“Heritage at Hand at CroAtrium” 2026: The mystery of Sherlock Holmes’s look-alikes in Croatica

Recent discoveries about the earliest Croatian translations of stories about Sherlock Holmes preserved in Croatia’s national library collection are the focus of the fifth event of the National and University Library in Zagreb’s (NSK) 2026 Heritage at Hand at CroAtrium programme.

Made by Professor at the Department of English Studies of the University of Rijeka’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Antonija Primorac as a result of her 2018/19 research, they will be presented in a talk that Professor Primorac will give on 8 June 2026 at CroAtrium, the Library’s centre for the research, development and promotion of Croatica.

The unexpected findings in NSK’s collection about the world’s most famous detective

In her search for the earliest translations into Croatian of Arthur Conan Doyle’s globally popular stories, Professor Primorac discovered among NSK’s holdings a Croatian double of the most famous detective in world literature.

This Sherlock Holmes – which only Sherlock experts may easily tell apart from the original one – has originated from the pastiches published in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, at the beginning of the 20^th century in a series entitled “Detective Sherlock Holmes and His World-famous Adventures” (Detektiv Sherlock Holmes i njegovi znameniti doživljaji), and that under the name of the still living Doyle (!). His character in the pastiches’ texts was reinforced through their colour frontpages, taken over from the series’ original, German edition (Detektiv Sherlock Holmes und seine weltberühmten Abenteuer). Authored by German illustrator Alfred Rollof, they featured action scenes which at the time were rather sensationalist and provocative. 

NSK’s cooperation with heritage researchers – vital for Croatica’s visibility

In addition to the particulars of the origin and uncovering of this false Sherlock Holmes, documented in detail in Professor Primorac’s 2023 book (Što čitamo kad čitamo hrvatskog Sherlocka Holmesa: prijevod, pastiš i digitalni zaokret u svjetskoj književnosti; Eng. “What We Read When We Read Sherlock Holmes in Croatian: Translation, Pastiche, and the Digital Turn in World Literature”), the event participants will also be given a unique insight into the history of Croatian publishing, a part of Croatia’s translational literature and the (pre)beginnings of crime fiction in Croatia.

The visitors will be able to see the originals of some of the first Croatian translations of Doyle’s stories about detective Holmes and their pastiches in NSK’s collections, as well as to find out which other libraries in Croatia and abroad have been hiding Sherlock’s impostor(s).

Starting at 13.00, the event will be held at the conference hall Judita, and all interested in participation are to register at osj@nsk.hr.

If you love a mystery, but you like to see it solved, look no further and join us at our June Heritage at Hand at CroAtrium event!