Wikipedia
Mitică is a fictional character who appears in several sketch stories by Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale. The character's name is a common hypocoristic form of Dumitru or Dimitrie ( Romanian for Demetrius). He is one of the best-known figures in Caragiale's 1901 collection Momente şi schiţe, as well as in Romanian humor at large. Mitică is a male resident of Bucharest whose background and status are not always clear, generally seen as an allegory of the average Bucharester or through extension, inhabitants of Romania's southern regions— Wallachia and Muntenia. According to accounts, he was based on a resident of Sinaia, whom Caragiale had befriended.
Caragiale used Mitică as a stock character to feature in satirical contexts; the biographical insights he provided are short and often contradict each other. Among Mitică's traits are his tendency to generate sarcastic comebacks and sententious catchphrases, a Francized speech, as well as inclinations to waste time and easily find his way out of problematic situations. His existence is connected to events in the history of Bucharest which he occasionally references in his jokes. Like Lache and Mache, who are present in Caragiale's fiction, the character is usually portrayed as a civil servant who has a hard time making ends meet, but who is well liked by his peers.
On account of his caricature-like nature, Mitică survived in common reference beyond Caragiale's age. The character was portrayed by several actors, and most notably by Ştefan Iordache in the film De ce trag clopotele, Mitică?. In contemporary Romanian, his name was turned into a common noun, and often pluralized under the form mitici. During and after the 1990s, the terms surfaced in polemics surrounding Romania's centralism and the alternative projects for Transylvania's regional autonomy. In this context, it was used in reference to administrators from Bucharest or the Old Kingdom. In parallel, the term was adapted into a stereotype of modern Bucharesters and inhabitants of other regions over the Southern Carpathians, who are often portrayed as belonging to the Balkans, as opposed to the Central European traditions of Transylvania. Under these definitions, Mitică and mitici were notably present in essays authored by the Transylvanian activist Sabin Gherman.