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Romanian humour, like many otherRomanian cultural aspects, has many affinities with four other groups: the Latins (namely theFrench andItalians), the Balkan people (Greeks, theSlavs, andTurks), theGermans and theHungarians.
The earliest Romanian character found in anecdotes isPăcală.[citation needed] His name is derived froma (se) păcăli ('to fool oneself/somebody') and, since this word cannot be found in any other related language, we can safely assume that his name is part of the pure Romanian humour.
TheOttoman influence brought the Balkan spirit and with it, other characters and situations.Anton Pann's character,Nastratin Hogea, is a classic example of an urban tradesman. AsJewish people settled in many Romanian regions, two other characters joined Romanian humour:Ițic andȘtrul, a pair of cunning Jews, mainly seen as ingenious, but avaricious shopkeepers.
With modernization and urbanization, especially during the Communist regime, Romanians needed a new character, different from the traditional Păcală, and he was found inBulă, the tragicomic absolute idiot. In 2006 Bulă was voted the59th greatest Romanian.
With thefall of communism and facing capitalism, a new kind of joke became popular: that ofAlinuţa, a sadistic and stupid 10-year-old girl. Example: Alinuţa: "Mum, I don't like grandma." Mum: "Shut up, we eat what we have!"
Other popular characters are Ion and Maria, a pair of young married or engaged innocent peasants, sometimes depicted as gypsies. Almost all jokes including them are sexually oriented.Another well-known character isBadea Gheorghe, mainly depicted as an old shepherd with a very simplistic view of life, death and material possessions.The newest character is Dorel, the archetype of a careless construction worker, engineer or electrician. Originally the name of a clumsy and ill-experienced worker from a series of TV adverts, Dorel is often depicted as the sole author of weird construction works as door-less balconies or even stairs leading to nowhere or as the cause of blunders leading to comic incidents.
Especially during thecommunist regime,political jokes were very popular, although they were illegal and dangerous to tell.[1] In the democratic Romania, these jokes are still popular, although the themes changed: now the politicians are seen either, as hopelessly corrupt, greedy, or as nationalist madmen.
As Ben Lewis put it in his essay,[2] "Communism was a humor-producing machine. Its economic theories and system of repression created inherently funny situations. There were jokes underfascism andNazism too, but those systems did not create an absurd, laugh-a-minute reality like communism."
Radio Yerevan: just like in the most countries of the former Eastern bloc, Radio Yerevan jokes were popular during the communist times.
