Eastbound

The Eastbound project focused on the international circulation of literature in Dutch. The project showed not only that Flanders and the Netherlands imported many literary works from abroad, but also that Dutch-language literature was an important export product. Eastbound zoomed in on the German-speaking regions between 1850 and 1990, but it also intended to investigate the Polish, Czech and Hungarian regions, whose inhabitants familiarised themselves with literature in Dutch through German translations or otherwise.

Eastbound comprised two subprojects. The first subproject was led by Theresia Feldmann (PhD student at KU Leuven), who researched the distribution and the reception of Dutch-language literature in the German-speaking regions. The second subproject was in the hands of Orsolya Réthelyi (postdoctoral researcher at Huygens Insitute, Amsterdam), who investigated translations and adaptations of Dutch-language literature in the Polish, Czech and Hungarian-speaking regions, passed on through German translations or otherwise.

The Eastbound team also included the research assistants Kriszitina Gracza, Michał Hynas, Victoria van Rijn, Klára Šrejmová, and Jasmin Streunding, and the members of the advisory committee, including Prof. Dr Jan Ceuppens (Brussels), Prof. Dr Ralf Grüttemeier (Oldenburg), and Prof. Dr Jerzy Koch (Poznań). The Eastbound project was closely connected to the Digital Library and Bibliography of Literature in Translation (DLBT), which has been developed at the University of Vienna under the guidance of Prof. Dr Herbert van Uffelen.

Eastbound kicked off in August 2016 and concluded in 2021. The project had been funded by the Reseach Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO), as part of the Free Competition Humanities programme ‘Cooperation Netherlands-Flanders’.

Project leaders: Prof. Dr Elke Brems (KU Leuven) and Dr Ton van Kalmthout.

Publications

• Elke Brems & Orsolya Réthelyi, ‘Rescuing Something Fine: Huizinga’s Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (The Waning of the Middle Ages) as World Literature’, in: Theo D’haen (ed.), Dutch and Flemish Literature as World Literature. London etc.: Bloomsbury Academic (forthcoming).
• Elke Brems et al. (eds.): Transnational Trajectories of Dutch Literature, special issue of: Dutch Crossing 44 (2020) 2. Meer info.
• Theresia Feldmann, Oostwaarts. De verspreiding en receptie van vertalingen van Nederlandse literatuur in het Duitse taalgebied, 1850-1990. Proefschrift KU Leuven, 2021.
• Ton van Kalmthout, ‘Adèle en de ernstige jonge man uit het verre land. De Hongaars-Nederlandse relaties van het echtpaar von Antal-Opzoomer’, in: Zacht Lawijd 16 (2017) 2, 47-65, also published in Hungarian as: ‘Adèle és a “messzi országból jött komoly fiatalember”. Antal Géza és felesége, Adele Opzoomer magyar-holland kapcsolatai’, in: Gera Judit & Vesztergom Janina (eds.), Oda –Vissza. A kulturális transzfer folyamatai Hollandia, Flandria és Magyarország között. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, 2018, 99-114.