The Good Soldier Švejk

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Title The Good Soldier Švejk
Author Jaroslav Hašek
Original title Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války
Country Czechoslovakia
Language Czech
Genre(s) Satirical Novel
Publisher A. Synek Publishers
Released 1923
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN NA

The Good Soldier Švejk is an unfinished satirical novel by Jaroslav Hašek.

Contents

[edit] Plot introduction

Illustration by Josef Lada
Illustration by Josef Lada

The Good Soldier Švejk (spelled Schweik or Schwejk in many translations, and pronounced [ˈʃvɛjk] or "shvake" in plain English transcription) is the shortened title of the world-famous unfinished novel written by Czech humorist Jaroslav Hašek in 1921-22. 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.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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. This idiocy/subversion has come to be known as "švejking".

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.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Literary significance & criticism

Jaroslav Hašek, creator of Švejk
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, 'Tropos Kynikos: Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk', Poetics Today 19:4 (1998), pp.469-98.

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 today’s 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 had written his American novel Catch-22 [1]. 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 in On Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk

[edit] Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science

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

The novel is set during World War I in Austria-Hungary, a country which was a figment of bureaucratic imagination, with borders constructed by political compromise and military conquest and which held in subjection numerous nationalities, with different languages and cultures, for 300 years. The multiethnic, and in this respect modern 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.

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Fritz Muliar as Schwejk (1972)
Fritz Muliar as Schwejk (1972)

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

[edit] Trivia

The extreme popularity of the novel in Poland led to creation of a common noun szwej denoting a kind of street-wise soldier, as opposed to newly-drafted cats.

Arthur Koestler worked on an uncompleted sequel.

[edit] Release details

At least three English-language translations of Švejk have been published:

The translations are generally perceived as evolving from good to better. The latest translation is still a work in progress: Book One is in print (1stBooks paperback in 2000, ISBN-10: 1585004286, ISBN-13: 978-1585004287), Book Two is available as an e-book, i.e. a PDF file, and the last volume, containing Books Three & Four is being edited and proofread in 2006.

A hefty 784 page paperback of the Parrott translation edition was reprinted in New York by Viking Press in 1990 with ISBN 0140182748

There is also

both for wind ensemble, written by Robert Kurka.

[edit] Sources, references, external links, quotations

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