The Good Soldier Švejk

The Good Soldier Švejk

Author	Jaroslav Hašek
Original title	'Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války'
Language	Czech
Genre	Satirical Novel
Publisher	A. Synek Publishers
Publication date	1923
Publication place	Czechoslovakia
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	NA

The Good Soldier Švejk (spelled Schweik or Schwejk in many translations, and pronounced [ˈʃvɛjk] or "shvayk" in plain English transcription) is the shortened title of an unfinished satirical novel by Jaroslav Hašek. It was fully illustrated by Josef Lada after Hašek's death. The original Czech title of the work is Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války, literally The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War.

Hašek originally intended Švejk to cover a total of six volumes, but had only completed four (which are now usually merged into one book) upon his death from tuberculosis in 1923.

File:Svejk 01.png

Illustration by Josef Lada

Characters

Josef Švejk, referred to by surname Švejk

Palivec

Bürstsneider, a member of the secret police

Chaplain Katz

Lieutenant Lukaš

Jurajda, a cook

Lieutenant Dub

Vordička, a friend of Švejk who hates Hungarians

Cadet Biegler

Baloun, who later becomes Lukaš's batman

Plot summary

The novel tells a story of the Czech veteran Josef Švejk and his adventures in the army. The story begins with news of the assassination in Sarajevo that precipitates World War I. Švejk is so enthusiastic about faithfully serving his country that no one can decide whether he is merely an imbecile or is craftily undermining the Austro-Hungarian Army's war effort.

The story goes on to describe events taking place during the war's first year, as Švejk joins the army and has various adventures, first in rear areas, and then during a long anabasis to rejoin his unit on the front lines. The unfinished novel breaks off abruptly before Švejk has a chance to be involved in any combat or enter the trenches.

Literary significance and criticism

File:Jaroslav Hasek.jpg

Jaroslav Hašek, creator of Švejk

Like Diogenes, Švejk lingers at the margins of an unfriendly society against which he is defending his inde­pendent existence.

— Peter Steiner, The Deserts of Bohemia

Jaroslav Hašek and in particular this novel have been subjects of innumerable articles, essays, studies, and books. Written by a great variety of individuals, ranging from friends and acquaintances, to admirers, detractors, and literary scholars, they started appearing almost immediately after the publication of the unfinished novel and the author's premature death in 1923.

Jaroslav Hašek was one of the earliest writers of what we have come to know as modernist literature. He experimented with verbal collage, Dadaism and the surreal. Hašek was writing modern fiction before exalted post-World-War-I writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner.

A number of literary critics consider The Good Soldier Švejk to be one of the first anti-war novels, having predated nearly every other anti-war novel of note, at a time when such writings were not "in". According to one critic, only the first two-thirds of The Red Badge of Courage precedes it. The Good Soldier Švejk even predated that quintessential First World War novel, All Quiet on the Western Front.

More familiar to North American readers, perhaps, is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, set in World War II. Although predating it by more than 30 years, Hašek’s biting satire and humor is its direct ancestor also, as well as that of many others. Joseph Heller said that if he hadn't read The Good Soldier Švejk he would never have written his American novel Catch-22. In the sequel to Catch-22, Closing Time, a Švejk-like character even makes an appearance as a POW in Dresden at the time of its bombing.

And yet in some ways this novel is obviously about a good deal more than war. After all, while there are a great many caustic comments and satirical moments when the inhumanity of modern military life is exposed for the idiotic folly it is, there are no combat scenes in the novel, and we are never given a detailed and sustained glimpse of soldiers killing and being killed. There is very little attention paid to weapons or training or conduct which is unique to military experience. In addition, a great deal of the satire of what goes on in the army has little to do with its existence of the army per se and is much more focused on the military as an organization with a complex chain of command, complicated procedures, and a system of authority, whose major function, it seems, is to order people around in ways they never fully understand (perhaps because they are beyond anyone’s comprehension).

— Ian Johnston, On Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk

Harry Harrison's science fiction series featuring Bill, the Galactic Hero is a retelling of the Švejk story set in the future.

Švejk was banned in Germany during the Nazi era. In the occupied Bohemia and Moravia, it was officially claimed that the Švejk character, a lying cheeky coward, damaged the morale of the Czech nation as well as its international reputation.

Broader cultural influence

The idiocy/subversion of Švejk has entered the Czech language in the form of words of švejkovina ("švejking"), švejkovat ("to švejk"), švejkárna (military absurdity), etc.

Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science

Lada's illustration of the rheumatic imbecile Švejk being wheeled off to war.

The novel is set during World War I in Austria-Hungary. This multi-ethnic empire was full of long-standing grievances and tensions. World War I, amplified by modern weapons and techniques, quickly escalated to become a massive human meatgrinder. Fifteen million people died, one million of them Austrian soldiers. Jaroslav Hašek participated in this conflict and examined it in The Good Soldier Švejk.

The German-speaking Habsburgs and their imperial administrators had ruled the Czech Lands from 1526. By the arrival of the 20th century, Prague, the seat of the Czech Kingdom, had become a boomtown. Large numbers of people had come to the city from the countryside to participate in the industrial revolution. The rise of a large working class spawned a cultural revolution. The Austro-Hungarian Empire ignored these changes and became more and more decrepit and anachronistic. As the system decayed, it became absurd and irrelevant to ordinary people. When forced to respond to dissent, the imperial powers did so, more often than not, with hollow propaganda and repression.

Adaptations

Statue of Josef Švejk in Przemyśl, Poland

• The Czech animator Jiří Trnka adapted the novel as an animated film in 1955, including Jan Werich starring as a narrator.
• Czech director Karel Steklý filmed the adventures in two films in 1956 and 1957, starring Rudolf Hrušínský as Švejk.
• In West Germany the book was newly adapted in the 1960s, starring Heinz Rühmann.
• A 13-part TV series in German, Die Abenteuer des braven Soldaten Schwejk, directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner, was made and broadcast by the Austrian state TV (ORF) in 1972. The title role was played by Fritz Muliar.
• Czechoslovakian puppetoon version "Osudy dobrého vojáka Svejka" (1986)

The Good Soldier Švejk inspired Bertolt Brecht to write a play continuing his adventures in World War II. It was aptly titled Schweik in the Second World War.

Švejk became the subject of comic books, films, an opera, a musical, statues, and the theme of many restaurants in a number of European countries.

Arthur Koestler worked on an uncompleted sequel called The Good Soldier Schweik Goes to War Again.

• Robert Kurka wrote an opera based on the novel, first performed in 1958.

Translations and adaptations

Three major English-language translations of Švejk have been published:

• The Good Soldier Schweik, tr. Paul Selver, 1930.
• The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War, tr. Cecil Parrott, 1973; reprints: ISBN 0140182748 & ISBN 978-0140449914.
• The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War, Book One: tr. Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadlon and Emmett Joyce, (1997 E-book; 2000 paperback, ISBN 978-1585004287), Book Two: tr. Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadlon 2005 (E-book), Books 3 & 4 (E-book).

The first two translations actually do very little for the book due probably to a variety of reasons. It can be safely said that after them the book still seems to remain largely untranslated. In the first translation, that of Paul Selver, whole passages are missing (ex. the famous passage on the Animal World Magazine) while everything else appears to be done in a very stifling and unimaginative academic style that goes quite contrary to the language used by Hašek. This probably accounts for the relative obscurity of this book in the West. Succeeding translations are generally perceived as evolving from good to better.

There is also an orchestral suite The Good Soldier Overture and an opera The Good Soldier Schweik, both for wind ensemble, written by Robert Kurka, as well as a stage adaptation, Svejk, by Colin Teevan.

See also

• Czech literature
• Ivan Chonkin, a Soviet Švejk

External links

• The new samizdat English translation of Švejk
• Soldier Schweik – Bronze miniature
• Švejk {shvāke} Central
• Švejk Central: Film versions
• The cover of the original Czech edition
• Short, insightful essay by John H. Lienhard