History Literature / TheGoodSoldierSvejk

* EskimosArentReal: An old priest learned that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo Saint Augustine of Hippo]] denied the existence of antipodes and started harrassing his servant, who was getting money from a son in Australia. After he damned her in church he was sent to a nuthouse.

* FoodPorn:
** Starving malingerers in Dr. Grünstein's hospital are descibed as discussing various delicacies with fervor and dedication of gourmets or students of cordon bleu cuisine school.

* HonestJohnsDealership: Prior to the outbreak of war Švejk was small-time dealer in dogs. His methods are described basically as "he falsified dog pedigrees for living" - and he's quite fond of recalling them.

** Why did one simulant eat arsenic? To imitate cholera symptoms.

* HilariousInHindsight:
** Otto Katz was baptized by Alban Schachleiter -- a real person. Shortly after Hašek's death Schachleiter met Hitler and became his staunch supporter. The infamous photo of a Catholic priest giving a nazi salute (often misattributed to Pius XII) is of pater Alban.
** Hašek accused the editor-in-chief of ''Československá republika'', Josef Stanislav Hevera, of writing inappropriately flattering illustrated biography of Frantz-Josef. Hevera did publish such a book -- but only 7 years later.

* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Švejk tells a story of a brothel which boasted about having a mermaid as one of their [[TheOldestProfession workers...]] who was actually an old fat whore with legs covered by green fabric and herring's tail stuffed in the ass.

** Subverted by Švejk, who volunteers, despite suffering from rheumatism so bad that he can't even walk, and he's wheeled to the recruitment office by his charwoman.

* CompositeCharacter: Švejk himself, who is a complex mix of the eponymous soldier from the 11th company, parts of Hašek's own experience (like his dog business), and one more of his innumerable friends, real Lieutenant Lukáš' batman, František Strašlipka, from whom Švejk gets his [[TheStoryteller storyteller's]] tendencies.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Lukáš is an incessant womanizer, but he's a competent, honorable officer, which is a rarity in this book. This is a reflection of Hašek's own experience, as he struck a good note with his own company commander and Lukáš's prototype, Rudolf Lukáš, who also has had a high opinion of him. Their battallion commander, captain Sagner, is one as well, though he's more ambiguous, being a reputed GloryHound and having WeHaveReserves tendencies.

''The Good Soldier Švejk'' is an unfinished [[{{Satire}} satirical]] [[WarIsHell anti-war]] novel by the Czech author and political activist Jaroslav Hašek. Originally named ''Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války''[[note]]''Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk in the World War''[[/note]] it, [[CaptainObvious naturally]], [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin tells us about the adventures of the titular soldier in ]] UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Such dry description, however, couldn't even try to approach the [[RuleOfFunny irreverent hilarity]] of the book, that from its very first lines sets to lampoon, satirize and hang to dry just about everything Hašek finds objectable in the Two-Headed Monarchy and [[ArmedFarces its military]]. Unfortunately, due to AuthorExistenceFailure (Hašek died in 1923 from tuberculosis) the novel got only about half-finished, with Hašek completing just three parts out of intended six. [[ExecutiveMeddling The publisher insisted]] on the rest [[PosthumousCollaboration being completed by his friend Karel Vanek]], though it ended up not as good and is rarely republished today, unike the original portion of the novel, which is the most translated book in the whole of Czech literature.

* CompositeCharacter: Švejk himself, who is a complex mix of the eponymous soldier from the 11th company, parts of Hašek's own experience (like his dog business), and one more of his innumerable friends, real Lieutenant Lukas' batman, František Strašlipka, from whom Švejk gets his [[TheStoryteller storyteller's]] tendencies.

-->When they took that man to the guard-house after the brawl they found on him the letter you had sent to Mrs Kákonyi. Your Svejk alleged under cross-examination that it was not your letter, but that he had written it himself. However, when it was shown to him and he was asked to copy it to compare the handwriting with his own, he ate it up.

* FatIdiot: Svejk and Marek subvert this due to ObfuscatingStupidity, while Baloun plays this straight.

* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Svejk tells a story of a brothel which boasted about having a mermaid as one of their [[TheOldestProfession workers...]] who was actually an old fat whore with legs covered by green fabric and herring's tail stuffed in the ass.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero\PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Nearly everyone in this novel is bigoted against some nation or social group. Except for Svejk - he seems to despise everyone equally.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Lukáš is an incessant womanizer, but he's a competent, honorable officer, which is a rarity in this book. This is a reflection of Hašek's own experience, as he struck a good note with his own company commander and Lukáš's prototype, Rudolf Lukas, who also has had a high opinion of him. Their battallion commander, captain Sagner, is one as well, though he's more ambiguous, being a reputed GloryHound and having WeHaveReserves tendencies.

* TheScrounger: Vanek the Quartermaster. A former chemist and an OldSoldier, he knows his stuff.
* SergeantRock: Feldwebel (Sergeant Major) Vanek, [=11th=] company's Quartermaster. Though cynical and self-serving, he's nevertheless competent, reliable, and as much of TheScrounger as possible.

** And of course, due to the Author Existence Failure, Švejk and his battalion actually never reached the frontline.

* UnfriendlyFire: According to Svejk's friend, sapper Vodička, {{fragging}} is common in the Austro-Hungarian army. He remembers murdering one of their own company soldiers who volunteered to execute Serbian civilians. There are also other mentions of the incompetent GloryHound officers wasted by their own troops.

The novel revolves around the titular soldier, a born and bred ''Pražák'' Josef Švejk, about whom even the author [[ShrugOfGod cannot seem to decide]], whether he is out to subvert all the idiocy around him through ObfuscatingStupidity, his blue-collar wits and common sense, and [[BotheringByTheBook dumb insolence]]; or he's indeed just as stupid as almost everyone around him seems to think. You see, the novel being set in a vast, archaic [[VestigialEmpire and crumbling]] Hapsburg Empire, where the Czechs like him (and the author) were considered Second Class Citizens at best, and which, like so many crumbling empires before, tried to prop itself by an extensive and intricate [[ObstructiveBureaucrat bureaucratic scaffolding]], this produced a lot of [[SurroundedByIdiots glaring, visible idiocy around]] for everyone to see, and a lot of [[DeadpanSnarker cynical, snarky people]] just trying to get by through it. Now, take everything said above, and try to [[UpToEleven put it into a military setting]] — and you'll see why Joseph Heller once said that had he read the novel before, he'd never write ''Literature/{{Catch-22}}''.

* [[DirectionlessDriver Directionless Pedestrian]]: Švejk during his "Anabasis" through Southern Bohemia - he insists that he's going to Budějovice to join his regiment and refuses to take any advice on the route from anyone,[[note]]It makes ''some'' sense - it's established that he served with the Southern Bohemian 91st Infantry Regiment earlier in peacetime and supposedly knows geography of the region from field training exercises.[[/note]] despite actually mostly walking in the opposite direction. Unsurprisingly he's mistaken for a deserter by just any character he encounters. With the exception of [[BadCopIncompetentCop Gendarmerie Sergeant Flanderka]], who mistakes him for a crafty [[MistakenForSpies Russian spy]].

* [[DirectionlessDriver Directionless Pedestrian]]: Švejk during his "Anabasis" through Southern Bohemia - he insists that he's going to Budějovice to join his regiment and refuses to take any advice on the route from anyone,[[note]]It makes ''some'' sense - it's established that he served with the Southern Bohemian 91st Infantry Regiment earlier in peacetime and supposedly knows geography of the region from field training exercises.[[/note]] despite actually mostly walking in the opposite direction. Unsurprisingly he's mistaken for a deserter by just any character he encounters. With the exception of Gendarmerie Sergeant Flanderka, who mistakes him for a crafty [[MistakenForSpies Russian spy]].

* [[DirectionlessDriver Directionless Pedestrian]]: Švejk during his "Anabasis" through Southern Bohemia - he insists that he's going to Budějovice to join his regiment and refuses to take any advice on the route from anyone,[[note]]It makes ''some'' sense - it's established that he served with the Southern Bohemian 91st Infantry Regiment earlier in peacetime and supposedly knows geography of the region from field training exercises.[[/note]] despite actually mostly walking in the opposite direction. Unsurprisingly he's mistaken for a deserter by just any character he encouters. With the exception of Gendarmerie Sergeant Flanderka, who mistakes him for a crafty [[MistakenForSpies Russian spy]].

** When they're leaving the stockade in comes one-year volunteer Marek, who's charged with TheMutiny, because he refused to clean the latrines, despit repeated direct orders. He treats it as a huge joke and is quite justified, as the court rules that - due to his one-year volunteer status - he was within his rights when refusing to perform such a menial task.

* FedToTheBeast: Early in the novel [[SecretPolice secret policeman]] Brettschneider feeds ''himself'' to seven dogs he successively bought from Švejk ([[ItMakesSenseInContext in order to get into Švejk's confidence]]), because he got money to buy them, but no budget for their food. Apparently he [[IdiotBall didn't think about]] disposing of the dogs.

* [[InsaneAdmiral Insane Brigadier]]: During the railway journey through Hungary the battalion started receiving telegrams with weird orders from its brigadier, such as: "Finish cooking, then quick march to Sokal. Intelligence service is abolished. Details in newspapers." (This becomes a minor RunningGag, with slightly differently worded telegram in each station they stopped.) They're informed that he went mad, but since his madness was [[ObstructiveBureaucrat not officially acknowledged]] by the army yet, they must be delivered. [[RulesLawyer On the other hand]], they don't have to obey the orders, since the telegrams [[BotheringByTheBook are not correctly encoded]].

* BavarianFireDrill: volunteer Marek recounts his succesfull unauthorized leaves from a military hospital, for which he acquired a [[DoorStopper big]], [[ClipboardOfAuthority officially looking]] book, which he labeled "Krankenbuch des 91. regt" in large letters and carefully [[CrazyPrepared filled with fake patients' names and their medical history]] and then used instead of a pass during his regular all-night visits to pubs.

* [[InsaneAdmiral Insane Brigadier]]: During the railway journey through Hungary the battalion started receiving telegrams with weird orders from its brigadier, such as: "Finnish cooking, then quick march to Sokal. Intelligence service is abolished. Details in newspapers." (This becomes a minor RunningGag, with slightly differently worded telegram in each station they stopped.) They're informed that he went mad, but since his madness was [[ObstructiveBureaucrat not officially acknowledged]] by the army yet, they must be delivered. [[RulesLawyer On the other hand]], they don't have to obey the orders, since the telegrams [[BotheringByTheBook are not correctly encoded]].

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the first few chapters Švejk often seems to be really plain dumb, not (possibly) just playing it. The character only really GrowsTheBeard when serving as chaplain's Katz batman.

''The Good Soldier Švejk'' is an unfinished [[{{Satire}} satirical]] [[WarIsHell anti-war]] novel by the Czech author and political activist Jaroslav Hašek. Originally named ''Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války''[[note]]''Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk in the World War''[[/note]] it, [[CaptainObvious naturally]], [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin tells us about the adventures of the titular soldier in ]] WorldWarOne. Such dry description, however, couldn't even try to approach the [[RuleOfFunny irreverent hilarity]] of the book, that from its very first lines sets to lampoon, satirize and hang to dry just about everything Hašek finds objectable in the Two-Headed Monarchy and [[ArmedFarces its military]]. Unfortunately, due to AuthorExistenceFailure (Hašek died in 1923 from tuberculosis) the novel got only about half-finished, with Hašek completing just three parts out of intended six. [[ExecutiveMeddling The publisher insisted]] on the rest [[PosthumousCollaboration being completed by his friend Karel Vanek]], though it ended up not as good and is rarely republished today, unike the original portion of the novel, which is the most translated book in the whole of Czech literature.

** Also played for laughs when one-year volunteer Marek reminiscences about his stint as the editor of magazine called ''The Animal World'' - when he ran out of his useful tips on farm animals and bee-keeping (which caused havoc in the areas where his tips were adhered to), he resorted to literally inventing something fresh - new animals with outrageously pseudoscientific names, improbable habitats and physiology. He also got involved in lengthy polemics with the editor of another journal, after Marek published photo of a jay sitting on a walnut tree, therefore rechristening it "nutcracker", which he later supported with [[RefugeInVulgarity vulgarities]] and [[WrongfullyAttributed false quotations]] from [[AppealToAuthority Alfred Brehm]], claiming e.g. that [[TaxonomicTermConfusion jays belong in the family ''Crocodilia'']].