Velikani ili anonimci? Jacob i Wilhelm Grimm u hrvatskoj književnosti, politici i znanosti devetnaestoga stoljeća
Authorities or Anonyms? Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in Croatian Nineteenth Century Literature, Politics and Scholarship

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the prompt, intense, diverse, and contradictory Croatian reception of the lives and works of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. After a short overview of early nineteenth-century references to the Grimms in Croatian daily newspapers, cultural magazines and professional and academic journals, the paper focuses on the history of Croatian translations and adaptations of their tales. The prompt reception of the brothers’ work in the field of nineteenth-century Croatian scholarship, politics, and culture is juxtaposed to the relatively delayed appearances of the translations and adaptations of their tales, Besides, even when published, the Croatian versions were hardly ever attributed to the Grimms prior to the early twentieth century. During the second half of the nineteenth century, individual tales were translated, adapted and published in Croatian children’s magazines and books of stories almost a hundred times, with virtually no references to the brothers (there is only one exception) or to their original collection. The paper presents the first Croatian appearances of tales that can be traced to the Grimms’ original work, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, i.e. the nineteenth-century Croatian translations or adaptations of individual tales which were mostly not attributed to the Grimms, but rather presented as stories, anonymous tales or vernacular (Croatian, Slavic, etc.) folktales. These adaptations and retellings are considered from the perspective of a complex relationship between cultures, literatures, and translation practices, particularly with reference to the ideas of original work, authorship and anonymity.

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