From a reading devoted monk to an idealist prompter: the Serbian Quixotes across the centuries

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the characters of several Serbian novels published from the Enlightenment to the present day, whose main characters show obvious resemblances with Cervantes’ Don Quixote: Dositej Obradović´s Život i priključenija (1783), Jovan Sterija Popović´s Roman bez romana (1838), various novels of Jakov Ignjatović (Večiti mladoženja, 1878; Vasa Rešpekt, 1875; Milan Narandžić, 1860-1862), and Sančova verzija by Ratomir Damjanović (1999). We analyze their personalities, pointing out the similarities with their model and then exploring the differences or particularities emanating from either the author’s style, the period of its creation and/or the poetics of the Serbian literature. Our goal is to investigate the manner and the level in which the Cervantine legacy has been creatively transformed and what constant characteristics of the personality of Don Quixote have resisted the passage of time.