Dutch and Flemish literature in Serbia

The first translation of a Dutch novel in the Balkans was published in the Kingdom of Serbia in 1868. It was the work of Flemish author Hendrik Conscience, The Miser (De gierigaard), originally published just fifteen years before its Serbian translation. Interestingly enough, four of Conscience’s works are among the five oldest translations of Dutch and Flemish literature in  former Yugoslavia. In addition to this novel – also translated into Croatian as Škrtac by  J. Zorić in 1893 – the short story “The Tear”  (De Traan) was translated into Serbian around 1890. His major work, The Lion of Flanders (De Leeuw van Vlaanderen), was translated into Croatian by  August Harambašić in 1906. This is not particularly unusual, since, in most countries in Central Europe, Conscience is the author whose work ushered in the reception of literature from the Netherlands.

A great number of titles from this period belongs to the genres of children’s and youth literature. Seventy titles from the picture book series about Miffy the rabbit (Nijntje), by Dick Bruna,  one of the most famous Dutch children’s authors, were published in Zagreb between 1977 and 1986. Other authors worth mentioning are Miep Diekmann, a well-known children’s writer in the Netherlands from the 1950s to the 1980s, and Frans Hoppenbrouwers and his series of children’s books about animals, Poolsterreeks. 

This period saw the emergence of translators who approached Dutch and Flemish literature in a more dedicated and studious manner. Apart from Josip Tabak, one of the most important translators is the Croatian translator and comparative literature professor Ivo Hergešić, who translated Multatuli’s novel Max Havelaar via German, and by consulting the Slovene translation. There is also the renowned Serbian writer, journalist and lexicographer, Dragoslav Andrić, who edited an anthology of young Flemish poets, and a collection of newer Flemish short stories, in which he included authors such as Willem Elsschot, Ernest Claes, Gerard Walschap, Louis Paul Boon, Hugo Claus and many others. Two professors from the English Department of the Faculty of Philology, Ranka Kuić and Mila Drašković, also contributed to the promotion of Dutch literature in Serbia, thanks to their personal ties to the Netherlands. As the wife of the ambassador,  Mila Drašković lived in the Netherlands in the 1950s. There she met Den Doolaard whose novels, Roll Back the Sea (Het verjaagde water) and The Land Behind God's Back (Het land achter Gods rug), she would later translate via English (Novaković-Lopušina, 2010). It is important to note that this generation of translators are, at the same time, critics and reviewers of Dutch and Flemish literature. 

Between 1990 and 2020, more than 200 titles of different genres, ranging from fiction and children’s literature to non-fiction, were published in Serbia (Budimir, 2020). The most translated author is the Flemish writer Hugo Claus, with ten titles published between 1995 and 2013. His best-known work, The Sorrow of Belgium (Het verdriet van België), translated by Ivana Šćepanović, was first published by Prometej from Novi Sad in 2000. Thirteen years later, Heliks, a publishing house from Smederevo, put out a revised edition. This novel is one of the rare translations from Dutch to attract the attention of critics. In his review, published in the Vreme magazine, literary critic Teofil Pančič points out that this work didn’t receive the attention it deserved when the translation was first published in Serbia, which he wishes to rectify with his review. Pančić states that “had Claus received the Nobel Prize (which he didn’t), I believe that The Sorrow of Belgium would, more or less, occupy the same place in our "general culture" as, let’s say, The Name of the Rose, One Hundred Years of Solitude or The Tin Drum; on top of that, Claus’ novel is better than all the ones listed…“ (Pančič, 2014)

In addition to Claus, other Dutch authors worth mentioning are Cees Nooteboom, with five translated titles, and Ivo Michiels and Adriaan van Dis, with four translated novels each.