The Circulation of the Novel between Romania and (the Former) Yugoslavia (1918–2020): Imperial (Dis)Continuities in Post-Imperial East-Central Europe

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the circulation of the novel between Romania and (the former) Yugoslavia from 1918 to 2020. Based on the data provided primarily by DCRT (The Chronological Dictionary of the Translated Novel in Romania) and the COBISS database, the translation flows are analyzed in four subperiods: 1918–1946, 1947–1964, 1965–1989, and 1990–2020. The quantitative data are used to further examine which novels were translated and how they crossed borders in this part of post-imperial Eastern Europe. I show that, apart from communist internationalism, the imperial legacy, which was replaced by globalization processes after the fall of communism and the Yugoslav wars, also plays a major role in the dissemination of the novel, influencing both the corpus and the channels of circulation. I argue that acknowledging and analyzing the usually overlooked non-national, sub-national, and supra-national elements reveals the heterogeneity of these literatures, which could be construed as inter- and transnational literatures.