Romani language edition of the Dikan comics published in Serbia
Politikin Zabavnik magazine publishes a Romani language comic for the second time
Originally published on Global Voices
Photo of Politikin Zabavnik inserts featuring bilingual comics in Serbian and Romani languages. Photo by Meta.mk, used with permission.
This article was first published by Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation.
The popular Serbian weekly magazine Politikin Zabavnik, which celebrates its 85th anniversary this year, published a comic in the Romani language.
The comic by Lazo Sredanović and Nikola Lekić features the adventures of Dikan “the youngest Ancient Slaw,” which were extremely popular across the whole Yugoslavia. In its last two issues, Politikin Zabavnik includes an insert with two episodes of the Dikan comic, for the first time in parallel in Serbian and Romani.
April 8 is recognized as International Romani Day, used to celebrate Romani culture and raise awareness of the issues facing Romani people. The day was officially declared in 1990 in Serock, Poland, the site of the fourth World Romani Congress of the International Romani Union.
“In cooperation with the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, this and the following issue of Politikin Zabavnik will publish an insert with the comics about Dikan, the Ancient Slav, in Serbian and Roma language,” announced the magazine on the front page of the insert added to its 3764th issue.
Dikan is often compared to the hero of the French comic Asterix, which served as inspiration to the author Lekić when he created the character. The comic depicts the adventures of two Ancient Slavs, Dikan and his trusty companion Uncle Vukoje. The stories take place during the time of Great Migration of the Peoples, usually in the Balkans. The protagonists meet humorous versions of historical tribes, peoples, locations and personages, including Emperor Justinian I.
The first issue of Dikan comics was published in April 1969.
This is the second Romani language comic by Politikin Zabavnik. In 2004 they published a Romani version of an episode of the adventures of Tintin by Belgian author Hergé, titled “The Black Island.”
In February 2024 Politikin Zabavnik published a reprint of their first issue from 1939 as an insert in the jubilee edition on the occasion of their 85th anniversary. Photo: Meta.mk.
Alongside the French magazine Spirou, Zabavnik is one of the oldest European magazines that contains comics as dominant or hallmark part of their contents. Since their first issue, published in Belgrade in February 1939 by a group of progressive left-wing intellectuals, it has featured comics by domestic authors, and in particular Walt Disney, and other US and European publishers. Over the years it introduced many classics of the medium from all over the world, from Flash Gordon and the Phantom, to Modesty Blaise and Tintin, as well as newspaper comics such as Hagar the Horrible and Garfield.
Zabavnik paused publishing in 1941 during the Nazi occupation, and continued in 1951 after overcoming some censorship tendencies within the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, as some officials considered comics unwanted Western influence. However, according to legend, Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito himself gave approval to renew comics imports, stating that he, like many others is also a fan of Donald Duck.
At the end of the 1990s, during the Yugoslav Wars, Disney discontinued the cooperation with the Politika publishing house, which used its other publications besides Politikin Zabavnik to support the regime of Slobodan Milošević. In the jubilee edition the Politikin Zabavnik newsroom stated they will renew the relationship with Disney at some point in the future.
The publication is still distributed in all republics of former Yugoslavia that have newsstands.