Paul Balsavich
One of the most famous and widely read novels published after the First World War was The Good Soldier Svejk written by Jaroslav Hasek, a Czech in Bohemia under the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. It has been described as one of the most powerful and brilliant literary protests ever written against oppression, corrupt officials, authoritarianism, and war. We need to look at “the way it is” implying “the way it should be” for Svejk in his time. The story begins with Svejk as a civilian when Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated at Sarejevo in Bosnia precipitating the First World War. Under the Hapsburg Monarchy ruling the province of Bohemia where Svejk lived, there were few laws protecting the citizenry from prosecutors, magistrates, or review boards. In civil life there were plain clothes inspectors seeking to jail dissidents and malcontents (13). In the military there were spies and informers betraying their comrades (79). Family letters were censored and their contents describing miserable conditions at home used as evidence to sentence their writers to lengthy prison terms. About one-third of those citizens apprehended only for interrogation stayed in jail without any interrogation for the whole four-year war (92). These abuses including physical brutality were inherent under the Emperor’s rule even without detailing that aspect of human frailty we will discus later. At that time it certainly was not “the way it should be.”
Although The Good Soldier Svejk was a popular success from the beginning, literary critics did not take it seriously for many years. However, it is as relevant for readers today as it was then. And Bosnia in the Balkans remains a hot spot even today. Svejk is the classic “little man” fighting against the establishment, officialdom, bureaucracy, and bungling by incompetents in the aristocracy, bureaucracy, military, police, doctors, and clergy holding power and control. Soldier Svejk has some semblance of the “Sad Sack” cartoon character in the US army of World War II, a hapless enlisted man in every unit relentlessly dogged by misfortune. There is also a touch of Inspector Clousseau, the bumbling French detective in the Pink Panther movies in which inevitable disaster befalls those schemers bedeviling him.
However, Josef Svejk is revealed as a more complex, authentic character than these, and is certainly based on the experiences of his creator, Jaroslav Hasek, who actually served in the 91st Infantry Regiment of the Austrian Army and to which Svejk is attached in the novel. Yet Svejk is not the biographical duplicate of Hasek who had shown himself utterly incapable of living a life conforming to any standards of genteel society. Hasek was bohemian in lifestyle and essentially an anarchist, whereas Svejk conformed and professed adherence to law and order to the point of absurdity. Before the examining magistrate Svejk says:
I’ve probably got more on my conscience than Your Worship . . . “that’s clear from the statement you’ve signed,” said the magistrate . . . “They didn’t bring any pressure on you at the police station, did they?” Why, of course not, Your Worship. I asked them myself if I had to sign it, and when they told me to do so I obeyed. . . There must be law and order (25).
Other characters are modeled after 91st Regiment real life personnel and during his military tour Hasek absorbed material for their character development and dialogue, as well. One of the most flagrantly corrupt officials is the regimental chaplain. Young Otto Katz of Jewish ancestry had himself baptized as a Christian, and after his ordination won appointment as a Regimental Chaplain, a position he demeaned with his dissolute behavior. Another chaplain asks why he, Katz, was a chaplain:
“My dear colleague,” answered Katz . . . “soldiers going to their deaths don’t need the blessing of God for it, the chaplaincy remains a decently paid profession . .. I do what I like. I represent someone who doesn’t exist and myself play the part of God” (139).
How could Chaplain Katz be so openly venal, self-serving, and supremely hypocritical?Hasek uses satire to the utmost throughout the novel and the misadventures and travails of the ever-present Svejk make for a tale highly satirical, humorous, symbolic, irreligious, and bawdy. Svejk is lampooned as the only loyal Czech in the Austrian army of 1914, with his crowning achievement coming when he is captured by his own troops! Why did Svejk do such foolish things as proudly proclaiming that he had left previous military service after having been officially certified by an army medical board as an imbecile? At police headquarters Svejk is led into an office:
. . . beaming with his natural simplicity, [Svejk] said as he came into the office:A very good evening to you all, gentlemen . . . “Take that idiotic expression off your face” . . . I can’t help it replied Svejk solemnly. I was discharged from the army for idiocy and officially certified by a special commission . . . I’m an official idiot (20).
To understand Svejk’s character remember he lived under the government of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with its Austrian Germanic rigid, authoritarian rule and highly militaristic culture. In the absence of democratic principles there was an almost complete absence of civil rights as we know them. Legal protections did not apply equally to all members of society. Svejk survived in his dangerous world by adapting to the immediate situation with his own inimitable behavior. His simplicity, gentle countenance, innocent gaze, good-humored smile, pretended agreement, and never-ending stream of anecdotes completely disarm his infuriated superiors. Svejk is a survivor in any situation he finds himself, leaving his tormentors frustrated, or speechless, or just mumbling to themselves. But Svejk is not merely a long-suffering, perfectly innocent victim of oppressive society. He shows an instinctive cunning or “street smarts” which repeatedly saves him. In the few times he has the upper hand he can certainly be decisive, almost ruthless. But there are times when Svejk’s complete subservience and abject acceptance of any abuse makes the reader wonder whether the medical ruling of “imbecile” might not be correct. After having been questioned at police headquarters:
. . . Svejk told all the detainees that this kind of interrogation was fun . . . In the old days . . . it used to be worse . . . nowadays it’s fun being locked up . . . There’s no quartering, no Spanish boots. We’ve got bunks . . . we get soup . . . bread . . . a jug of water. We’ve got our latrines . . . be glad at least you’re not alone here (21).
Defending a “modern way” of imprisoning citizens and being happy about it would surely be done only by an imbecile! In civilian life, however, Svejk makes his living by selling mongrel dogs whose pedigrees he shamelessly forges to order for the breed wanted by the buyer. He swindles and cheats his fellow Czechs without compunction, but his way of doing it seems almost funny. In the end Svejk emerges as a modest, anonymous, sympathetic hero. That was “the way it is” then.
But what about “the way it is” today? Truly, human conditions have undergone remarkable improvement with more democratic governments and more benevolent treatment of the governed than ever before. However, there are still too many of the world population living under despotic regimes, suffering varying degrees of repression and other miseries. But this is largely beyond our control or immediate power to influence. More germane is “the way it is” in our own United States. We have the great, good fortune to live under the most inspired, visionary, and revolutionary concept of political governance yet conceived by man. Our founding fathers have defined specific inalienable rights in our precious Constitution: our citizens choose their own officials, government is limited to those powers granted by the Constitution and laws passed by elected legislators, guaranteeing full and equal protection for each and every citizen. Fortuitously we are born into this priceless political legacy and fatuously tend to take it for granted. So, are we guaranteed a golden age–life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–free of the injustices satirized in the life of Svejk? Obviously not—why? It’s simply that fair and equal treatment under the law depends primarily upon, and is no better than, the integrity of the human beings charged with upholding this ideal. Because all human beings are flawed their faults are reflected as inequities in society and need redress for the common good.
Just proclaiming “fair and equal” for all is easy, but it seems that our human nature does not object when some advantage, accidental or contrived, favors us rather than someone else. Yet, it’s probably fair to say that our vast majority have some sense of good principle guiding relations with their fellow human beings. If this were not true, disregarding social mores and lawful regulation would inevitably result in chaos, and ultimate disappearance of our society as befell previous lost civilizations. Then where is our risk today?
Aside from outright criminals, what about individuals who maintain all outward trappings of the law-abiding society yet furtively scheme to impose their dictum by any means? They form cliques inside government, business, societies, churches, academia, armed forces, etc. They are the insider rings, the good-old-boy networks, the underground, who insidiously undermine any semblance of a merit system without regard to “fair and equal”. They operate secretly against legitimate leadership, other cliques, or some targeted individual. The intended target may be subjected to invasion of privacy, character defamation, personal harassment, even criminal trespass, theft or vandalism of property, danger to health or person. There are surely risks in “the way it is” today as there were in the time of Svejk. Is this cause for apprehension or pessimism? Rather, our spirit should be fortified when we encounter and combat incipient-criminal renegades who subvert “the way it is.” Upholding “fair and equal” protection for each of our fellow citizens, however humble, is incumbent upon all of us, that our society may become in every respect the “way it should be.”
Work Cited
Hasek, Jaroslav. The Good Soldier Svejk Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics. Penguin Books. England, St. Ives Pk: 1974. 3-216.