Treasure, Thievery and Mischief: Blending Culture and Negotiating Boundaries in the Worlds of Little People
Treasure, Thievery and Mischief: Blending Culture and Negotiating Boundaries in the Worlds of Little People

Summary/Abstract: This study places Croatian Tales of Long Ago (1916) by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić in the context of international literature by discussing “little people” in children’s fictional texts. “Worlds of little people” (Lynch-Brown and Tomlinson 2005) reveal conceptual blending at a linguistic, cultural and semantic level visible in the creation of new emergent structures. Brlić-Mažuranić’s combining of seemingly incompatible concepts (Fauconnier and Turner 2002) from various aspects of Slavic and Croatian mythologies as input spaces in the process of conceptual integration demonstrates the ability of little people to transcend boundaries and allows for the creation of new and unique cultures and lexica. Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić’s Croatian Tales of Long Ago, populated with tiny characters such as Malik Tintilinić, is a superb example of an original, adaptable world comparable to those created by Swift, Andersen, Tolkien, Baum, Barrie, Norton, Dr. Seuss or Dahl. Consequently, the conceptual integration at work in Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić’s original Croatian mythology has resulted in the empowerment and enchantment of readers from long ago to the present day.

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