Naslov
How did Fairy Tales Become a Genre of Croatian Children's Literature? Book History without Books

Autori
Hameršak, Marijana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
The Book: An Economy of Cultural Spaces

Mjesto i datum
Ljubljana, Slovenija, 25.11.2010. - 26.11.2010

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Pozvano predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
history of book; fairy tales; Croatian children's literature

Sažetak
Fairy tales were a marginal genre of Croatian children's literature until the turn of the 1870s, when three illustrated book series were launched. These three book series were the first to define fairy tales as the representative genre of popular Croatian children's literature and the first to publish Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Little Brier-Rose etc, which were to become omnipresent children’s literature narratives in next decades and centuries. By focusing on the relationship between these three book series and Croatian librarianship and educational practices of the time, this paper will try to point to the crucial and pioneering role of Croatian publishing industry in creating the still persistent fairy tale canon and commonly accepted views of fairy tales as children's genre. The departing point of the paper will be the insight that history of these book series is in fact a book history without books. The history of these three book series is a book history without books, because the majority of discussed books are lost today. Two of these editions (one named Stories of … and the other Arabian nights…) are completely lost and books from the third and the youngest one (named Storytellers) are only partially available today. These circumstances will redirect the interpretation from texts and peritexts toward epitexts ; from headings, subtitles and the text of the narrative toward advertisements, subscription lists, reviews, catalogues etc. It will also redirect the interpretation from the book as a material object toward culturally and historically specific meanings of materiality. Paradoxically, as it will be shown, books from these book series were not included in the material heritage collections such as libraries and archives, because of their stressed materiality (luxury bindings, quarto format, number and type of illustrations etc.) which distanced them from the late 19th-century concept of book and moved them closer to the concept of toy.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Etnologija i antropologija

POVEZANOST RADA