Modernism: Representations of National Culture

Jaroslav Hašek: The good soldier Švejk

JAROSLAV HAŠEK: THE GOOD SOLDIER ŠVEJK Title: Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války (The good soldier Švejk and his fortunes in the World War) Original published: as a series of popular readings in Prague during 1921– 1923 Language: Czech The excerpts used are from: The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War. Translated from Czech by Cecil Parrott (Middlesex: Penguin Books with W. Heinemann, 1983), pp. 67–73. About the author Jaroslav Hašek [1883, Prague – 1923, Lipnice near Německý Brod (after 1945 Havlíčkův Brod) (Ger. Deutschbrod)]: journalist and writer. Born into the family of a high school teacher, he studied at a commercial academy, and later led a bohemian and vagrant life wandering through Bohemia, Hungary and Galicia. He was jailed briefly for alleged anarchist activities in 1907. Later he worked as the editor in several special-interest journals such as Ženský obzor (Women’s horizon) or Svět zvířat (Animal world), and simultaneously he published stories and interviews from the Prague underworld in various anarchist journals. Throughout his life he wrote several hundred humorous stories published in various journals and newspapers. In 1911, he founded the ‘Party of Moderate Progress in the Limits of Law’, a parody of party politics and the election process. In 1915, Hašek was mobilized and sent to the Galician front, let himself be captured and entered the Czechoslovak legions in Russia . In 1918, though, he entered the Bolshevik Party and joined the Red Army as a political commissioner. After coming back to Prague in December 1920, he again devoted his energy to writing short-stories, feuilletons, humoresques, theatre sketches and so on. He was a master of mystification games merging the realities of life, including his own, and literature. There are a number of legends, myths and nonconfirmed stories about Hašek, to the fabrication of which he supposedly contributed a great deal. His most important piece of work, the one that made him world famous, is the Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka. It became not only part of the Western literary canon, but an indispensable part of Czech cultural memory. Hašek became a legend after his death. The communists, in particular, tried to appropriate his legacy after the Second World War and turn him into a true revolutionary, which, however, proved unsuccessful due to his essentially non-conformist, bohemian and deeply sarcastic personality and writings. Beyond the national horizon, his work is considered to be JAROSLAV HAŠEK: THE GOOD SOLDIER ŠVEJK 207 highly representative of the turn-of-the-century deep existential irony and ‘black humor’ symbolizing the peculiar Central European cultural code of the time. Main works: Trampoty pana Tenkráta [Troubles of Mr. Then] (1912); Dobrý voj ák Švejk a jiné podivné historky [The good soldier Švejk and other queer stories] (1912); Průvodčí cizinců a jiné satiry z cest i domova [Foreigners’ guide and other satires from travels and home] (1913); Můj obchod se psy a jiné humoresky [My dogstore and other humoresques] (1915); Dobrý voják Švejk v zajetí [The good soldier Švejk in captivity] (1917); Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války [The good soldier Švejk and his fortunes in the World War] (1921–1923); Črty, povídky a humoresky z cest [Sketches, stories and humoresques from travels] (1955); Dějiny strany mírného pokroku v mezích zákona [History of the party of moderate progress in the limits of law] (1963), Dekameron humoru a satiry [The decameron of humor and satire] (1972). Context In the first years after 1918, war became one of the main themes in the arts and culture all over Europe. In the Czech case, an important part of the literature about the war was the ‘legionary novel’ (most notably those by Rudolf Medek, Josef Kopta, and František Langer) that depicted the Czechoslovak legions formed mainly from deserters and prisoners of war that fought against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the side of the Entente. The number of Czechoslovak legionaries and above all their significance in the fight against the Bolshevik revolution, especially after they occupied major parts of the trans-Siberian railway, contributed considerably to the international recognition of the idea of an independent Czechoslovak state during and after the war. As such they attracted much respect in the first Republic and, consequently , the officially supported ‘legionary literature’, looking backwards, appropriated their legacy and depicted them in...