Jaroslav Hasek

Jaroslav Hasek (30 April 1883 - 3 January 1923), an author and satirist from Prague, he lived a short and extremely turbulent life. He is best known for his famous satirical novel The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War, but also wrote more than 1,200 short stories/feuilletons/articles, numerous poems, and co-authored some cabaret plays. Even before writing The Good Soldier Svejk (1921-22), Jaroslav Hasek had a reputation as a prominent satirist, but was also...See more

Jaroslav Hasek (30 April 1883 - 3 January 1923), an author and satirist from Prague, he lived a short and extremely turbulent life. He is best known for his famous satirical novel The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War, but also wrote more than 1,200 short stories/feuilletons/articles, numerous poems, and co-authored some cabaret plays. Even before writing The Good Soldier Svejk (1921-22), Jaroslav Hasek had a reputation as a prominent satirist, but was also viewed as controversial, due to a period as an active anarchist. Hasek was also known for his many pranks. Hasek had repeated conflicts with the police, mostly due to drunkenness and public disorder. He was also under surveillance due to his involvement in the Anarchist movement. He was jailed several times, the most serious case was in 1907 when he was sentenced for inciting violence against the police during a demonstration on 1 May 1907. In 1911 Hasek had thought up Svejk. Five stories about the soldier were published, although very different from the later novel in style and content. On 17 February 1915 he was drafted into Austro-Hungarian Army, sent to the front in early July, and was captured by the Russians on 24 September 1915. In Russian POW camp Hasek contracted typhus. In the spring of 1916, he volunteered for the Czechoslovak Brigade (later a.k.a Legions), recruiting among prisoners of war. He also worked as a journalist for weekly echoslovan in Kiev. Sent to the front in May 1917, on 2 July 1917, Hasek took part in the battle of Zborów. After the Russian October Revolution in 1917 and the peace treaty between the new Soviet state and the Central Powers, the Legions were placed under French command to be transferred to the western front via Vladivostok. Jaroslav Hasek preferred that his countrymen remain in Russia, in the hope that the front against the Central Powers would be reopened. Many left-wing groups disapproved of Lenin's Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, and it would have been natural for Hasek to align with those. In March 1918, fleeing from the advancing Germans, he reported to the Czech social democrats (Communists) in Moscow. In April he left the Czech Corps disagreeing with their transfer to France. In the spring of 1918, the relationship between the Czechs and the Bolsheviks deteriorated, and an armed rebellion broke out. This led Hasek into direct conflict with his former comrades. He and other Czech Communists were branded as traitors, and arrest orders were issued, with an emphasis on Hasek (Omsk 25 July 1918). By now all bridges had been burnt and from October he worked directly for the Bolshevik's 5th Army. Hasek was mainly responsible for propaganda and recruitment among the foreign prisoners of war. In the summer of 1920 the Bolsheviks had in effect won the Russian Civil War, and the many foreigners were deemed more useful as agitators in their home countries. On 26 August 1920 Hasek was ordered to report to the leadership of the Czech Communist Party. He arrived in Prague on 19 December, and spent a week in quarantine in Pardubice. By then the communist uprising had failed and the organizers had been arrested. If Hasek was controversial in pre-war Prague, he was even more so now; there was the threat of legal proceedings because of bigamy and he was widely unpopular due to his Bolshevik past. Around February/March 1921 he started to write The Good Soldier Svejk, planned to have six parts. The first part and the first chapter of the second were completed in Zizkov and was initially sold in instalments. Before the novel's November 1921 breakthrough, Hasek had moved to Lipnice (on 25 August 1921) where he completed part two, wrote part three, and started on the... See less