Răzvrătitul Toderiță

The historical novel presents real characters and happenings from the 19th century, the period of formation of the unitary Romanian state, from 1822 to the union of the Romanian principalities. In the novel are quoted or even completely presented historical documents and letters. The hero of this novel, the rebel Toderiţă (diminutive from Teodor) is the grandfather of the author. He belongs to an important family of Moldavian boyars with roots in the 14th century. Toderiţă's father, the Minister of Interior and Justice Iordache Râșcanu, was part of the boyar delegation sent to Constantinople in the spring of 1822 to ask the Sublime Porte to accept native princes in the Romanian principalities. After a long reign of the Phanariotes, this action brought the native princes back to the Romanian principalities. Toderita had a troubled and sometimes contradictory life in his development. He was one of the most prominent opponents of the Moldavian prince Mihai Sturdza. In 1846 he was expelled from the country and fled to Paris. There he has become friends with other compatriots (for example I. Văcărescu, N. Bălcescu and the Golescu brothers) and took part to the 1848 revolution in the French capital. After that, he traveled to Transylvania and took part to the great popular gathering at Blaj. After a short secret stay in Bucharest he went to Constantinople and continued his exile. There he planned together with other Romanian refugees (such as Ion Ghica), to overthrow the prince Mihai Sturdza. The author describes the polemic and even the struggle between the followers of the union of the Romanian principalities and of those who considered that the union was a mistake by which Iasi, the Moldovan capital, would lose its importance and the center of gravity would move to Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia. The last decade of Toderita Râşcanu's life was not a time of fulfillment and tragically, the drama took an unfortunate turn.