelli's theme, which is a fable about the innate unreliability of women, to the realities of the Phanariote epoch, focusing his attention on the interactions between Greeks and Romanians while offering additional insight into the process of acculturation.
  Structured around its protagonist and named after his main alias, Kir Ianulea recounts how one of the lesser devils is assigned the mission of assessing the evil and negativity of women.
context_section_description: The narrative opens with the rally of all devils, as ordered by "the Overlord of Hell" Dardarot. Probably a replica version of Astaroth, the latter confesses being intrigued by the large number of human victims who claim to have sinned only because of women, and indicates that he considers a method for verifying the truth in this claim. Dardarot decides to send "the little one", Aghiuță ("Hell's Bells" or "Dickens"), into an extended investigation on Earth. Although received with displays of fatherly affection by Dardarot, the boy is reluctant to perform such tasks, since, as the narrator informs, he is not on his first mission among humans: previously, he had served an old woman, and forced by her to expend his energy on the futile task of straightening a curly hair. Unimpressed, Dardarot provides him with 100,000 gold coins (the bounty confiscated from a stingy mortal), with the indication that he is to marry and live with his human wife for ten years. Transformed into a handsome young mortal and evicted from Hell by his moody overlord, Aghiuță decides to head for Bucharest, a city with "room for parties" and many business opportunities. He arrives in the Wallachian capital and books a room at Manuc's Inn, before renting a cluster of townhouses and gardens in Negustori area (the merchants' district, close to Colțea Hospital).
  The new guest intrigues Aghiuță's new landlord, who sends the old and cunning housekeeper Marghioala to engage him in conversation and find out his story. Recommending himself as Ianulea "of Arvanite stock", the young man explains that he is from near Mount Athos (Sfântagora), in Ottoman Greece, the son of olive tree planters. He provides an elaborate story about his early years, claiming that both his parents died at sea, while taking him on pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem—victims of bowel obstruction caused by eating beans after radishes. He recounts having been kept on as a servant and boy seaman by the brutal captain of the ship, and having survived a number of near shipwrecks, and then purchasing his own vessel. After further such adventures, Aghiuță-Ianulea claims, he had been able to amass a fortune and settle in a peaceful country. He also boasts knowledge of several languages without access to formal studies, and claims that his knowledge of Romanian will put Wallachian locals to shame. In the end, Ianulea threatens Marghioala not to share his secret with anyone else, aware that such a warning will only entice her to spread the story around the neighborhood.
caption: Side view of Manuc's Inn
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