Hašek The Good Soldier Švejk

About The Good Soldier Švejk

Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk (1921–1923) is the funniest and most subversive anti-war novel in European literature — a picaresque in which the apparently simple-minded Czech dog dealer Švejk navigates the Austro-Hungarian military bureaucracy during the First World War with such cheerful compliance that it becomes impossible to distinguish idiocy from genius. Hašek died before completing the fourth and final part; the novel was finished posthumously by Karel Vaněk. Švejk's literal compliance with every order reveals the order's absurdity — a technique of satirical subversion that became a founding method of Czech comic fiction. The novel is illustrated by Josef Lada's woodcuts and is one of the most-translated works of Czech literature. It stands alongside Kafka's Metamorphosis and Castle as one of the foundational texts of Czech modernism.