Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan village. He is created as a wooden puppet, but he dreams of becoming a real boy. He is known for his long nose, which grows when he lies.

Pinocchio is a cultural icon and one of the most reimagined characters in children's literature.  His story has been adapted into many other media, notably the 1940 Disney film Pinocchio. Collodi often used the Italian Tuscan dialect in his book. The name Pinocchio is possibly derived from the rare Tuscan form pinocchio ("pine nut") or constructed from pino ("pine tree, pine wood") and occhio ("eye").

Fictional character description

Pinocchio's characterization varies across interpretations, but several aspects are consistent across all adaptations: Pinocchio is an animated sentient puppet, Pinocchio's maker is Geppetto and Pinocchio's nose grows when he lies.

Pinocchio is known for having a short nose that becomes longer when he is under stress (chapter 3), especially while lying. In the original tale, Collodi describes him as a "rascal," "imp," "scapegrace" (mischievous or wayward person), "disgrace," "ragamuffin," and "confirmed rogue," with even his father, carpenter Geppetto, referring to him as a "wretched boy." Upon being born, Pinocchio immediately laughs derisively in his creator's face, whereupon he steals the old man's wig.

Pinocchio's bad behavior, rather than being charming or endearing, is meant to serve as a warning. Collodi originally intended the story, which was first published in June 1881 in the children's magazine Il Corriere dei Piccoli, to be a tragedy. It concluded with the puppet's execution. Pinocchio's enemies, the Fox and the Cat, bind his arms, pass a noose around his throat, and hang him from the branch of an oak tree.

A tempestuous northerly wind began to blow and roar angrily, and it beat the poor puppet from side to side, making him swing violently, like the clatter of a bell ringing for a wedding. And the swinging gave him atrocious spasms...His breath failed him and he could say no more. He shut his eyes, opened his mouth, stretched his legs, gave a long shudder, and hung stiff and insensible.

Characteristics

Clothing and character
Pinocchio is a wooden marionette (a puppet that is manipulated with wires or strings) and not a hand puppet (directly controlled from inside by the puppeteer's hand). However, the piece of wood from which he is derived is animated, and so Pinocchio moves independently. He often gets carried away by bad company and is prone to lying. His nose becomes longer when lying to others. Because of these characteristics, he often finds himself in trouble. Pinocchio transforms in the novel: he promises The Fairy with Turquoise Hair to become a real boy, flees with Candlewick to the Land of Toys, becomes a donkey, joins a circus, and becomes a puppet again. In the last chapter, out of the mouth of The Terrible Dogfish with Geppetto, Pinocchio finally stops being a puppet and becomes a real boy (thanks to the intervention of the Fairy in a dream).

In the novel, Pinocchio is often depicted with a pointy hat, a jacket, and a pair of colored, knee-length pants. In the Disney version, the appearance is different; the character is dressed in Tyrolean style, with Lederhosen and a hat with a feather.

Nose
Pinocchio's nose is his best-known characteristic. It grows in length when he tells a lie, but also does so in the book when it is first carved by Geppetto.

The nose is mentioned only a couple of times in the book, but it reveals the Blue Fairy's power over Pinocchio when he acts disobediently. After the boy's struggling and weeping over his deformed nose, the Blue Fairy summons woodpeckers to peck it back to normal.

Literary analysis
Some literary analysts have described Pinocchio as an epic hero. Like many Western literary heroes, such as Odysseus, Pinocchio descends into hell; he also experiences rebirth through metamorphosis, a common motif in fantasy literature.

Before writing Pinocchio, Collodi wrote a number of didactic children's stories for the then-recently unified Italy, including a series about an unruly boy who undergoes humiliating experiences while traveling the country, titled Viaggio per l'Italia di Giannettino ('Little Johnny's voyage through Italy'). Throughout Pinocchio, Collodi chastises Pinocchio for his lack of moral fiber and his persistent rejection of responsibility and desire for fun.

The structure of the story of Pinocchio follows that of the folktales of peasants who venture out into the world but are naïvely unprepared for what they find and get into ridiculous situations. At the time of the writing of the book, this was a serious problem, arising partly from the industrialization of Italy, which led to a growing need for reliable labor in the cities; the problem was exacerbated by similar, more or less simultaneous, demands for labor in the industrialization of other countries. One major effect was the emigration of much of the Italian peasantry to cities and foreign countries such as the United States.

The main imperatives demanded of Pinocchio are to work, be good, and study. And in the end, Pinocchio's willingness to provide for his father and devote himself to these things transforms him into a real boy with modern comforts.

Media portrayals

Literature
 Il Segreto di Pinocchio (1894) by Gemma Mongiardini-Rembadi, published in the United States in 1913 as Pinocchio under the Sea.
 Pinocchio in Africa (1903) by Eugenio Cherubini.
 The Heart of Pinocchio (1917) by Paolo Lorenzini.
 Pinocchio in America (1928) by Angelo Patri.
 Puppet Parade (1932) by Carol Della Chiesa.
 The children's novel The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Buratino (1936) is a free retelling of the story of Pinocchio by Russian writer Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Some of the adventures are derived from Collodi, but many are either omitted or added. Pinocchio (Buratino) does not reform himself nor becomes a real human. For Tolstoy, Pinocchio as a puppet is a positive model of creative and non-conformist behavior.
 Hi! Ho! Pinocchio! (1940) by Josef Marino.
 Astro Boy (鉄腕アトム, Tetsuwan Atomu) (1952), a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka, recasts loosely the Pinocchio theme.
 Pinocchio in Venice (1991) by Robert Coover.
 Pinocchio: The Boy, (2002) children's picture book by Lane Smith.  Viking Books.
 Fables (2002–2015), a comic book series by Bill Willingham, includes Pinocchio as a refugee, having fled his magical homeland and living in the mundane 21st century.
 Marvel Fairy Tales (2006–2008), a comic book series by C. B. Cebulski, features a retelling of The Adventures of Pinocchio with the robotic superhero called The Vision in the role of Pinocchio.
 Wooden Bones (2012) by Scott William Carter describes a fictional untold story of Pinocchio, with a dark twist. Pino, as he's come to be known after he became a real boy, has discovered that he has the power to bring puppets to life himself.
 Pinocchio by Pinocchio (2013) by Michael Morpurgo.
 Pinocchio was the subject of the 2015 satirical novel Splintered: A Political Fairy Tale by Thomas London.
 The Wooden Prince (2017) and Lord of Monsters (2017) by John Claude Bemis adapt the story to a science fiction setting.

Film

Disney version

When Walt Disney Productions was developing the story for their film version of Pinocchio (1940), they intended to keep the obnoxious aspects of the original character, but Walt Disney himself felt that this made the character too unlikable, so alterations were made to incorporate traits of mischief and innocence to make Pinocchio more likable. Pinocchio was voiced by Dickie Jones. Today, the film is considered one of the finest Disney features ever made and one of the greatest animated films of all time. In the video game adaptation of the film, Pinocchio lives out (mostly) the same role as the film, traveling through the world filled with temptations and experiencing various forces.

This Disney incarnation was later used in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, voiced by Peter Westy; and House of Mouse, voiced by Michael Welch; as well as making cameo appearances in Aladdin, Teacher's Pet, Tangled, the Mickey Mouse television series, and Ralph Breaks the Internet. Child actor Seth Adkins portrayed Pinocchio in the television musical film Geppetto (2000).

Pinocchio is a supporting character, voiced by Seth Adkins, in the Kingdom Hearts video game series. He plays a major role in the eponymous first game, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, while in Kingdom Hearts II he appears during a flashback at the early stages.

In Kinect Disneyland Adventures, he appears as a meet-and-greet character in Fantasyland and has several quests for the player. In Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion Pinocchio is featured as one of the many iconic Disney characters kidnapped by the evil witch Mizrabel in her plot to dominate their world; he is imprisoned alongside Genie in the Cave of Wonders until eventually being rescued by Mickey Mouse.

In the early 1990s, it is rumored that Elijah Wood portrayed the real-boy version of Pinocchio in the live-action segments for the updated Jiminy Cricket educational serials I'm No Fool and You, in addition to the new shorts of I'm No Fool.

In March 2021, it was announced that Benjamin Evan Ainsworth would play him in Disney's 2022 live-action/CGI remake of the animated film.

Other film adaptations

20th century

 Pinocchio first appeared in a cinematic adaptation in Pinocchio (1911), an Italian live-action silent film, directed by Giulio Antamoro. The character is performed by French-Italian comedian Ferdinand Guillaume.
 A 1936 adaptation The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio) was planned in Italy by Raoul Verdini and Umberto Spano, but it was never entirely completed and is now considered lost. Only the original script and some still frames are all that survived the film.
The Golden Key (Zolotoy Klyuchik) is a 1939 Russian movie combining live-action and stop-motion animation, directed by Aleksandr Ptushko. The story is based on the novel The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Buratino (1936) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Pinocchio (Buratino) is a puppet voiced by actress Olga Shaganova-Obraztsova.
The first child actor to portray Pinocchio was Alessandro Tommei in the 1947 Italian film The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio), directed by Gianetto Guardone.

 Italian comedian Totò portrayed Pinocchio in the 1952 film Toto in Color (Totò a colori).
 Actor Mel Blanc voiced Pinocchio in a 1953 radio adaptation of the story. This is the second adaptation of Pinocchio with Mel Blanc involved, as Blanc voiced Gideon the Cat in the 1940 Disney film until all of his lines were deleted, save for three hiccups.
 The Adventures of Buratino (Priklyucheniya Buratino) is a 1959 Soviet animated feature film directed by Dmitriy Babichenko and Ivan Ivanov-Vano. The story is based on the novel The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Buratino (1936) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Pinocchio (Buratino) is voiced by actress Nina Gulyaeva and in the 1998 shortened English-dubbed version (Pinocchio and the Golden Key), by child actor Joseph Mazzello.
 In Pinocchio (1965), the character is portrayed by actor John Joy.
 In the Belgian-American animated film Pinocchio in Outer Space (1965), the character is voiced by actor Peter Lazer.
Pinocchio (Turlis Abenteuer) (1967) is an East German film, directed by Walter Beck. Pinocchio (Turli) is a puppet, voiced by actress Gina Prescott. In the final scene, as a boy, he is portrayed by Uwe Thielisch.

 The Adventures of Pinocchio (Un burattino di nome Pinocchio, 1972) is an Italian animated film, written and directed by Giuliano Cenci. Pinocchio is voiced by actress Roberta Paladini with Pamelyn Ferdin doing his English voice dub.
Pinocchio and His Magic Show is a 1976 American movie. Pinocchio is a puppet, voiced by an actress Ellen Prince.
The Adventures of Buratino (Priklyucheniya Buratino) is a 1975 Soviet children's musical film directed by Leonid Nechayev. The story is based on the novel The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Buratino (1936) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Pinocchio (Buratino) is portrayed by child actor Dmitri Iosifov.
 The 1977 animated film Spinnolio, created by John Weldon for the National Film Board of Canada, parodies Pinocchio with the story of a wooden boy who never comes to life, but nobody notices because his apparent skill at listening without talking makes him the ideal candidate for a job as manager of a department store's complaints desk.
 Si Boneka Kayu, Pinokio (Pinocchio the wood puppet) is the 1979 Indonesian musical film, directed by Willy Willian, written by Imam Tantowi and based on the original story with some additional adaptations. Pinocchio is portrayed by the Indonesian actor and comedian Ateng.
 Pinocchio appeared in the French-Dutch TV musical film Abbacadabra (1983), directed by Rien van Wijk. He was portrayed by actor Nico Haak.
 Pinocho is a 1986 Argentinian movie, directed by Alejandro Malowichi. Pinocchio is portrayed by an actress Soledad Silveyra.
 Pinocchio appeared in Filmation's 1987 epic animated film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night voiced by Scott Grimes.
 In the 1988 animation The Adventures of Pinocchio, directed by Ippei Kuri and Jim Terry, Pinocchio is voiced by actress Danielle Romeo.
 He appears in the 1991 animated film The Magic Riddle.
 Pinocchio appeared in the 1993 direct-to-video adaptation by GoodTimes Entertainment, voiced by Jeannie Elias.
 He appeared in the horror film Pinocchio's Revenge (1996) played by Verne Troyer and voiced by Dick Beals. He appears as a killer puppet.
 He was portrayed by Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the film The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996). Thomas also voiced the title character's puppet form. In the 1999 sequel The New Adventures of Pinocchio, Pinocchio was played by Gabriel Thomson (who also voiced his puppet form).
 He was portrayed by actor Carmelo Bene in the Italian TV movie Pinocchio ovvero lo spettacolo della provvidenza (1999).

21st century
 Steven Spielberg's 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence is referred to as an adaptation of Pinocchio. Stanley Kubrick called A.I. "a picaresque robot version of Pinocchio"
 Pinocchio appears as a supporting character in the animated films Shrek (2001), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Shrek Forever After (2010), and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), voiced by Cody Cameron. He was also featured in other animated shorts and videos of the same series: Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party (2001), Shrek 4-D (2003), Far Far Away Idol (2004), Shrek the Halls (2007), Scared Shrekless (2010), Donkey's Christmas Shrektacular (2010), and Thriller Night (2013).
 Actor Roberto Benigni portrayed Pinocchio in the 2002 Italian movie Pinocchio, while the English dub voice was provided by Breckin Meyer.
 Pinocchio 3000 is a 2004 Canadian-French-Spanish computer-animated film, directed by Daniel Robichaud. Pinocchio, a robot that was built by Geppetto, is voiced by Canadian actress Sonja Ball in English.
 In the 2012 Italian animated adaptation Pinocchio, directed by Enzo D'Alò, Pinocchio is voiced by child actor Gabriele Caprio in the Italian original version. In the English dub he is voiced by child actor Robert Naylor in the Canadian release, and by singer Johnny Orlando in the American one.
 Child actor Federico Ielapi portrayed Pinocchio in the live-action Italian film Pinocchio (2019), co-written, directed and co-produced by Matteo Garrone. Prosthetic makeup was used to turn Ielapi into a puppet. Ielapi also dubbed himself in the English-language version of the movie.
 Pauly Shore voices Pinocchio in the English dub of the 2022 Russian direct-to-DVD animated film Pinocchio: A True Story.
 In 2022 Disney released Pinocchio, a live action remake of their 1940 animated version, directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Zemeckis and Chris Weitz.
 In 2022, Netflix released a stop-motion musical film titled Pinocchio, inspired by Gris Grimly's original design for Pinocchio, and co-directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson. The film stars Gregory Mann in the title role, along with Ewan McGregor as Sebastian J. Cricket, and David Bradley playing Geppetto. Unlike the original story or any other versions of it, Pinocchio stays a wooden puppet at the end of the movie but was still considered at the end, by his loved ones including the Wood Sprite (the movie's counterpart to the Fairy with Turquoise Hair) (voiced by Tilda Swinton, who also voiced Death, the Sprite's sister) as already a real boy. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature in January 2023.

Television

 Musician and comedian Spike Jones portrayed Pinocchio in the first television adaptation, a satirical version aired 24 April 1954 as an episode of The Spike Jones Show.
 Pinocchio was portrayed by thirteen-year-old Andrew Irvine as 'Nokie' in the 1955 ITV children's series Round at the Redways.
Mickey Rooney was Pinocchio in the television musical adaptation Pinocchio (1957), directed by Paul Bogart, aired 13 October 1957.
 In the 1959 Italian television series The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio), directed by Enrico D'Alessandro and Cesare Emilio Gaslini, Pinocchio is portrayed by Carlo Chamby.
The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1960–61) is an American animated television series. Pinocchio is voiced by an actress Joan Fowler.
De avonturen van Pinokkio (1968–69) is a Dutch TV miniseries. Pinocchio is portrayed by an actress Wieteke van Dort.
 Tatsunoko Productions created a 52-episode anime series entitled Pinocchio: The Series, first aired in 1972. This series has a distinctly darker, more sadistic theme, and portrays the main character Pinocchio (Mokku) as suffering from constant physical and psychological abuse and freak accidents. Pinocchio was voiced by actress Hiroko Maruyama and in the 1992 English-dubbed version by actor Thor Bishopric.
Pinocchio (1968) is an American musical TV film, directed by Sid Smith. It was aired on 8 December 1968 in the series Hallmark Hall of Fame. Pinocchio is portrayed by actor Peter Noone.
The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio, 1972) is an Italian television miniseries, co-written and directed by Luigi Comencini. Pinocchio was portrayed by child actor Andrea Balestri.
 In 1973, Piccolo, a kaiju based on Pinocchio, appeared in episode 46 of Ultraman Taro.
 Another anime series starring Pinocchio, entitled Piccolino no Bōken, was produced by Nippon Animation in 1976.
Pinocchio is a 1976 American television musical film, directed by Ron Field and Sid Smith, aired 27 March 1976. Pinocchio is portrayed by an actress Sandy Duncan.
 In 1976, Pinocchio appeared in a News Flash segment on Sesame Street, performed by Frank Oz.
Pinocchio is a 1978 British television miniseries produced by the BBC in 4 episodes, directed by Barry Letts. Pinocchio is a puppet voiced by an actress Rosemary Miller. In the final scene, he is portrayed by child actor Joshua White.
 In 1980, Pinocchio appeared in the "Señor Wences" episode of The Muppet Show, performed by Steve Whitmire. His puppet was built by Bob Payne.
 In the 1980 animation Pinocchio's Christmas, directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr., Pinocchio is voiced by child actor Todd Porter.
 Pinocchio (1984) is an episode of the American television series Faerie Tale Theatre, directed by Peter Medak. Pinocchio is portrayed by actor Paul Reubens.
 Pinocchio was featured in a 1997 episode of the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, voiced by actor Will Smith.
 Child actor Seth Adkins portrayed Pinocchio in the television musical film Geppetto (2000) and as a guest star, in an episode of The Drew Carey Show, aired 1 March 2000. He also voiced the character in the video game Kingdom Hearts (2002).
 Child actor Robbie Kay was Pinocchio in the two-episode TV film Pinocchio (2008), directed by Alberto Sironi.
 Pinocchio appeared in 2010 in the animated television series Simsala Grimm in an episode of the same name.
 Pinocchio is a recurring character in the television series Once Upon a Time (2011–16). He appears in Storybrooke in the form of a mysterious man named August Booth (played by Eion Bailey). In the Enchanted Forest, his younger self is played by Jakob Davies, but he was released into our world before the curse by Geppetto; Geppetto had been charged with making a magic cabinet to allow Snow White and series protagonist Emma Swan to escape the curse, but Geppetto arranged for Pinocchio to enter the cabinet instead as he feared that his son would cease to exist if the curse was cast as there would have been no way for him to be born without magic. August begins to return to his wooden state towards the end of the first season due to his selfishness, but following his near-death by Tamara, the Blue Fairy restored Pinocchio to his child self for his compassion and courage and he resumes living with Geppetto. In the fourth season, he was restored to his adult state by Rumplestiltskin so that he could torture him for information about the Author. In the sixth season, it was revealed that August was the one who inspired Emma to take on the surname Swan after he shared with her the fairy tale The Ugly Duckling when they were kids.
 Pinocchio appeared as a villain in two episodes of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (2004 & 2006), voiced by Scott Menville. He desires to become a real boy but by eating a real boy's flesh.
 Pinocchio, a 2013 German miniseries starring Mario Adorf and Benjamin Sadler.
 Actor Sigurður Þór Óskarsson portrayed Pinocchio in an episode ("New Kid in Town") of the TV series LazyTown, aired 5 October 2014.
 Pinocchio, a 2014–2015 South Korean television series starring Lee Jong-suk and Park Shin-Hye.
 Rooster Teeth's web series RWBY features a character named Penny Polendina, who alludes to Pinocchio.
 Pinocchio appeared as the main character in the anthology horror comedy series JJ Villard's Fairy Tales, with John Kassir playing the role of the title puppet and his creator Gelato (an allusion to Geppetto).
 The horror season of Dropout's web series Dimension 20, entitled Neverafter (2022), features Pinocchio as a principal character, played by Lou Wilson.

Stage productions
 Pinocchio (1961–1999), by Carmelo Bene.
 Pinocchio (1993) adapted by David Gilles. Produced by MTYP (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). Starring Derek Aasland as Pinocchio and Harry Nelken as Geppetto.  Review "Pinocchio's Fun Contagious" - Winnipeg Free Press - Preview Play Probes Pinocchio - Winnipeg Free Press
 Pinocchio (2002), musical by Saverio Marconi and musics by Pooh.
 Pinokkio (2000-2008), Flemish musical by Studio 100.
 The Adventures of Pinocchio is a 2007 opera in two acts by English composer Jonathan Dove with a libretto by Alasdair Middleton. The original production opened at the Grand Theatre, Leeds on 21 December 2007 with mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds as Pinocchio.
 Actor John Tartaglia portrayed Pinocchio in the original Broadway cast of Shrek the Musical (2008) as well as in the 2013 filmed version.
L'altro Pinocchio (2011), musical by Vito Costantini based on L'altro Pinocchio (Editrice La Scuola, Brescia 1999).
 Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino da Carlo Collodi by Massimiliano Finazzer Flory (2012)
 The Adventures of Pinocchio is a 2009 opera by Israeli composer Jonathan Dove, "for 3 actors, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano".
 The musical Pinocchio - Superstar was produced by Norberto Bertassi and performed by the young talents association Teatro. Premiered on 20 July 2016 in Mödling, Austria.
 Pinocchio (2017), musical by Dennis Kelly, with songs from 1940 Disney movie, directed by John Tiffany, premiered on the National Theatre, London.
 The Making of Pinocchio—"a true tale of love and transition told through the story of Pinocchio"—is a contemporary interpretation by Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill, which had its UK premiere at the Battersea Arts Centre as part of the London International Festival of Theatre in 2022.

Miscellaneous
 Lies of P, a video game developed by Round8 Studio is loosely based on the original 1883 novel.

See also

 Pinocchio paradox
 Buratino

References

External links

 Full text of Le Avventure di Pinocchio in the original Italian
 Full text in English

Child characters in film
Child characters in literature
Child characters in musical theatre
Literary characters introduced in 1883
Fictional puppets
Fictional Italian people
Male characters in animation
Male characters in literature
Pinocchio characters
Sentient toys in fiction

Pinocchio


The Buildings at 1200–1206 Washington Street, also known as the El Dorado Apartments and the Yellow Flats, are a historic district located in Hoboken, Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. The buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 9, 1987.

History

In the 1890s, the Buildings at 1200–1206 Washington Street were built by the Hoboken Land and Improvement Company, by the architect Charles Fall. They are located between 12th Street and 13th Street on the west side of Washington Street, a commercial district with many retail stores and restaurants. The five-story complex is roughly 2 blocks south of Weehawken Cove, the former site of the Hudson Tea Building, and 2 blocks west of the Hudson River. The entire complex is the full length of Washington Street between 12th and 13th Streets, with several rows of apartments wrapping around the corners of both streets, and in total the Yellow Flats contain 174 living units. The addresses listed under the National Register of Historic Places are specifically 1200, 1202, 1204 and 1206. A large fire in January 2008 caused major damage to the complex; the damage has since been repaired.

Famous residents

King Timothy James Kilkenny II

Although she was considered to be one of the wealthiest women of her day, and it has even been said that she had the means to buy Hoboken, Hetty Green, the "Witch of Wall Street" chose after her move from London to live in a small, cheap apartment at the Yellow Flats, where she rented a three-room apartment for $19 to $23 per month.  To avoid establishing a residency permanent enough to attract the attention of tax officials in any state, Hetty took up several residences in Hoboken and Brooklyn Heights, which has resulted in a discrepancy between whether or not she lived in the apartments listed under the National Register of Historic Places. At the Yellow Flats, she listed her buzzer as C. Dewey, the name of her pet Skye terrier. It was also reported that she lived as a guest of the Yellow Flats buildings' janitor, Jacob Van Twisk.

At the end of his career in 1905, Blind Tom Wiggins, one of the most famous musical performers of his day who played at the White House for President James Buchanan and was highly regarded by Mark Twain, moved into an apartment in the Yellow Flats. Several years later, he died at the home of neighbor Mrs. Eliza Bethune Lerche.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Hudson County, New Jersey

Notes

References

External links

 View of Buildings at 1200-1206 Washington Street via Google Street View
 Photo of Buildings

Buildings and structures in Hoboken, New Jersey
1890s architecture in the United States
Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New Jersey
National Register of Historic Places in Hudson County, New Jersey
Apartment buildings in New Jersey
Historic districts in Hudson County, New Jersey
New Jersey Register of Historic Places


Dr. Ruth K. M. Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, commonly known as Civil Hospital Karachi, is a 1,900-bed tertiary care public hospital that imparts both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and training.

It is one of the teaching hospitals affiliated with the Dow Medical College, Karachi.

Recognition
 Accredited by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan.

History
Dr. Ruth K.M. Pfau Hospital was founded as The Civil Hospital Karachi in 1898 in the wake of a third pandemic of Bubonic Plague on the one hand, and the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria on the other. The pandemic would kill at least an estimated 10 million people in India alone over a period of 20 years. It is important to mention the status of Karachi at that time. Karachi was not the business center. Towards the close of the nineteenth century, Karachi emerged as the cleanest city towards this side of the Suez Canal, with an estimated population of 105,000 which continued to grow in view of its strategic importance. Lord Curzon the Viceroy of India visited the hospital in 1900 and unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark the platinum jubilee of Queen Victoria. The plaque is placed in the same spot, which was initially a nursing school and subsequently transformed into a state-of-the-art Burns Center in what is known till today as the Victoria Block or the Jubilee Block, while the entire building is heritage-protected by the provincial Department of Culture allowing for repairs and renovation but eschewing any structural change in its original design. The hospital continued to function efficiently until independence as the principal hospital of Karachi and received tremendous impetus after 1945 when the then Governor of Sindh Sir Hugh Dow transferred the medical school provisionally recognized by the Bombay University from Hyderabad to Karachi and laid the foundation of the Dow Medical College in its present location on 10 December 1945, with the Dr. Ruth K.M. Pfau Hospital attached to it as a teaching hospital. The creation of a new state of Pakistan brought with it the need for a massive relief and rehabilitation efforts for hundreds of thousands of migrated people pouring in from India and addressing all their basic needs including health needs through a largely inadequate and unprepared system. A visitor's book maintained during the late fifties and early sixties indicates that Dr. Ruth K.M. Pfau Hospital was frequented by several dignitaries such as government ministers, ambassadors and eminent personalities visiting Pakistan. A 1961 entry by Lady Bird Johnson then spouse of the Vice President of the USA is particularly revealing: It reads: "This has been a visit both heart-breaking and rewarding. My hat is off to you women doctors!".

Trauma Centre
The hospital includes the 500 bed Benazir Bhutto Accident, Emergency and Trauma Centre that includes a total of 18 operating rooms.

Departments
The clinical departments of the hospital include Internal Medicine, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Anesthesiology, Pediatrics, Cardiac Surgery, Oncology, Radiology, General Surgery, Neuro Surgery and Laboratory the hospital is proving all the services and facilities in one premise. The first state-of-the-art Burns unit has also been established in this hospital. The department of surgery comprises six general surgical units besides the specialties of neurosurgery, paediatric surgery, orthopedic surgery, urology, vascular surgery, maxillo-facial surgery and plastic surgery. The department of medicine comprises five general medicine units, 60 beds each. Other specialties includes Cardiology, Psychiatry, Dermatology, Neurology and Nephrology. The Department of Paediatrics has three units with a DTU (Diarrhea Treatment Unit). The Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics is divided into three units, having facilities of labour room and Operation Theatre. The Emergency department has several sections including an Operation Theatre and Surgical Intensive Care Unit, which are functional around the clock for use in case of mass disasters.

Hospital renamed
On 19 August 2017, after the state funeral of German-born Pakistani nun Ruth Pfau, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah ordered to rename The Civil Hospital, Karachi to Dr. Ruth K.M. Pfau Civil Hospital as an acknowledgment of  "selfless services of the late social servant". She was also widely known as Pakistan's Mother Teresa. Since 1960, Ruth Pfau had devoted her life to eradicating leprosy in Pakistan.

References

External links
official website of Civil Hospital, Karachi

Hospitals in Karachi
Teaching hospitals in Pakistan
Hospital buildings completed in 1945
Hospitals established in 1898
1898 establishments in British India


Elisabeth Wilma Kirkby  (born 26 January 1921) is a British-born Australian actress, politician, broadcaster, writer and farmer. She is a member of the Australian Democrats. She served in the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1981 to 1998. She was also a councillor for Temora, New South Wales, from 1999 to 2004. She played Lucy Sutcliffe in the soap opera Number 96.

Kirkby was born in Bolton, Lancashire. She served in the British Army during the Second World War. After the war, she worked as a radio broadcaster in Malaya for 15 years. She moved to Sydney in 1965.

In 2014, aged 93, Kirkby became Australia's oldest university graduate. She earnt a PhD at the University of Sydney. She turned 100 in 2021.

References

1921 births
Living people
Australian stage actors
Australian television actors
British military personnel of World War II
English centenarians
English radio personalities
English stage actors
English television actors
Order of Australia
People from Bolton
Politicians from New South Wales
Writers from Lancashire

Politicians from Greater Manchester

Elisabeth Kirkby


Robert Michael Doornbos (; born 23 September 1981) is a Dutch former racing driver who also competed with a Monégasque licence. He has been test and third driver for the Jordan and Red Bull Racing Formula One teams, as well as driving for Minardi and Red Bull Racing in 2005 and 2006. Doornbos then drove for Minardi Team USA in the 2007 and final season of the Champ Car World Series. He competed in the Superleague Formula racing series in 2008, and drove for the Netherlands team in A1 Grand Prix's 2008–2009 season. In 2009, Doornbos competed in the IndyCar Series. He began the season with Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, but switched to HVM Racing after the race in Kentucky Speedway.

Tennis player to racing driver
Doornbos's first sport was tennis. His interest in motorsport grew after he was invited to the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix as a guest of Williams F1. It was 1997 Formula One Champion Jacques Villeneuve who suggested that he should go for a series such as Formula Ford, as he was too big and too old to race karts. He gave up tennis and focused on racing, joining the JR racing team for the 1999 Opel Lotus UK Winter series. He had a successful season, finishing second in the championship after taking four pole positions, four fastest laps and four wins. In 2000, he competed in the Formula Ford Zetec Benelux series, finishing second in the Belgian championship and fifth overall with one pole, three fastest laps and six podiums.

Formula 3 career
Returning to the UK in 2001, Doornbos contested the Scholarship class of the British Formula Three championship with FGR Racing. He finished the year fifth in the championship, taking two poles, two wins and nine podiums. He drew attention to himself with a second-place finish in the Formula Three support race to the British Grand Prix. He then moved to the German Formula Three championship with Team Ghinzani. He picked up four podiums, but no win. The year also featured a sixth-place finish in the prestigious Macau Grand Prix. Continuing with the team in 2003, Doornbos competed in the European Formula Three Championship, visiting the podium seven times. He took pole position at Spa-Francorchamps for the Formula Three Masters event, and finished second in Korea.

Formula 3000
With support from Red Bull, Doornbos joined reigning International Formula 3000 champions Arden International for the 2004 FIA International Formula 3000 Championship. Partnered with Vitantonio Liuzzi, Doornbos claimed Rookie of the Year after finishing third in the championship. During the year, he took a fastest lap and four podium finishes, including a race win at Spa-Francorchamps.

Formula One

Jordan (2004)
Prior to the 2004 Chinese Grand Prix, it was announced that Doornbos would be the official Friday test driver for the Jordan Formula One team, replacing Timo Glock, who had been promoted to race duties in place of Giorgio Pantano, whose sponsorship money had "dried up". Doornbos impressed as test driver for the final few races of the season, and was reappointed with the newly-sold Jordan team for the 2005 season.

Doornbos completed Friday testing duties for Jordan in all but two of the first 11 events of the year, with French Renault F1 test driver Franck Montagny testing at the European Grand Prix, and Jordan being banned from using a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix after using too many tyres at the previous race.

Minardi (2005)
On 19 July Doornbos was appointed as a Minardi race driver for the 2005 German Grand Prix onwards, replacing Austrian Patrick Friesacher, who had encountered sponsorship issues. In his first Formula One race, he collided with Jacques Villeneuve, the man who gave advice to Doornbos to start his career as a race driver. Doornbos raced a total of eight Grand Prix for the team, his best result being a 13th position in the Turkish and Belgian Grands Prix.

Doornbos and teammate Christijan Albers would have become the first all-Dutch team line-up since Carel Godin de Beaufort and Ben Pon drove together for the Ecurie Maarsbergen team at the 1962 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort were it not for the fact that Doornbos raced with a Monegasque licence.

Effectively, he became Minardi's last Formula One driver, since the team was bought by Red Bull just before the Belgian Grand Prix. In the final race of the season, Doornbos retired on the final lap while Albers had retired a few laps earlier.

Red Bull (2006)

The Minardi team ceased to exist in its previous form at the end of 2005, being bought out by Red Bull and becoming their Scuderia Toro Rosso team. Doornbos was unable to find a race drive for 2006, but Christian Horner, his former F3000 boss, had since been appointed as Sporting Director of Red Bull Racing, where he was appointed the team's test and reserve driver.

He thus spent most of 2006 testing at the racetracks on Fridays, ready to step into a race drive if either David Coulthard or Christian Klien were unable to race. In his role as the Red Bull test driver, he once more showed his talents as a racing driver. In the majority of the Grand Prix tests on Fridays, he was to be found in the top 10, and a number of times he achieved a top three time.

At the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, he was involved in a controversial incident with Fernando Alonso, which resulted in the Spaniard incurring a two-second qualifying penalty.

After the Italian Grand Prix, when Red Bull Racing announced that Klien had been dropped from the team, Doornbos was promoted to the second race driver role alongside Coulthard for the remaining three races. He entered with a bang by qualifying in the top 10 for his first race, in China. However, he touched Robert Kubica at the first corner during the race and the delay restricted him to 12th place at the finish.

He was subsequently signed as one of the team's test drivers for , alongside Michael Ammermüller, with Coulthard and Mark Webber taking the race seats.

Formula One demonstrations
In his role as Formula One test and racing driver, Robert Doornbos has given several demonstrations, both on tracks during other race events, as well as on public road. In the Netherlands, he has driven a Formula One car on public roads twice. In 2005, he was one of the drivers of the Monaco aan de Maas event in his hometown of Rotterdam. On 15 August 2006, he made the news with a fundraiser for the children of the 'Stichting Geluk en Vrijheid' (Foundation Happiness and Freedom). At a speed of 326 km/h (204 mph), he drove his Red Bull Formula One Car over the highway A7 on the Afsluitdijk in the Netherlands.

Champ Car World Series
After missing a racing seat for the 2007 Formula One season, Robert Doornbos signed a contract with Minardi Team USA for the 2007 Champ Car World Series season. He made a successful debut in the series in the first race of the season, the Vegas Grand Prix. After qualifying third, Doornbos finished on the podium, taking second place in the race. This made him the first rookie since Nigel Mansell in 1993 to make it to the podium in his first Champ Car race. A drive through penalty in 2007 Grand Prix of Cleveland quite possibly cost Robert a chance at his first Champ Car victory, but he still managed a fine second place behind Paul Tracy. One week later, however, Robert won the 2007 Mont-Tremblant Grand Prix in Canada and as a result took the joint lead of the championship with Sébastien Bourdais. After scoring this victory, the ESPN broadcast team dubbed him "Bobby D" – a nickname he reportedly enjoys. He later went on to win the 2007 San Jose Grand Prix after an accident during the first lap on turn one left him without his front wing. The accident inadvertently put him on an alternate pit strategy that he used to his advantage and secured the win. Although he impressed many fans and drivers alike with his personality and driving style, Doornbos would end up third in points at season's end, although he did win Roshfrans Rookie of the Year. After the merger of the CCWS and the Indy Car Series was announced for 2008, the Minardi half of the team elected not to take part, reducing HVM Racing to a one-car team. This left Doornbos without a drive for 2008.

Superleague Formula
After failing to secure a seat with competitive teams in the unified IndyCar Series, and refusing to drive for uncompetitive teams, Doornbos opted to sit out the 2008 season in search for a competitive seat in 2009. It was announced on 21 May 2008 that Doornbos would drive for A.C. Milan in the Superleague Formula, a newly created racing series where the cars are sponsored by football clubs. The club's technical director is the son of Giancarlo Minardi, former owner of the Minardi Formula One team under its take over by Paul Stoddart. Doornbos finished third in the inaugural 2008 season.

A1 Grand Prix
Doornbos and Jeroen Bleekemolen drove together in A1 GP for Team Netherlands in the 2008–09 season. The drivers alternated races. Team Netherlands finished 4th in the championship, with both drivers having scored one victory, both in sprint races.

IndyCar Series
Doornbos contested the 2009 IndyCar Series season with Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. Since he had no previous oval track racing experience, he has received coaching from fellow Dutchman Arie Luyendyk. Doornbos has finished no worse than 12th in his first three races but the highlight has been a second place start in his first oval track race at Kansas (helped by disqualifications of Dario Franchitti and Hélio Castroneves for dipping below the white line during qualifying). Lining up beside his teammate Graham Rahal, Newman/Haas/Lanigan cars formed the front row for the first time since Milwaukee in 2006. He took the lead after the first round of pit stops, but on that first stop under yellow he bumped a stationary tyre in the pit stall ahead of him. He was penalised to the rear of the field and was no longer a factor.

On 4 August 2009 Doornbos posted on his official website that he was leaving Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing effective immediately. He stated that there was the option for him to leave the team after 12 races and he decided to take it. He also said that he would like to stay in IndyCar and would announce his future plans shortly.

On 5 August 2009 Doornbos signed with HVM Racing in the IndyCar Series for the remainder of the 2009 and to drive for the team through 2010, however this did not happen.

After racing
Doornbos co-founded Kiiroo, a Dutch company involved in the production of sex toys.

He is currently active as a Formula 1 analyst for Ziggo Sport.

Motorsports career results

Career summary

Complete Formula Three Euro Series results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete International Formula 3000 results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

† Did not finish the race, but was classified as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance.

American open-wheel racing results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest race lap)

ChampCar

IndyCar Series

Indianapolis 500

Complete Superleague Formula results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

2008

2010–2011

† Non Championship round

Complete A1 Grand Prix results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

References

External links

 Robert Doornbos at F1 Database

Living people
1981 births
Sportspeople from Rotterdam
Dutch racing drivers
Dutch Formula One drivers
Indianapolis 500 drivers
IndyCar Series drivers
Champ Car drivers
Superleague Formula drivers
A1 Team Netherlands drivers
International Formula 3000 drivers
Minardi Formula One drivers
British Formula Three Championship drivers
Red Bull Formula One drivers
Monegasque Formula One drivers
Arden International drivers
HVM Racing drivers
Newman/Haas Racing drivers

Robert Doornbos


Estee (Etty) Shiraz (Hebrew: אסתי שירז), is an American-Israeli entrepreneur, communication expert and mediator, and the founder of a US lifestyle magazine and a nonprofit organization aimed to improve Israel's image around the world through non-political activity.

Early life and career

Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, Shiraz started her career in 1994 as a spokesperson and director of public relations at the Opera Tower residential and commercial center, completed that year by the Alrov Group.

In 1997, Shiraz joined Spot Productions Ltd., the company producing Deadly Fortune (Kesef Katlani) - then a startup TV series, as VP of marketing and public relations. The series was aired on prime time in Channel 2 during its first two seasons, and later on in Channel 3 (seasons 3 and 4), and topped the Israeli television ratings. It included the actors Nathan Ravitz, Rafi Tavor, Aharon Ipale, and Yossi Graber in the leading roles  and was sold to broadcasting channels in Europe as well.

Politics
Shiraz went into politics in 2000 and was appointed head of communications at 'Gesher' political party and its non-profit organization. In November 2002, Shiraz was elected by the party's members as the head of the party, after David Levy, its founder and leader, moved back to the Likud. Shiraz led 'Gesher' in the elections for the 16th Israeli Parliament, the "Knesset", a move followed by a surprising political and legal battle in the years to come, with David Levy fighting to dismantle Gesher and relate to his move as a merge of his political party in its entirety with the Likud, and Shiraz and the rest of the party's members aiming to leave the party intact and transform it into a modern social party, appealing to Israel's young academics and professionals.

Following the Court's decision to instruct the Central Elections Committee to remove the Gesher Knesset list during the process, Shiraz was appointed director of operations and campaign advisor to Dr. Lea Nass-Arden - a politically unknown candidate at that point - and built the campaign on the concept of Nass being the only religious woman in the Likud primary elections for the 16th Knesset. The campaign brought Nass to be placed 36th in the Likud list of candidates, and when the Likud won 38 seats that year, Nass-Arden became a Knesset member, and later on was appointed Deputy Minister of Pensioner Affairs. Shiraz moved with her family to the US in 2003, and the process of legal motions and appeals by the party's members and David Levy, continued until 2007, with the court's decision that Gesher would cease to exist as a political party.

Recent

Shiraz moved with her family to Miami, Florida, in 2003, and founded Promise Lifestyle Magazine in order to offer an appealing  publication to the Jewish American population. The publication featured profile articles and interviews with high-profile business people, public figures, and celebrities, such as Michael Douglas, Barbra Streisand, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, and Natalie Portman. Regular contributors throughout the years included Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Uri Geller, and Bernie De Koven.

In 2005-2006, Shiraz was chair of Ft. Lauderdale-Haifa sister cities, and a member of the board of directors for the Greater Ft. Lauderdale Sister Cities International non-profit organization (GFLSCI), whose goal is to develop municipal partnerships between U.S. cities and states and similar jurisdictions in other nations.

In 2009, Shiraz established a communications and PR firm. She was named 'Woman of Excellence' by the National Association of Professional & Executive Women, and has won various awards including the American Graphic Design Award, Benjamin Franklin Award and Florida Print Award.

Personal life and current career

Shiraz is a certified Florida Supreme Court mediator, and is focused in recent years on mediating high conflict cases and disputes, in addition to her long-lasting activity as a publisher, entrepreneur, linguist and communication expert. She has been known to bring tough civil, commercial and family disputes to a resolution, with an unusually high success rate, independently and at the Los Angeles Superior Court. She mediates divorce, civil harassment, domestic violence, small claims, and other conflicts as a panel mediator for the Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR) and the California Academy of Mediation Professionals (CAMP), and is a member of South California Mediators Association. She regularly trains and is observed by attorneys and MBA students of the internationally recognized Alternative Dispute Resolution programs at USC and the Pepperdine University Schools of Law. Shiraz is also the founder of a non-profit organization aimed to change the image of the State of Israel around the world.

A double major in Special Education and Humanities, Shiraz earned her bachelor's degree from Tel Aviv University, where she graduated magna cum laude, and received her master's degree in Communications, Journalism and Political Science from Bar Ilan University. During those years, she experimented with modeling, working as a flight attendant and on board cruise ships, fulfilling her strong desire to be exposed to different countries, people and cultures. She resides in Los Angeles, CA.

References

1968 births
Living people
Businesspeople from Tel Aviv
People from Beverly Hills, California
Bar-Ilan University alumni
Tel Aviv University alumni
21st-century Israeli women politicians
Israeli emigrants to the United States
Gesher (political party) politicians
Leaders of political parties in Israel

Estee Shiraz


Nepāl Bhāsā Mankā Khala () is an umbrella organization of groups and societies dedicated to the development of Nepal Bhasa and culture in Nepal. It was founded in 1979 by Newar language lovers to fight for linguistic and cultural rights against the repression of the Panchayat regime.

Background

After suffering years of suppression under the Rana dynasty, Nepal Bhasa experienced a brief period of freedom following the revolution of 1951 that brought democracy in Nepal. However, in 1960, parliament was abolished and the Panchayat system was established, and language rights were again suppressed. The autocratic regime imposed a one-language policy under which Nepal Bhasa and other languages were progressively removed from the media and schools, and campaigners for language rights were jailed. This led to the formation of organizations to fight for the preservation of Nepal Bhasa.

These groups decided to streamline their activities by forming an umbrella organization. In 1979, a meeting held under the auspices of one of them, Chākalā Dabu (चाकला: दबू) of Chhetrapati, set up Nepal Bhasa Manka Khala. Padma Ratna Tuladhar, a journalist and author, was named the president. He was then the editor of the daily Nepal Bhasa Patrika. The organization, however, was not officially recognized.

Activities
Nepal Bhasa Manka Khala's first programme was organizing a public celebration of New Year's Day of Nepal Sambat 1100 which occurred on 22 October 1979. The massive cultural rally that marched through Kathmandu was an unprecedented show of popular support for the cause of language and culture. Since then, the procession has become an annual tradition, and the celebrations have spread to other parts of the country too. Motorcycle parades, children's races and tea parties are also organized to celebrate the New Year.

Nepal Sambat, which started in 879 AD, was Nepal's national calendar; and it was used for daily purposes and on coins, documents and inscriptions for more than a thousand years. In 1903, the government replaced the era with Bikram Sambat, and its use was disapproved. Since then, cultural activists and associations have been endeavoring to bring it back as an image of Nepal's glory and national unity. Nepal Bhasa Manka Khala spearheaded the movement to restore Nepal Sambat.

The Nepal Sambat campaign also became a symbol of the struggle against the suppression of indigenous cultures and languages by the politically dominant ruling classes. The Panchayat regime suppressed the movement by arresting and imprisoning the activists. In 1987 in Kathmandu, a road running event organized to mark the New Year was broken up by police and the runners thrown in jail.

The campaign continued nevertheless, and the demand to give official recognition to Nepal Sambat succeeded in 2008 when the government named it a national era. On 25 October 2011, it formed a taskforce to make recommendations on its implementation. However, no action has been taken after that to bring the era into practice.

See also
 Nepal Bhasa movement

References

Newar language
Newar
Organizations established in 1979
Language advocacy organizations
Political advocacy groups in Nepal

Nepal Bhasa Manka Khala


A Treasury is either:

 Originally, a place where money, gold and other treasure is kept.
 Today, a government department which deals with money supply, taxation and financial policy.

History

The treasury as a place to keep the king's (or city's) gold and valuables has a long history. The winners in a war would take back whatever they wanted, and slaves and booty were top of the list. The first recorded booty in history is a stele taken during 1160 BC.

The earliest found artefacts made of silver and gold are from Lake Varna in Bulgaria dated 4250–4000 BC, the earliest made of copper are dated 9000–7000 BC.

"...And there was also silver weighing many thousands of talents and all the royal treasure amounting to a very great sum..." Procopius of Caesarea.

The term treasury was first used in classical antiquity to describe the places built for gifts to the gods. An example is the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi. Many similar buildings were put up in Olympia, Greece by city-states hoping to impress others during the ancient Olympic Games. In Ancient Greece treasuries were almost always inside religious buildings such as temples. This made state funds sacrosanct, and adding moral constraints to the punishment for thieves.

The sovereigns' treasury in the palace in ancient Jerusalem,was similar in nature to the temple treasury. Those treasuries had officials, and worked rather like a bank.

"...in fact, practically in every city there are banking places for the holy money..." Philo.

In excavations of Persopolis a text about to the activities of a treasury were discovered. It dates to the fifth century BC. The texts were written in the Elamite language.

The ancient Roman word aerarium signified the treasury of the Senate, fiscus was used to indicate the imperial treasury used by Caesar.
 They had, as we do, the distinction between a treasury as a store of valuables, and the treasury as an office of finance.

Treasuries in modern government

H.M. Treasury
In the United Kingdom, Her Majesty's Treasury is overseen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  The traditional honorary title of First Lord of the Treasury is held by the Prime Minister. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs administers the taxation system.

In the United States, the Treasurer reports to an executive-appointed Secretary of the Treasury. The IRS is the revenue agency of the US Department of the Treasury.

Ministry of Finance
In many other countries, the treasury is called the Ministry of Finance. Its head is known as the Finance Minister. Examples include New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan,  and Japan.

Both
In some other countries, a Treasury will co-exist with a separate Ministry of Finance, with divided functions.

The government of Poland includes the Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of State Treasury, as does the government of the Ukraine. It was the same in Italy before the creation of the united Ministry of Economy. In the Australian federal government a treasurer and a finance minister co-exist.

References

Ministries
Financial organizations

Treasury


William Robert Lawley Jr. (August 23, 1920 – May 30, 1999) was a United States Army Air Forces officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.

Early life
Born in 1920 in Leeds, Alabama, Lawley graduated from high school in his hometown in 1938.

Military career
Lawley joined the Army Air Forces from Birmingham, Alabama in April 1942, and earned his wings and commission at Altus, Oklahoma, in April 1943.

World War II

By February 20, 1944, Lawley was a first lieutenant serving as a pilot in the 364th Bomb Squadron, 305th Bomb Group. On that day, during a bombing mission over Nazi-controlled Europe, his B-17 Flying Fortress came under attack by enemy fighter aircraft. With his plane severely damaged and on fire, he ordered his crew to parachute to safety. Finding that two crewmen were too badly injured to bail out, Lawley chose to remain in the aircraft and, despite his own serious wounds, attempt to pilot it into friendly territory. Although weakened from loss of blood and shock, he was able to make a successful crash landing in England. Lawley recovered from his wounds and, on August 8, 1944, was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Lawley flew 14 combat missions until June 1944 as a first lieutenant. He returned to the United States in September 1944, serving as a public relations officer at Hendricks Army Airfield in Florida. Promoted to captain in January 1945, he completed the public relations course at Craig Field in Alabama and the Air Tactical School at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, serving during part of this time as aide to Gen. Muir Fairchild at Maxwell Field in Alabama.

Post war
He went to HQ United States Air Force in the Pentagon as administrative assistant to Maj. Gen. David Schlatter in a special weapons assignment, with promotion to major in August 1949.

In February 1950, he held special assignments to the commanding general of Air Research and Development Command, completing the Navy Language School at Fort Myer, Virginia, and the Strategic Intelligence School in Washington, D.C. After being promoted to lieutenant colonel, he served as an assistant air attaché to Brazil, serving until 1954. Upon his return to the United States, he attended the Air Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, and on graduation was assigned as commander of the 55th Air Refueling Squadron at Forbes Air Force Base in Kansas. He continued to serve at Forbes AFB as Aircrew Maintenance Staff Officer for the 21st Air Division, and later as Deputy Base Commander and Deputy Vice Commander of the 815th Combat Support Group.

Lawley was promoted to colonel on March 27, 1959. In January 1963, he became Assistant Phase Chief Director of Curricular at the Air War College at Maxwell AFB. He retired from the Air Force at the rank of colonel in 1972.

Later life
Lawley and his wife Amy had two daughters and one son, and five grandchildren.

He died at age 78 due to complications from pneumonia. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Montgomery, Alabama.

Awards and decorations

Medal of Honor citation
Lawley's official Medal of Honor citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty, 20 February 1944, while serving as pilot of a B-17 aircraft on a heavy bombardment mission over enemy-occupied continental Europe. Coming off the target he was attacked by approximately 20 enemy fighters, shot out of formation, and his plane severely crippled. Eight crewmembers were wounded, the copilot was killed by a 20-mm. shell. One engine was on fire, the controls shot away, and 1st Lt. Lawley seriously and painfully wounded about the face. Forcing the copilot's body off the controls, he brought the plane out of a steep dive, flying with his left hand only. Blood covered the instruments and windshield and visibility was impossible. With a full bomb load the plane was difficult to maneuver and bombs could not be released because the racks were frozen. After the order to bail out had been given, 1 of the waist gunners informed the pilot that 2 crewmembers were so severely wounded that it would be impossible for them to bail out. With the fire in the engine spreading, the danger of an explosion was imminent. Because of the helpless condition of his wounded crewmembers 1st Lt. Lawley elected to remain with the ship and bring them to safety if it was humanly possible, giving the other crewmembers the option of bailing out. Enemy fighters again attacked but by using masterful evasive action he managed to lose them. One engine again caught on fire and was extinguished by skillful flying. 1st Lt. Lawley remained at his post, refusing first aid until he collapsed from sheer exhaustion caused by loss of blood, shock, and the energy he had expended in keeping control of his plane. He was revived by the bombardier and again took over the controls. Coming over the English coast 1 engine ran out of gasoline and had to be feathered. Another engine started to burn and continued to do so until a successful crash landing was made on a small fighter base. Through his heroism and exceptional flying skill, 1st Lt. Lawley rendered outstanding distinguished and valorous service to our Nation.

See also

List of Medal of Honor recipients for World War II

References

External links

1920 births
1999 deaths
United States Army Air Forces Medal of Honor recipients
World War II recipients of the Medal of Honor
Recipients of the Legion of Merit
Recipients of the Air Medal
United States Air Force colonels
United States Army Air Forces officers
United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II
People from Leeds, Alabama
Military personnel from Alabama
Aviators from Alabama
United States air attachés
American expatriates in Brazil
Deaths from pneumonia in Alabama

William R. Lawley Jr.


Solanum cajanumense (also known as casana) is a species of plant in the family Solanaceae. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

Intolerant of heat, frost, or direct sunlight, Solanum cajanumense seems to prefer cloud forest-type growing conditions, which limits its future agricultural potential.  As with most solanaceae, most parts of the plant are toxic, but casana produces an edible, yellow fruit similar in appearance to, but smaller than the closely related tamarillo.

An attempt at commercial cultivation was made in New Zealand in the 1980s, though an overall lack of selective breeding, the unpredictability of fruit flavor (usually very sweet, but sometimes sour or bitter), the somewhat delicate nature of this shade-loving plant, and an attractiveness to pests like aphids, white flies and spider mites all caused those domestication efforts to fail.  On rare occasions, it is encountered as a dooryard fruit tree.

References

Edible Solanaceae
cajanumense
Near threatened plants
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot

Solanum cajanumense


Pulver-Bird House is a historic home located at Stanford in Dutchess County, New York.  It was built in 1839 and has a two-story center block with flanking one-story wings in the Greek Revival style.  It features a monumental tetrastyle portico supported by four Doric order columns.  Also on the property is a frame ice house and frame barn.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Greek Revival houses in New York (state)
Houses completed in 1839
Houses in Dutchess County, New York
National Register of Historic Places in Dutchess County, New York

Pulver-Bird House


Childhood Memories (also known as Recollections of Childhood, Memories of My Childhood or Memories of My Boyhood; , ) is one of the main literary contributions of Romanian author Ion Creangă. The largest of his two works in the memoir genre, it includes some of the most recognizable samples of first-person narratives in Romanian literature, and is considered by critics to be Creangă's masterpiece. Structured into separate chapters written over several years (from 1881 to ca. 1888), it was partly read in front of the Junimea literary club in Iași. While three of the total four section were published in Creangă's lifetime by the Junimea magazine Convorbiri Literare, the final part was left incomplete by the writer's death.

The book offers an in-depth account of Ion Creangă's early life in what was then the state of Moldavia, with much insight into the social landscape of his childhood universe, describing relationships between its hero, mainly referred to with his hypocorism and patronymic Nică al lui Ștefan a Petrei or Nic-a lui Ștefan a Petrei ("Nică of Ștefan of Petru"), and the various people in his life. It traces Nică's coming of age passage, from an idyllic age spent the remote village of Humulești (now part of Târgu Neamț town) to rebellious adolescence and training for a Romanian Orthodox priesthood in the urban centers of Fălticeni and Iași. The narrative flow is often interrupted by lengthy and characteristic soliloquies, imparting Creangă's worldview and regrets. The text itself is noted for its characteristic use of the Romanian lexis, including its accomplished rendition of Moldavian dialectal particularities.

Childhood Memories went through several editions since its 1890s reprint, and came to be seen as a classic of local children's literature. It was an inspiration for several authors, and was the basis for Elisabeta Bostan's 1964 film Amintiri din copilărie.

Narrative

First chapter

Creangă's account opens with an extended soliloquy and a nostalgic description of his native area, with a short overview of Humulești's history and his family's social status. The first chapter introduces and focuses on several characters directly linked to Nică's earliest school years: Vasile an Ilioaei, the young teacher and Orthodox cleric, who enlists him in the new class; Vasile's supervisor, the stern parson; Smărăndița, the intelligent but misbehaved daughter of the priest; Creangă's father Ștefan and mother Smaranda. One of the first episodes detailed by the book relates to corporal punishment as recommended by the priest: children were made to sit on a chair known as Calul Balan ("White Horse") and strapped with a device called Sfântul Nicolai (or "Saint Nicholas", after the school's patron saint). The fragment is also a humorous retrospective account of his interactions with other children, from their favorite pastimes (trapping flies with the horologion) to Creangă's crush on Smărăndița and the misuse of corporal punishment by a jealous peer tutor. Creangă recounts his early disappointment with school activities and appetite for truancy, noting that his motivations for attending were the promise of a priest's career, the close supervision of his mother, the prospects of impressing Smărăndița, and the material benefits of singing in the choir. School is however abruptly interrupted when Vasile an Ilioaei is lassoed off the street and forcefully drafted into the Moldavian military.

After spending some time being tutored by teacher Iordache, whom the text depicts as a drunk, a sudden outbreak of cholera kills his teacher and pushes Smaranda and Ștefan to send their child out of the village. Nică follows the path of transhumance and is assigned to the care of shepherds, but he himself falls ill with what the narrator claims was cholera, and, upon returning home with a high fever, is instantly cured with a folk remedy of vinegar and lovage. A while after, claiming insolvency, Ștefan withdraws his son from school. Owing to Smaranda's persistence, the child follows his maternal grandfather David Creangă to Broșteni, where he and his cousin Dumitru are enlisted in a more affordable establishment. This requires adaptation on the part of Nică and Dumitru, both of whom weep once their long hair is shaved off on the new teacher's orders. They are both hosted by a middle-aged woman, Irinuca, in a small house on the Bistrița, where their proximity to goats results in a scabies infection. Creangă then recounts how, while attempting to cure themselves with frequent baths in the river, he and his cousin dislodged a cliff which rolled down and tore through Irinuca's household. After leaving Broșteni in a hurry and spending a while in Borca, the two children hasten for David Creangă's home in Pipirig. After an eventful trip through the Eastern Carpathians, the two boys arrive in the village, where they are welcomed by David's wife Nastasia. She cures their scabies using another local remedy, birch extract.

Second chapter

The second section opens with another nostalgic soliloquy, which famously begins with the words: "I wouldn't know what other people are like, but for myself, when I start thinking about my birthplace, Humulești, about the post holding the flue of the stove, round which mother used to tie a piece of string with tassels at the end of it, with which the cats played till they plopped, the earthen ledge of the stove that I used to cling to when I was learning to walk with my head held high, the place on top of the stove where I used to hide when we children played at hide-and-seek, as well as other games and delights full of childlike fun and charm, I seem to feel my heart pound with joy even to this moment!" The text goes on to recount his mother's superstitious beliefs, which he himself had come to share. Following Smaranda's indication, Nică believed that blond-haired boys such as himself could invoke sunny weather by playing outside on a rainy day, that various dangers could be cursed away, and that marking the human body with soot or mud meant protection against the evil eye. The narrator also mentions his regret at not having shown his mother his full appreciation, and refers to childhood as "the merry age".

This introduction is followed by Creangă's rendition of interactions between his father, depicted as aloof and moody, but often amused by his boy's misbehaving, and his mother, who supervises the children directly and criticizes Ștefan for not following her lead. Indicating that he deserved the often severe punishments applied by his parents, the narrator then details his mischievousness and antics. He recounts his participation in the customs related to Saint Basil's feast (modern New Year's Day), fashioning a pig's bladder into a rattle and joining buhai players in celebrations as noisy as to irritate the settled villagers. The story also shows Nică greedily consuming all the milk his mother leaves out for souring and trying to blame it on the strigoi spirits, or bothering Chiorpec the shoemaker to the point where the aging man would punish him by covering his face in terpene. In summer, the boy plans a ruse to steal cherries from his uncle's property, and makes his way into the orchard by pretending to be looking for a cousin. Caught red-handed by his aunt and chased by her through a hemp plot, he manages to escape when she gets tangled in the plants.

Another such episode details the boy's trip on the outskirts of the village, sent over to provide food for the Romani day laborers hired by Ștefan and Smaranda. This episode sees the boy's unsupervised encounter with the village hoopoe (or "Armenian cuckoo"). Miserable over having to wake up early every morning to the sound of the bird, Nică exercises his revenge by trapping the bird inside her nest, a time-consuming process which drives the awaiting and isolated laborers to despair. Met with much hostility by his father's employees when he ultimately reaches his destination, the boy makes his way back to the hoopoe's lime tree and easily ties up the exhausted bird, hiding her in the attic of his house, where it no longer can sing. His deed proves detrimental to the entire community, deprived of its alarm clock, and rumors quickly spread that Nică is responsible. While Smaranda decides whether she should trust these reports, the boy assesses that his best choice is to sell the hoopoe at the fair. He proceeds to do so, but his entire scheme crumbles once a sly old man, pretending to assess the bird, releases it from its bonds. As the bird flies back to her nest, Nică angrily demands reparation. He is instead ridiculed by the old man, who informs him that Ștefan is also attending the fair and might be interested in the conversation, thus exposing the boy and prompting him to rush out of the market in fear of more severe repercussion.

After a few paragraphs in which he focuses on the serendipitous nature of such outcomes, which serve him to avert producing further damage, Creangă moves on to describe his first employment: pulled out of school by Ștefan, the boy is enlisted in the village's textile trade, and becomes a spinner. It is there that he meets Măriuca, a daughter his age, for whom he develops a sympathy. She jokingly assigns him the nickname Ion Torcălău ("Ion the Spinster"), which causes him some embarrassment for being shared with a Romani man, and therefore crossing a traditional ethnic divide. Nică is shown to be enjoying the work despite the fact that it is traditionally performed by women, but he is irritated by additional tasks such as babysitting his youngest sibling. Disobeying his mother's word, the boy leaves the cradle unattended and runs away to bathe in the river. After recounting the superstitious rituals performed by children during such escapades (such as dripping water from one's years onto stones, of which one is God's and the other the Devil's), the narrator describes being caught in the act by Smaranda, who punishes him by taking hold of all his clothes and leaving him to return naked through the village. This he manages following an elaborate route, from one hiding place to another, and avoiding being bitten by angry dogs by standing absolutely still for a long interval. After reaching his house, the narrator indicates, "I tidied up and cleaned the house as well as any grown-up girl", a behavior earning praises from his mother. The chapter ends with another overview, itself concluded with the words: "I myself was placed on this Earth like a clay figure endowed with eyes, a handful of animated humus from Humulești, who's never been handsome before age twenty, wise before age thirty, nor rich before age forty. But neither was I ever as poor as I was this year, last year and throughout life!"

Third chapter
The first section of the book's third chapter follows up on the "handful of animated humus" metaphor, restructuring it as the point of departure for an imaginary dialogue the writer carries out with himself. It offers additional detail on the general history of Humulești, an account leading as far back as the Polish–Ottoman War of 1672–1676, and briefly mentioning the passage of Austrians on their quest to find the beautiful princess Natalia (events which the writer claims to have witnessed himself). This exposition leads the narrator to conclude that the place of his birth "do not live like a bear in its lair". His statement serves to introduce the next period in Nică's life: his reenlistment in school, which this time around is a new institution founded on the orders of Moldavian Prince Grigore Alexandru Ghica, and presided upon by theologian Isaia "Popa Duhu" Teodorescu. There follows a detailed rendition of Ghica's opening speech, as witnessed by Creangă himself. The story then focuses on Teodorescu, his methods for teaching arithmetic rules such as cross-multiplication, and his apparent despondency when faced with students such as Nică Oșlobanu (depicted as unruly and egotistic). This attitude leads to conflict between Teodorescu and parson Niculai Oșlobanu, the boy's father. Enhanced by a quarrel over theological and administrative matters, it culminates with Oșlobanu and his subordinate monks chasing Teodorescu out of their establishment.

The narrative then focuses on Creangă's time at the seminary (catechism school) in Fălticeni, where, to his confessed surprise, he reunites with Nică Oșlobanu. Creangă's entry into the school follows the discovery that all his close friends were moving out of Teodorescu's school and leaving him directly exposed to the teacher's severity. He ultimately persuades his father to bribe seminary teachers with gifts, noting that such presents could effectively spare a student from all learning effort. Parts of the text however insists on the teaching methods employed by the seminary, which involve learning by heart and chanting elements of Romanian grammar or entire works of commentary on the Bible, and lead the narrator to exclaim: "A terrible way to stultify the mind, God alone knows!" Living far from parental supervision and sharing a house with some of his colleagues and their landlord Pavel the cobbler, the young man pursues a bohemian lifestyle and is introduced to the drinking culture. The narrator sketches portraits of his friends, based on their defining abilities or moods: the old man Bodrângă, who entertains the group with flute songs; Oșlobanu, a man of the mountain, can lift and carry a cartload of logs on his back; the handsome David, whose early death is attributed by the writer to excessive effort in learning; the irreverent Mirăuță, who taunts Jewish businessmen with antisemitic poems, but spends little time on schoolwork; Trăsnea, who can only learn grammar by memorizing the entire textbook, and who is much upset by the recent replacement of Romanian Cyrillic in favor of a Latin alphabet; Zaharia "Gâtlan" Simionescu, a flatterer who can persuade adults to tolerate his daring gestures; Buliga, a priest given to drinking and merrymaking, who is depicted blessing the group's parties. The noisy men tour pubs in and outside the city, their escapades being marked by rudeness, womanizing and even shoplifting. The writer also makes vague mention of his relationship with the daughter of a priest, who becomes his first lover.

Creangă's account also focuses on practical jokes, used by him and others as punishment for friends he believed were not reciprocal in sharing their Christmas supplies. These involve "posts", contraptions which are designed to singe one's toes during sleep, and their application manages to alienate the victims, who leave the house on by one. However, the final such attempt produces a scuffle between the two camps, so loud that neighbors mistaken it for a fire or an attack by the Austrian troops stationed in Fălticeni (a military presence concomitant to the Crimean War and a Moldavian interregnum). This ends when all young men are evicted from the house, Creangă himself moving in with a local smith. In spring, it becomes apparent that the Fălticeni school is to be closed down, and its students moved to the Socola Monastery in Iași. The chapter ends with mention of the uncertainty gripping students: some decide to attempt their chances in Socola by the start of a new school year, while others abandon their career prospects.

Fourth chapter

The fourth and final chapter of Childhood Memories opens with Creangă's depiction of his own doubts at having to leave Humulești for the more distant Iași: "A bear will not dance of its own accord." The narrator uses this as a pretext to describe the things most dear to him in Humulești: the landscape ("the smooth-flowing crystal-clear Ozana, wherein the Neamț Citadel has sadly been mirroring its face for so many centuries!"), his family and companions, and the local customs related to partying and dancing. His plans about staying home or becoming a monk are shattered by his mother Smaranda, who angrily invokes her ancestors' reputation in persuading him to leave for Socola and make a name for himself as a married priest.

The narrative focus then covers the trip from Humulești to the Moldavian capital: Creangă and Gâtlan are passengers in the horse-drawn wagon of Luca, their neighbor and family friend. The narrator recounts sense of his shame and frustration upon noticing that Luca's "steeds" are actually "weak and scraggy" horses, and the despondency which grips him and Zaharia in front of the unknown. This sentiment is enhanced by the remarks of passers-by, which refer to the poor state of Luca's belongings and gain in sarcasm as the three travelers approach their destination. The account includes the writer's impressions of the Moldavian landscape, and his stated preference for the mountainous landscape of the west, which the cart was leaving behind, to the areas over the Siret River (where, according to Luca, "the water's bad and wood is scarce; in summer you're smothered with heat and the mosquitoes are an awful torment"). The chapter and volume end abruptly with a description of students from all Moldavian schools gathering into the Socola Monastery yard.

Publication history
Creangă's Childhood Memories are, with his portrait of Isaia Teodorescu (eponymously titled Popa Duhu), one of his memoirs, complementing his contributions in the fairy tale and anecdote. The four chapters were produced in several consecutive sessions of writing, separated by lengthy intervals, and were first published as distinct texts. The fourth part was left unfinished by the author's illness and eventual death. Each chapter was the product of an extensive work on the part of the author: by the time its first draft versions began circulating, the author was already known in the literary community for his laborious approach to the process of writing (as notably documented by the contemporary account of experimental psychologist Eduard Gruber). Creangă would at times read the individual texts, like his other writings, in front of a public constituted from the members of Junimea literary society (some of whom were Iacob Negruzzi, Vasile Pogor and Alexandru Lambrior).

The individual texts, including the posthumously-published fourth section, were first hosted by various issues of the Junimea magazine Convorbiri Literare beginning 1881. The first chapter in its original fragmentary version and the subsequent Romanian versions of the whole book open with Creangă's words: Dedicație d-șoarei L. M. ("A dedication to Mrs. L. M."). This is a reference to Livia, daughter of Creangă's mentor and Junimea leader Titu Maiorescu, who probably copied and proofread his manuscript text. The last and incomplete section was probably written during 1889. This was at a time when Creangă was no longer affiliated with Junimea, and had ended his relationship with Maiorescu; the text was therefore read in front Nicolae Beldiceanu's literary club, a venue frequented by him and Gruber.

The entire text was first published in book form as a section of the incomplete Creangă reader, edited by Gruber, A. D. Xenopol and Grigore Alexandrescu in 1892 (upon the bequest of the writer's son Constantin). The second such edition was included in the first-ever complete edition of Creangă's work, published between 1902 and 1906 by folklorist Gheorghe T. Kirileanu.

The product of Creangă's work is noted for its relatively isolated linguistic context, often relying on obscure elements in the Romanian lexis by adopting colloquial, antiquated, Moldavian dialectal or specifically rural speech patterns. Such elements have made Childhood Memories a problematic book for translations into other languages. A Romanian-to-English topical comparison made by academic Anca Mureșan cautioned: "Creangă's local and popular language poses diverse and serious difficulties to a translator. Among the lexical problems, special mention should be made of Creangă's use of numerous terms related to rural life and system, to church service, superstition and so on."

Structure, genre and style

Conventional aspects and subjective account
Much critical attention retrospectively focused on the measure of difference between, on one hand, the originality and subjectivity in Ion Creangă's first-person narrative and, on the other, their debt to the affixed conventions of traditional literary discourse. George Călinescu, the influential interwar critic and literary historian, argued that the writing appealed to traditional storytelling, lacking in individuality, and therefore dissimilar to "a confession or a diary." Instead, he believed, the Memories outline "the childhood of the universal child." Assessing that the book adapts the characteristics of oral tradition and frame narratives leading back to Renaissance literature, Călinescu also saw them mainly as a testing ground for the author's soliloquy and an illustration of his abilities as a raconteur. He argued: "The stories are true, but typical, without depth. Once retold with a different kind of gesticulation, the subject would lose all of its lively atmosphere." In contrast, Călinescu's contemporary and colleague Tudor Vianu argued: "The character in [Creangă's] stories, novellas and anecdotes recounts himself Childhood Memories, a work so not like folk narratives in its intent." In reference to the similarities between the text and the Renaissance tradition, Vianu also noted: "The idea of fictionalizing oneself, of outlining one's formative steps, the steady accumulation of impressions from life, and then the sentiment of time, of its irreversible flow, of regret for all things lost in its consumption, of the charm relived through one's recollections are all thoughts, feelings and attitudes defining a modern man of culture. No popular model could have ever stood before Creangă when he was writing his Memories, but, surely, neither could the cultured prototypes of the genre, the first autobiographies and memoirs of the Renaissance". According to his interpretation: "Here, as in his stories and novellas, Creangă effects the passage from the popular level of literature to its cultured level, following a strictly spontaneous path by organically developing a talent exercised throughout the past of an old rural culture, now reaching a point where it surpasses itself."

Such themes were also present in later critical commentary. In a 2000 article, essayist and novelist Norman Manea builds on Călinescu's conclusions to assert that the "stable", "serene" and "solar" narrator of Childhood Memories "does not even exist outside [his] unveiling of an enchanted, traditional, rigorous concreteness". Referring to a text by critic Mircea Moț, who found Childhood Memories to be "one of the saddest works in Romanian literature", literary chronicler and essayist Gheorghe Grigurcu himself assessed that the work evidenced "a tension between the individual as a holographic representative of the structure to whom he belongs and the written universe, intuitively a profane space, a vague imitation of the demiurgic act, and therefore a sacrilege." Writing in 2008, literary historian Nicolae Manolescu argued that the Memories volume evidenced "Creangă's genius", which was linked to "the naïve and carefree register of childhood", and therefore implicitly superior to all his other works in prose. The second part's opening (where the narrator refers to his childhood games, to his mother's pets, and to his household oven) has reputedly become one of the best known fragments in Romanian literature. Manea notes that, through this section of prose, Creangă managed to "perfectly" convey both the "spatial and timely positioning" of his account, "as well as all the details of an ingenuous and restless universe". He contrasts this perspective with another first-person fragment: the opening of Adventures in Immediate Unreality by the interwar novelist Max Blecher, which directly plunges the reader into a universe of modernist uncertainty, subjectivity and suffering.

Various commentators of the text have focused on the measure of difference between Creangă's account and the actual details of his biography, in particular life within Ștefan's family. According to George Călinescu, the Moldavian writer actually grew up in a single-parent household, raised only by his mother Smaranda, who may never have been legally married to Ștefan. Creangă's biographer Dan Grădinaru believes the narrative to reveal Nică as "a loner", and, using psychoanalytical terminology, sees the entire volume as proof of "dethronement complex" and an excessive focus on maternal love. Such approaches have received negative comments from critic Luminița Marcu, who discussed Călinescu's "deformity" of interpreting writers through their work, without separating contexts, and judged Grădinaru's comments as proof a "mania of Freudianisms."

Historical record
Creangă's portrayal of the childhood universe as a timeless reality, like his emphasis on tradition, relate to the characteristics of his native village and surrounding region. In Norman Manea's view, the "perfectly recognizable" narrative setting points to "repetitive cycles". Focusing on the description of Humulești found in the opening lines, historian Neagu Djuvara commented: "even if we take into account that the grown-up will embellish, transfigure, 'enrich' the memories of his childhood, how could we not recognize the sincerity in Creangă's heart-warming evocation of his childhood's village?" Djuvara used the fragment to discuss the structure of Romanian rural society in Moldavia, made relatively wealthy by textile enterprises, in comparison to its counterpart in the southern region of Wallachia, concluding: "if the mud hut villages of the Danube flood plain are to be taken into account, one finds himself in a different country." Folklorist and critic Marcu Berza took the book as a record of Romanian folklore, its varieties and its reception, noting that the episode in which buhai players are chased away by angered householders shows that some peasants preferred a quieter celebration to what was in effect an echo of pagan fertility rites.

A topic of interest for critic Muguraș Constantinescu was the regulatory status of old men and women within a Moldavian community in the context of social change, as disclosed by the Childhood Memories text. She describes David Creangă as a "clan leader" and "enlightened man", guided by "the wisdom and balance of the ripe age", who, although illiterate, is able to understand the value of providing his grandson with a formal education. According to Constantinescu: "[David's] common sense is also apparent in the field of religious belief, where, as any good Christian in a Romanian village of the mid 19th century, he takes mass and behaves like a practicing Christian, but does not encourage his wife's bigotry." The unnamed old man who cheats Nică out of his hoopoe, Constantinescu writes, is a figure among those who educate young Creangă by resorting to "farce" instead of a stern lesson in morals. Other figures she considers relevant for this analysis are Chiorpec the shoemaker, Bodrângă the performer and the various old women who function as healers.

Ion Creangă's depiction of seminary life and teaching methods has also been linked by literary critics with the larger aspects of his personal worldview. Z. Ornea finds the narrator's outbursts against the practice of learning by heart to innovative choices Creangă made in his own career as an educator, and especially his support for Titu Maiorescu's theories on reforming the local curriculum through institutional modernization and professionalization. Himself a writer, Horia Gârbea discussed the text as proof of anticlericalism on the part of Creangă (whose career in the clergy was to end in defrocking), adding: "Creangă's Memories of the catechist school would discourage any candidate."

Tributes and influence
Childhood Memories first became a source for inspiration for various Romanian authors during the early 20th century and the interwar period. It was imitated by I. Dragoslav in his own 1909 work, Povestea copilăriei ("The Tale of Childhood")—called "a disgraceful pastiche" by Călinescu. The same critic also discussed the Romanian theater adaptation a Childhood Memories chapter by writer I. I. Mironescu, as Catiheții de la Humulești ("The Catechists from Humulești")—deeming it "superfluous" to Creangă's already "dramatic" text. Nicolae Manolescu identified an additional product of Creangă's influence as a memoirist in Copilăria unui netrebnic ("The Childhood of a Ne'er-do-well"), a 1936 novel by the avant-garde author Ion Călugăru.

More interest in the text came later in the century, during Romania's communist period. A number of new editions of the book saw print at the time, including ones published by the new and eponymous state-run publishing house, Editura Ion Creangă. Some of these were leading Romanian graphic artists: a 1959 volume with 14 drawings by Eugen Taru (the originals of which form a permanent exhibit at Creangă's memorial house in Humulești) and another one with plates by Lívia Rusz, in both black-and-white and color. It was also then that the text came to inspire Romanian films by Elisabeta Bostan: the 1964 Amintiri din copilărie (with child actor Ion Bocancea as Nică and Ștefan Ciubotărașu as the grown-up narrator) and Pupăza din tei (based on the hoopoe episode).

Echoes of the book were also found in Romania's neighbor, Moldova (within historical Moldavia's Bessarabia subregion, and formerly part of the Soviet Union as the Moldavian SSR). Creangă's work in general and his memoirs in particular have influenced Moldovan Postmodernist novelist Leo Butnaru in writing Copil la ruși ("A Child to the Russians"), which is set to the backdrop of 1950s' Russification in the Moldavian SSR.

Notes

References
George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini pînă în prezent, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1986
Muguraș Constantinescu, "Figures et représentations du vieillir et de la vieillesse dans les contes de Ion Creangă", in Alain Montandon (ed.), Figures du vieillir, Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, 2005, p. 59-71.
Neagu Djuvara, Între Orient și Occident. Țările române la începutul epocii moderne, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1995.
Norman Manea, Plicuri și scrisori, Polirom, Iași, 2004.
Z. Ornea, Junimea și junimismul, Vol. II, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1998.
Tudor Vianu, Scriitori români, Vol. II, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1970.

External links
Translated excerpts from Childhood Memories, in the Romanian Cultural Institute's Plural Magazine: Nr. 6/2000, Nr. 23/2004, Nr. 30/2007 (with illustrations by Lívia Rusz and Vasile Socoliuc)

Works by Ion Creangă
Memoirs
Romanian books
Romanian children's literature
Works originally published in literary magazines
Works originally published in Romanian magazines
1881 books
1880s children's books

Childhood Memories (book)