The Good Soldier Švejk and his fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hašek, William Heinemann, Published 1973, 784 pages, ISBN 978 0140035681
by Pausali Guha
Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk is an unfinished satirical novel and yet one of the most translated pieces of Czech literature. Set during World War I, a time when the Czech lands were under Austro-Hungarian rule, it follows the misadventures of Josef Švejk, a Czech everyman conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army. The book is known for its wit, absurd humour, and scathing critique of war, authority and bureaucracy. At its centre is Švejk, “certified by an army medical board as an imbecile” (p. 3), as he navigates the absurdities of military life while making a mockery of the very system he serves.
The novel’s structure is released in four books between 1921–1923, driven by Švejk’s “innumerable stories” (p. xvii) and “lengthy anecdotes” (p. xxi), echo the associative rhythm of oral storytelling where one tale triggers another. Hašek’s use of “common Czech” (p. xx) and his aim to reflect “how people actually talk”(p. 215), often drawing from “what he had heard in life, especially over a drink at the pub” (p. xvii), reinforces this narrative style, maintaining “the raciness of the narrative in spite of introducing so many stories which hold back the action” (p. xviii).
The novel opens at U Kalicha, a Prague pub, where Švejk is first introduced, engaging in ostensibly nonsensical dialogue with an undercover police agent Bretschneider concerning the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The narrative quickly escalates into an incident wherein the pub’s landlord, Palivec, faces arrest for his explanation regarding the removal of the Emperor’s portrait: “the flies used to shit on it” (p. 9). In contrast to Palivec, Švejk deflects Bretschneider’s provocations not by refusing to talk, but by engaging with seemingly innocent non-sequiturs and irrelevant anecdotes. When Bretschneider probes him with ideological bait, Švejk responds in his deadpan style. Asked for his view on the claim that “every weak state is doomed to extinction,” (p. 50), he cheerfully replies that he “had nothing to do with the state, but that he had once had to look after a St Bernard puppy in a weak state” (p. 50). Ultimately, Švejk is also arrested for “several criminal offences, including the crime of high treason” (p. 13). This sets the tone for the rest of the novel, illustrating the empire’s paranoid authoritarianism, where even casual remarks invite absurdly severe punishment.
Throughout the book, Švejk hides behind incessant chatter, creating a kind of narrative fog that the machinery of authority cannot penetrate. In this context, absurdity functions not simply as comic relief but as a deliberate mode of quiet resistance and subversion. This unique method of resistance, characterised by malicious compliance and literalism, inspired the Czech term švejkování, coined to describe passive resistance through exaggerated, often nonsensical obedience, based on the character of Švejk himself.
Hašek’s broader thematic concern in the book, which is the absurdity and futility of war, is rendered through his firsthand experience in World War I. The book strips war of any heroism, showing it instead as consisting of pointless routines and bureaucratic blunders. Hašek presents the Austro-Hungarian army as a rigid bureaucracy where rules override basic logic and human needs. Officers and higher-ups in the novel are consistently portrayed as detached from the daily hardships of ordinary soldiers, making decisions based on rigid regulations rather than practical realities. Nowhere is Hašek’s satire sharper than in his depiction of the army’s farcical reward system, where honours bear no relation to actual bravery. One incident captures this perfectly: “One batman received the large silver medal because he was adept in roasting the geese he had stolen. Another got the small silver medal because he used to get wonderful food hampers from his home, on which his master stuffed himself up. His master formulated the citation for his decoration as follows: ‘For displaying unusual bravery and courage in battle, despising death and not abandoning his superior officer for a moment under the powerful fire of the advancing enemy’”(p. 163).
The book also incisively captures the perverse logic of military hierarchy. The batman is not a comrade-in-arms but a servant, resented by rank-and-file soldiers for his proximity to power, a role oscillating between servility and subtle sabotage. This dynamic defines the relationship between Švejk and Oberleutnant Lukáš, whose interactions form the novel’s comic core. Lukáš, who is the embodiment of military authority, is perpetually exasperated by Švejk’s seemingly innocent yet disastrous actions. Švejk’s rambling replies to direct questions often derail communication and sabotage orders. This tension is distilled in one of the novel’s most memorable exchanges. When Lukáš, pushed to his limit, explodes, “Švejk, Jesus Mary, Himmelherrgott, I’ll have you shot… Are you really such a half-wit?” (p. 209), Švejk replies, without missing a beat: “Humbly report, sir, I am” (p. 209). The line becomes his trademark refrain throughout the book, signifying a strategy of mock-subservience.
Lukáš, from his perspective, views Švejk as an unbearable cross to bear, a constant source of exasperation and professional jeopardy. He is constantly trying to manage or, more often, rid himself of Švejk. In a way, Lukáš, the officer, becomes a prisoner of his own authority, constantly reacting to Švejk’s blunders. This exposes the underlying fragility of the rigid, hierarchical system he represents. Lukáš’s helplessness reflects the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s broader inability to reconcile its chaotic realities with the façade of order and disciplinary projects.
In the book, the Monarchy and the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire are depicted as a lumbering, bloated, ineffectual institution staggering toward their own demise. Hašek spares no irony in highlighting the empire’s absurdity, as when Švejk bluntly states, “a monarchy as idiotic as this ought not to exist at all” (p. 208). The elaborate system of surveillance and punishment further reveals the regime’s paranoia, typified by the Ministry of the Interior’s introduction of different grades “for unshakeable loyalty to the monarchy”, wherein a lower grade could lead to “‘treason and the gallows’” (p. 259). This culture of repression is echoed at the level of everyday authority, as when a sergeant cynically tells a civilian, “remember, old woman, that every emperor and king thinks only of his own pocket, and that’s why they wage war” (p. 270). This atmosphere of repression is reinforced by the arbitrary brutality of imperial censorship and surveillance. Hašek notes the targeting of even the most benign or well-meaning gestures. The authorities, desperate to maintain control, punish ordinary people for acts that pose no real threat. He describes how “poor old peasant pensioners who had written letters to the front” were court-martialled and “jugged for twelve years as a punishment for their words of consolation and their descriptions of the misery at home” (p. 80).
Hašek’s scathing view of the Church is also a significant element of the book as highlighted by translator Cecil Parrott, who notes that Hašek was “consumed with such a bitter hatred of the Church and religion that in this book and many of his other stories” (p. xvii). The most prominent example is Chaplain Otto Katz, depicted as a heavy drinker, gambler, cheater in card games, and patron of prostitutes, going so far as to send his orderly to fetch “tarts from off the streets” (p. 84). Katz himself openly admits to Švejk that the chaplaincy is merely a “decently paid profession, where a chap isn’t overworked,” allowing him to “represent someone who doesn’t exist and myself play the part of God” (p. 139). Other religious figures reinforce this negative image. Chaplain Martinec, for instance, remembers his former vicar who “used to swill slivovice like a fish” and “insisted on putting into the chaplain’s bed a vagabond gipsy girl whom he had picked up near the village when he was lurching out of a wine-cellar”(p. 694). This directly exposes sexual misconduct within the clergy. The Church is also depicted as losing its moral authority when confronted by the state. Chaplain Martinec, for example, is forced to drink and listen to “smutty stories” (p. 695) from General Fink despite his personal discomfort. Through such portrayals, Hašek presents the Church not as a moral compass, but as a hypocritical and corrupted institution complicit in the absurdities of war.
The book also explores Czech identity, often in tension with the structures of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and its military apparatus. Hašek, as translator Cecil Parrott notes in the introduction, was himself a “true bohemian” (p. Vii), and an anarchist who had actively participated in the “anti-German riots in Prague in 1897, tearing down proclamations of martial law, damaging emblems of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy” (p. viii). This rebellious spirit informs the novel’s portrayal of Czech marginalisation within the empire. The military hierarchy is rife with casual racism and anti-Czech prejudice, which Hašek documents. The chief army doctor Bautze declares, “The whole Czech people are nothing but a pack of malingerers” (p. 61); Corporal Althof refers to Czech recruits with the slur “Engadine goat” (p. 294); and Lance-Corporal Müller calls them “stinking Czech swine” (p. 294). Even characters such as Lieutenant Lukáš, outwardly assimilated and German-speaking in society, harbour a hidden national identity. “Let’s be Czechs, but no one need know about it. I’m a Czech too” (p. 166), he confides to his men. Nationalist aspirations surface elsewhere as well, such as when a gypsy is accused of political crimes for speaking of “the setting up of an independent national state made up of the lands of the Bohemian crown and Slovakia and ruled by a Slav king” (p. 93). Through such moments, Hašek captures both the everyday humiliation faced by Czechs within the imperial system and the quiet, often covert persistence of national identity.
While The Good Soldier Švejk is widely hailed as a masterpiece, it is not without its shortcomings. As mentioned above, a core element of the novel’s structure, reflecting oral storytelling, is the frequent and often lengthy digressions, particularly by Švejk himself. While these provide characterisation and satirical commentary, their sheer volume and the way they frequently pull the narrative off-track can be perceived as tedious or overly verbose by modern readers accustomed to more direct plotting. Similarly, much of the humour rests on mocking Švejk’s supposed idiocy and exaggerated portrayals of illness or disability. While the novel complicates his foolishness as strategic, its reliance on jokes about mental and physical conditions can feel crude or outdated to modern readers.
Its portrayal of women is also minimal and often dismissive, reflecting a certain blind spot in its otherwise expansive critique of institutions. Women appear mainly as wives, charwomen, waitresses, or prostitutes, serving male needs or desires. In one instance, Mrs. Müller, Švejk’s charwoman, is later sent to a concentration camp, Švejk’s main concern being his clothes at the laundry (p. 122). The Good Soldier Švejk famously remains unfinished, abruptly breaking off before Švejk ever truly reaches the front lines or engages in direct combat. This was due to Hašek’s untimely death in 1923, leaving Švejk’s ultimate fate unresolved. Yet, this very lack of a definitive conclusion ironically reinforces the novel’s core themes: the endless, cyclical absurdity of war and bureaucracy. Ultimately, the book endures as a landmark in political satire, influencing later works such as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.
Pausali Guha is a doctoral candidate at the International Politics Division of Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
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