The Good Soldier Švejk

Map of Austria-Hungary in 1914. The itinerary of Švejk took place entirely within the borders of the Dual Monarchy.

"The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk" is a novel which contains a wealth of geographical references - either directly through the plot, in dialogues or in the authors own observations. Jaroslav Hašek was himself unusually well travelled and had a photographic memory of geographical (and other) details. It is evident that he put great emphasis on this: 8 of the 27 chapter headlines in Švejk contain place names. In addition to the geographical names, he often refers to public houses and other institutions, which in most cases, even today, can be located.

This web page will in due course contain a full overview of all the geographical references in the novel; from Prague in the introduction to Klimontów in the unfinished Book Four. Countries, cities, towns, villages, mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, islands, buildings and taverns are included. The list is sorted according to the order in which the names appear throughout the novel. The chapter headlines are from Zenny K. Sadlon's recent translation and will in most cases differ from Cecil Parrott's older version.

Note that the descriptions from Book One mostly cover places where the plot actually takes place. From Book Two onwards the all the descriptions are available, and are gradually being added also to Book One. For a full overview of place names from Book One, see the Norwegian version.

The names are coloured according to their role in the novel, illustrated by these examples: Sanok as a location where the plot takes place, Dubno mentioned in the narrative, Zagreb as part of a dialogue, and Pakoměřice as mentioned in an anecdote.