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The Good Soldier Švejk (spelled Schweik or Schwejk in many translations, and pronounced /ʃvɛjk/) 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. This image is a book cover. ...
Fritz Muliar Fritz Muliar (born December 12, 1919) is an Austrian actor who, due to his huge popularity, is often referred to by his countrymen as Volksschauspieler. ...
1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ...
A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ...
Jaroslav Hašek (April 30, 1883 - January 3, 1923) was a Czech humorist and satirist who became well-known mainly for his hilarious, world-famous novel The Good Soldier Svejk, which has been translated into sixty languages. ...
Josef Lada (born 17th December, 1887 in Hrusice - died 14th December, 1957 in Prague, buried at Olsany graveyard) was Czech painter. ...
The novel was never finished, because Hašek died in 1923 right in the middle of his work.
Plot
The novel tells a story of the Czech veteran Josef Švejk who, after having been drafted back into the army as cannon fodder to die for an Emperor he despises, proceeds to undermine the Austro-Hungarian Army's war effort by "švejking". "Švejking" is the method for surviving "švejkárna", which is a situation or institution of systemic absurdity requiring the employment of "švejking" for one to survive and remain untouched by it. "Švejkovat", "to švejk"' has since become a common Czech word. Cannon Fodder is an expression used to denote the treatment of armed forces as a worthless commodity to be expended. ...
The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. ...
The novel is set in the times of 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. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...
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. Habsburg (sometimes spelled Hapsburg, but never so in official use) was one of the major ruling houses of Europe. ...
Events January 14 - Treaty of Madrid. ...
Critical reception - "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. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...
Jaroslav Hašek was one of the earliest writers of what we have come to know as modern 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. Modern literature has been the birth of the modern novel. ...
A number of literary critics consider The Good Soldier Švejk to be the grandaddy of 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. The Red Badge of Courage (1895) is a short novel (or a long short story) by Stephen Crane about the meaning of courage, as it is discovered by Henry Fleming, a young recruit in the Civil War. ...
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I, about the horrors of that war and also the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by many men returning from the front. ...
More familiar to today’s readers, perhaps, is Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, set in World War II. Although predating it by almost 50 years, Hašek’s biting satire and humor is its direct ancestor also, as well as that of many others. Joseph Heller said that if it weren’t for his having read The Good Soldier Švejk he would never had written his American novel Catch-22 [1] (http://www.zenny.com/Heller.html). Catch 22 can refer to: A book by Joseph Heller, or the movie based on the book; see Catch-22. ...
Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...
- "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 (http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/praguepage/hasek.htm)
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. It became the subject of comic books, films, an opera, a musical, statues, and the theme of many restaurants in a number of European countries (http://www.SvejkCentral.com/index.html). Bertolt Brecht (February 10, 1898 – August 14, 1956) was an influential German dramatist, stage director, and poet of the 20th century. ...
Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...
English translations 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: (http://www.svejkcentral.com/The%20Report.html) Book One is in print, Books Two, Three & Four are being edited and proofread in 2004.
A hefty 784 page paperback of the Parrott translation edition was reprinted in New York by Viking Press in 1990 with ISBN 0140182748 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Filmed versions - Czech director Karel Steklý filmed the adventures in two films in 1956 and 1957, starring Rudolf Hrušínský as Švejk.
- In Western 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.
An animator is one who is involved in the process of animation. ...
Jiří Trnka (24 February 1912 Plzeň - 30 December 1969) was Czech puppet maker, illustrator, and motion-picture animator, renowned for his puppet animations. ...
1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Jan Werich Jan Werich (born 6th February, 1905, Prague - died 31st October, 1980, Prague) was Czech actor, playwright and writer. ...
The Narrator is the entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. ...
Generally a director is a person or one of a body of persons appointed to manage the affairs of a government agency, company, corporation, group or project. ...
1956 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
1957 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Heinz Rühmann (March 7, 1902 in Essen, Germany - October 3, 1994 in Aufkirchen, Bavaria) was one of the best known German actors of the 20th century. ...
Orf is a viral disease found primarily in sheep and goats that is caused by a parapox virus. ...
1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ...
Fritz Muliar Fritz Muliar (born December 12, 1919) is an Austrian actor who, due to his huge popularity, is often referred to by his countrymen as Volksschauspieler. ...
See also Literature in the Czech Republic was disproportionately popular and important since early 19th century, as culture became something of a substitute for politics in stifled conditions of Austria-Hungary and then again in Nazi and Communist dictatures. ...
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