The Phanariots in Romanian Novels: a Literary Myth

In Romanian literature, the Phanariote era has been an unending source of inspiration. The theme first appeared in the first modern novel, The Old and the New Parvenus by Nicolae Filimon (1863), and experienced a true revival during the Communist era through the novels of Marial Luiza Cristescu, Silviu Angelescu and Eugen Barbu. Unlike historians whose stance on the Phanariote era attempts to be objective and nuanced, novelists, preferring a partial approach, have essentially looked negatively on that period throughout history. According to the aforementioned authors, the Phanariote regime instilled in Romanian society a spirit of corruption, arbitrary decisions and the reign of privileges, nepotism and depravation. The Phanariote phenomenon, far from being presented as an accident of history, thus appears as a constitutive, sometimes "eternal" dimension of Romanian ontology.