The Black Corsair on the other shore of the Adriatic. Emilio Salgari’s presence in the Croatian publishing context

Abstract

This article aims to compare the adventure novels of the Italian writer Emilio Salgari (1862–1911) with the translations published by various Croatian publishing houses from the first half of the 20th century to the present. Salgari’s stories, focusing on exotic locations and eccentric heroes, succeeded in satisfying the Italian bourgeois public’s desire for escapism, while the country was completing its process of national unification and starting its gradual colonial expansion. By analyzing the first translations of Salgari’s works into Croatian–in particular that of the 1898 novel The Black Corsair by Ivo Hergešić (1862– 1911), which was published in 1932 in the popular book series Zabavna biblioteka (i. e., “The Entertaining Library”) – this text aims to examine how the different historical and social circumstances may have influenced both the strategies of translators and the policies of publishing houses in presenting Salgari’s work to the Croatian readers. The article will also take into consideration the interest expressed in contemporary Croatia for Salgari’s lesser-known works, such as the science fiction novel The Wonders of the 21st Century (1907), which was translated by Franko Maglica for the Pula-based publisher Nebula in 2023.