Page "Ion Luca Caragiale" Paragraph 66

Together with the socialist activist Tony Bacalbaşa and the illustrator Constantin Jiquidi, he established the satirical magazine Moftul Român, which ceased print after a few months, before being revived in 1901 and becoming an important venue for social criticism.

The new publication's spirit was indebted to Junimist discourse.

Its title, translatable as " the Romanian trifle " or " the Romanian nonsense ", alluded to the cynicism and self-importance of the emerging modern Romanian society.

According to Vianu, this was a theme first debated by Junimeas Theodor Rosetti.

Moft!

thus mimicked the common answer to any important or merely exacerbated problem, and Caragiale also used it to illustrate what he saw as a common national feature.

In one of his early editorials for the magazine, he claimed that moft was to Romanians what spleen ( melancholy ) was to the English people, nihilism to the Russians, chauvinism to the Hungarians, and vendetta to the Italians.