ViVa Vostok: Literature for Children and Young Adults from Central and Eastern Europe in the German-Speaking Area

The Funding Program and Its Aims

The current literature for children and young adults from Central and Eastern European countries is little known in German-speaking regions. It is the aim of the funding program ViVaVostok to change this. Since 2012, it has been helping children's book authors from Central and Eastern European countries to present their work in German-speaking areas. It offers financial support to organizers who introduce their audience to literature from Central and Eastern Europe. ViVaVostok invites young readers to discover new worlds, to meet foreign authors and illustrators in person, and to be enchanted by as yet little known literature. Last but not least, the events and information offered are supposed to encourage the translation and publication of these works in German.

Origins of ViVaVostok

With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the contacts between German-speaking children's literature and the literatures of Central and Eastern Europe and of the Balkans eroded. Previously, there had been regular dialogue, often resulting in translations; beginning in the 1990s, however, this exchange gradually decreased and eventually ceased completely. Apart from a few reeditions of classics, there were hardly any translations into German of children's literature from Poland, Romania, Slovenia, or the other countries. The children's literatures in Central and Eastern Europe had to reinvent themselves after the end of communism or socialism and to look for new topics, contents, and forms for their texts. They also had to build an independent market because the often state-controlled book market no longer existed. For a long time, there simply were not many books that would have qualified for translation.

With the new millennium, the situation changed. A young generation of authors and illustrators began to publish within evolving book markets and a lively literary scene. This renewal, however, remained largely unnoticed in German-speaking countries. To gain a better overview over the recent developments, the Robert Bosch Foundation, together with the International Youth Library, launched a survey of the current children's literatures in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. The study traced the respective developments in picturebooks, children's books, and young adult literature over the course of the past twenty years. It analyzed the changing structures of the post-socialist children's book market; scouted for noteworthy and representative books, authors, and illustrators; and identified relevant institutions and contact partners. This research brought to light the newest developments of Central and Eastern European children's literature. But it took personal encounters to revive the disrupted cultural exchange: It was decided to invite Central and Eastern European authors and illustrators with their books to Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking regions of Switzerland. In collaboration with the International Youth Library, the Robert Bosch Stiftung developed the funding program ViVaVostok, which supports intercultural children's book projects by providing information, logistic backing, and help with financing.

ViVaVostok in Action

Focusing on children's literature from Central and Eastern European countries, ViVaVostok promotes readings and workshops at literary festivals, schools, libraries, and book fairs with engaging children's book authors and illustrators from Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, and other countries. The financial support covers both professional fees and travel expenses, and it may include funds for hiring interpreters, chairs, performers, and musicians. Given that these readings and workshops are always intercultural, featuring nongermanophone guests, translators, and interpreters play an important role: The projects mainly present literature that has not yet been translated into German. This way, ViVaVostok prides itself on providing new translations of selected passages to acquaint the German public with picturebooks, children's books, or young adult novels hitherto unheard of.

Initially, the greatest challenge usually is that event organizers often do not even know who to invite—because the illustrators and authors, though successful in their home countries, do not yet have an international reputation. This is why the International Youth Library, with its linguistic knowhow and intimate knowledge of children's literature in the Central and Eastern European...