Topical Fiction Propaganda Translations of Russian literature in Dutch newspapers (1917-1939) Translated fiction proved instrumental to create a sense of community within newspaper readerships. A particular illustrative case are Dutch newspaper’s translations of Russian literature during the Interbellum. At different levels, the selection and translation of serialized Russian fiction was instrumental for newspapers. Readers were enticed to subscribe or buy a daily copy to read the next episode and in doing so, customer loyalty was enhanced. At the same time, readers were provided with content deemed ideologically appropriate. Both features added up to build a community of readers. Cast against an emerging mass democracy and the pillarizing of society, newspapers were influential vectors of social change. A comparison of practices used in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s by newspapers of various orientations shows that when publishing Russian fiction, similar strategies were applied by left-wing and right-wing newspapers. Both instrumentalized Russian fiction to position themselves vis à vis the social and political discussions of the era, partly drawing on similar authors, but translating and presenting their oeuvre convergent with the newspaper’s ideological orientation. To decrypt data on serial fiction I draw on Periodical codes (Philpotts 2012). This tool incorporates metadata relating translations to the publishing context and, more specifically, the ideological orientation of periodicals. Periodical codes are complementary with product-oriented Descriptive Translation Studies (Tahir Gürçağlar 2019) and provide insight into translational norms that become apparent through the editors’ decision-making. Offering perspectives on the daily consumption of literary texts and their cohabitation in an ideological context, research on the translational construction of the social world can considerably benefit from incorporating translated fiction into its research agenda. References Fólica, Laura, Diana Roig-Sanz & ...