The Unlikely Offspring of Good Soldier Svejk

Jaroslav Hasek's good soldier Svejk is sold as a souvenir doll in Prague . Clearly the character holds a lasting impact on our consciousness. Furthermore, literature produced in the wake of the novel contains events that seem Svejkian. Works as varied as Günter Grass' The Tin Drum and George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia carry Svejkian genes in their artistic DNA. Despite the stark contrast between the Hasek's, Grass' and Orwell's novels, Svejkian incidents occur both in the conscious use of satire and unconscious subtleties of thematic communication concerning war.

What does the spirit of Svejk involve? The certified idiot's mishaps during the Great War form one of the most pertinent satires on the absurdities of war. During various comic incidents leading from suspicions of treason to a loyal batman, Svejk seems to posses a naïve superiority over his masters. He smiles benevolently during each incident, accounts a seemingly unrelated analogy in response to the chaos around him, and walks away apparently unharmed. Thus, Svejk appears a trickster at the dawn of a century plagued by wars, simultaneously humbly serving and unconsciously rebelling against the war machine.

Thus, as J.P Stern notes, Hasek successfully satirises a bureaucratic military machine that is “corrupt and unjust, senseless and doomed to defeat, yet quite inescapable” (1). Through such satire, Svejk captures an absurd notion of existence during war. In Milan Kundera's view, the Svejkian spirit “turns the world into one enormous joke” (2) where the individual refuses to “take seriously anything at all” (3). Through the satirical clever idiot, the spirit of Svejk ridicules the political world that butchers innocent men in the name of Fatherland.

How does the spirit of the poignant absurdity of a world at war appear in latter works? Günter Grass' celebrated The Tin Drum accounts satirical critique of similar situations in the context of Nazi-Germany. The Lilliputian main character and narrator, Oskar Matzerath, often satirises and parodies incidents of the war and occupation occurring in his surroundings. Oskar appears more self-indulgent than Svejk, and thus the satire derives primarily from Oskar's own perceptions, differing from Hasek's portrayals in third person narrative.

However, the messages of Grass' satire contain Svejkian incidents. During the post-war years, Oskar encounters two military men, holding a survivor from the attack on the Polish Post Office as prisoner. Oskar is acquainted with “poor Victor” (4), and tries to save him. The military men, as justification, produce an execution order “issued in 1939” (5) and explain that “an order, if you will, is an order” (6). Portrayal of military men carrying out orders issued decades ago, from a military authority turned extinct, carries Svejkian connotations. Svejk accounts a valuable lesson taught to him in the 91 st regiment: “A soldier mustn't think for himself. His superiors do it for him” (7). Elsewhere, Svejk even expresses the exact same pattern of thought, assuring Lieutenant Lukas that “an order's an order” (8). Satire of soldiers following orders to the point of absurdity appears in both works, calling to attention the moral value of individual responsibility during war.

Despite the differences with Oskar and Svejk, the two characters still hold similar qualities in their satirical potency. Svejk benevolently creates chaos by following orders, disrupting the system he seemingly serves. Thus he acts as an innocent trickster rather than a political rebel, as his actions follow no agenda. Oskar's views carry a tone of child-like selfishness. However, Glenn Guidry notes Oskar is also a trickster, portraying the chaos of his time “brought by the destruction of the old order” (9). Thus, Oskar occasionally acts defiantly without political goals. He disrupts a Nazi rally with his drumming. Quick to explain himself, Oskar assures the reader the act was not political resistance, but rather done for “private and perhaps more esthetic reasons” (10). Thus, Oskar, like Svejk, causes disruption to the political system around him, while, as Michael Minden notes, the act “is not itself ideological” (11). Rejecting political agenda, the Svejkian spirit in both novels paints a more human basis for opposition to authoritarianism.

Finally, both Grass and Hasek effectively satirise the slaughter of war. As Svejk is called to the front, he is stricken with rheumatism, and Mrs Müller, his charwoman, has to push the good soldier to war. The portrayal of Svejk's march to war is parodied as a “moving example of loyalty” (12). An old woman pushing “a bath chair in which sat a man in an army cap with a finely polished imperial badge” (13) highlights the absurd situation. War consumes men physically unable to take part in battle. Thus, the blind loyalty to defend a government that allows such acts appears entirely ridiculous.

The achievements of the Polish cavalry against German tanks in The Tin Drum appear equally futile through the satire. Oskar portrays the forces “brilliantly galloping” (14) in wait of the dramatic sunset. Then, the cavalry rides “against the grey steel foe, adding another dash of red to the sunset glow” (15) . The satirical of poetry renders horses attacking tanks into a powerful image of a senseless, futile war. Though the images differ, both authors mock the romantic view of marching to the front, stripping the glory out of war, until only an image of poor souls marching to a futile fight remains. Through such grim mockery, the two novels appear as kindred spirits.

The Svejkian incidents appear in Grass' novel through the presence of satire. How does a novel without satirical qualities display similar genes? The question is crucial to George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia , an autobiographical document of the author's experiences in the Spanish Civil War. Orwell, unlike Oskar and Svejk, has political ideologies. As Jeffrey Meyers notes, throughout the novel, the author is “responsible, active, rejecting the horrors of the modern world and committing himself to change them” (16) . The novel is a reportage and an homage to the Socialists whom Orwell joined in combat, and consequently, the depiction of the political ideologies carries a spirit of hope. At first read, Homage to Catalonia seems like a polar opposite to a spirit of a benevolent, a-political trickster satirising the absurdity of war.

On a closer view, Orwell's novel is seemingly unconscious of the Svejkian incidents that occur in the report. Portraying the enthusiastic POUM troops, Orwell notes that a majority of the force was comprised of teenage boys “full of revolutionary ardour but completely ignorant of the meaning of war” (17) . Orwell elaborates that troops waiting to leave to the frontline “were not even taught how to fire a rifle” (18). The image of untrained soldiers unfit to battle heading to the frontline seems sad in the factual context, but the set-up contains a Svejkian incident. Perhaps the absurd satire of Svejk is closer to realism than previously supposed. It seems that Orwell subtly notes that the soldiers are equally un-fit for battle as a rheumatic fool pushed to war on a bath chair.

Shining a similar light elsewhere in the novel, Orwell's work begins showing more Svejkian incidents. Orwell criticises the internal power-struggle between the different militias of the left and the Soviet controlled Communist army. The power-struggle distracts the proceedings of war, as the papers fill with “malignant jibing against the militias” (19). Yet, essentially, the opposing parties are fighting against the same foe, Franco. The situation bears similarities to Hasek's portrayal of three medical officials assessing Svejk, “whose views were such that the view of each differed gloriously from any of the views of the other two” (20). The medical authorities seek personal benefit instead of universal understanding, similarly to the Communists authorities during the Spanish Civil war. The Svejkian nature of the internecine struggle of the political parties becomes increasingly clearer as the POUM is declared illegal, and suddenly Orwell finds that “one was breaking the law by having previously belonged to it” (21). Suddenly an act is criminal simply because the authorities have unjustly changed the rules. Similarly, in Hasek's novel, the inn-keeper Mr. Palivec faces accusations of treason because flies defecated on his portrait of the emperor. Through portraying victims of an absurd, unjust, assertion of power, Orwell's account takes on Svejkian elements.

Yet Orwell's work is noteworthy for its positive view on humanity. Orwell views the Fascist troops as equally human, and during battle, opposing forces inform the author that “they did not want to fight and would only be too glad to live and let live” (22). Keith Alldritt finds that Orwell's portrayal of the war celebrates “hope, comradeship and community” (23). Can such a novel truly share the spirit of the absurd satire in Good Soldier Svejk ? Yes, as Svejk also essentially discusses humanity thrust to the chaos of war. The narrator of the novel recalls a mathematics teacher who rejects fighting in a war as shooting and killing “teachers of mathematics serving on the other side seemed to him sheer idiocy” (24). Both novels recognize that in war, ordinary men fight each other, while questionable authority figures freely play lives as pawns. Orwell, through his own ideological views, refuses to satirise his battle. Regardless, he records Svejkian incidents, as the situation of the Spanish Civil War is essentially a Svejkian, absurd conflict.

The spirit of Svejk has touched the construction of several works produced after Hasek's novel. In writing a novel concerning the Germans during the Third Reich, Günter Grass applied similar works of satire to the futility and injustice of war, and portrays his main character as an apolitical trickster. Orwell's Svejkian construct appears subtler, as it remains questionable whether the author intended to record episodes similar to Hasek's satire. However, the absurd elements of the Spanish Civil War rendered events of the plot to Svejkian incidents. As such, Hasek's novel achieves more than just satire of a particular war. In Good Soldier Svejk , he captures a notion of the universal human condition that sadly prevailed during the 20 th century. Today, with the on-going, absurd and intangible War on Terror, fifteen minutes of the news is enough to ascertain that Svejk still lives, in a far more universal form than souvenir dolls in Prague.

By Juha Virtanen

Copyright January 2006

Notes

(1)Stern, JP. ‘On the Integrity of the Good Soldier Schweik'. Forum for Modern Language Studies 2 . 1966. pp. 14 (2)Kundera, Milan . ‘Notes Inspired by “The Sleepwalkers”'. The Art of the Novel . Perennial Classics. New York . 2000. pp 49 (3)Ibid (4)Grass, Günter. The Tin Drum. Vintage. 2004. Reading . pp. 550 (5)Ibid ,549 (6)Ibid (7)Hasek, Jaroslav. ‘Part 1: Behind the Lines'. The Good Soldier Svejk . Penguin Classics. 2000. London . pp. 76 (8)Ibid, 120 (9)Guidry, Glenn. ‘Theoretical Reflection on the Ideological and Social Implications of Mythic Form in Grass' Die Blechtrommel' . Monatshefte 83:2 . 1991. pp.137 (10)Grass, 109 (11)Minden, Michael. ‘A Post-Realist Aesthetic: Günter Grass, Die Blechtrommel' in Midgeley, David (ed). The German Novel in the Twentieth Century: Beyond Realism. Edingburgh. 1993. pp. 158 (12) Hasek, 58 (13)Ibid (14) Grass, 233 (15)Ibid (16)Meyers, Jeffrey. ‘An Affirming Flame: Homage to Catalonia ' . A Readers Guide to George Orwell. Thames and Hudson . 1975. London . pp. 113 (17) Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia . Penguin Books. London . 2003.pp 8 (18)Ibid ,9 (19)Ibid, 97 (20) Hasek, 28 (21) Orwell, 167 (22)Ibid , 116 (23)Alldritt, Keith. The Making of George Orwell: An Essay in Literary History. Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd. 1969. London . pp 92 (24) Hasek, 79