engleski

Fairy Tales Translations between National Mobilization and Commodification: German Language Children's Literature in 19th Century Croatian Society

After a brief review of the approaches of folklore studies and children's literature studies to the issue of translation, the article focus on nineteenth-century Croatian translations of German fairy tales. They are interpreted from several aspects. They are discussed from the point of view of literary history, i. e. in the context of their textual and paratextual features, their relationship to sourcetexts and their involvement in the processes of national integration. They are also interpreted from the point of view of the history of reading, i. e. in the context of children's consumption of German children's books in nineteenth-century Croatia. Finally, they are discussed from the book history perspective, i. e. at the level of adoption of German children's literature publishing genres and strategies in the field of nineteenth-century Croatian children's literature. Careful examination of these aspects shows that the appropriation of fairy tales originally written and published in German in nineteenth-century Croatian society followed different (oral, written, German-language, Croatian-language) routes and had different outcomes. Complexity of these routes and outcomes reminds us that literature is not only a symbolic (written, textual), but also a material (reading, editing, publishing) enterprise. It also reminds us that children’s literature is entangled not only in concepts of childhood and literature, but also in other cultural concepts such as nation and class.

fairy tales ; translations ; Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm ; Croatian children's literature ; 19th century

2009-2010