The Good Soldier Švejk

	Lacina, Ludvík Jakub
	*25.7.1868 Nedakonice - †15.7.1928 Valašské Meziříčí
cz Search Švejkův slovník

Lacina was a Roman Catholic priest from Moravia who served in the k.u.k. Heer as a regular army chaplain from 1906 to 1918. As he was assigned to Kavalleriedivision Nr. 7 from 1913 to 1916 and was the only military cleric with this surname in Austria-Hungary, there is no doubt that he was the model for the literary Feldoberkurat Lacina. He was identified as Hašek's feldkurát in an obituary published in Národní listy in 1928.

Early life

The son of teacher Ludvík Lacina and Emilia, he was born in 1868 in Nedakonice, okres Uherské Hradiště in Moravia; his right of domicile was Nedakonice. In 1877 his father took up a position as a teacher in Nový Hrozenkov on the Slovakian border, and in 1881 he became head teacher in Lešná near Valašské Meziříčí, a position he held until 1902. His son Ludvík must therefore have lived in all these places before moving to Olomouc to begin his clerical education. Eventually, Lacina Sr. moved a short distance to Krásná nad Bečvou (now part of Valašské Meziříčí), where he continued as head teacher and was also elected mayor.

Civilian career

Lacina studied at the Czech gymnasium in Valašské Meziříčí, graduating in 1887, then studied theology in Olomouc and Gorizia (Görz). He was drafted into the armed forces in 1888, but details about his compulsory service in the k.u.k. Heer are missing. However, he is listed as a reserve field chaplain in 1899. He was ordained as a priest in Gorizia on 18 April 1892. For the next two years, he worked as a chaplain at the parish in nearby Šempeter pri Gorici (St. Peter bei Görz).

In 1894 he moved to Vienna and appears in the address book from 1897 under the name Ljudevik Lacina, title Priester. He lived in Wiedner Hauptstrasse 82, IV. Bezirk. In Wiener Kommunal-Kalender und städtisches Jahrbuch (Vienna Municipal Calendar and City Yearbook) from 1896 he is entered as a teacher of Catholic religion at a primary school in Leopold Ernstgasse 37.

Lacina worked as a teacher until 1906, the year he joined the army as a regular field chaplain. The city yearbooks reveal that he taught both boys and girls (these were gender-segregated schools) but often changed schools. He is listed at no fewer than eight home addresses up to and including 1909. His address in 1906 was Wurlitzer-gasse 9, XVI. Bezirk. He lived in at least three of the capital’s districts during his 14-year stay in Vienna.

Cyclist and musician

In the cultural sphere, he was very active, particularly in music, where he excelled as a singer and also played the piano and accordion. As a student at Musikschule Kaiser in 1900 and 1901, he passed the Staatsprüfung (state examination) in singing, piano and organ playing.

Lacina was also an active cyclist, and newspapers record that, to great acclaim, he played the piano at gatherings of the Christian Cyclists Association.

In December 1899, the cyclist and cleric Lacina hit the headlines. Sitting with a group of other cyclists in Tiroler Weinstube on 11 July 1899, they overheard a railway employee describing the Social-Clerical Party as a "Saubande" (pack of swine) and adding other derogatory terms. Lacina and his group objected, and a heated argument erupted—indeed, so heated that the belligerents ended up at Polizeikommisoriat, and eventually in court. Lacina sued on the basis that the harsh words were an insult to the entire Catholic clergy, but the defendant Josef Wild claimed they were aimed only at the Clerical Party. In the end, the court acquitted the accused railwayman.

In k.u.k. Heer

On 1 November 1906, Lacina joined the k.u.k. Heer as an active (i.e. professional) military cleric. For the first two years, he served with the Feldsuperiorat in Vienna as Feldkurat 2. Klasse, from January 1909 to February 1912 in Gorizia, before being transferred to Maribor. On 21 January 1913, he changed assignment again, now to Kavalleriedivision Nr. 7 in Kraków, the division mentioned by Hašek in The Good Soldier Švejk. He served in the field with this division from the outbreak of war. In 1915, he was decorated with the Geistliche Verdienstkreuz zweiter Klasse am Weissroten Bande. In August 1916, he was transferred to K.u.k Mobiles Reserve-Spital Nr. 2/10, serving with the 2nd Army behind the lines on the Eastern Front.

Documents from the Czechoslovak army state that, during the war, he served in Russian Poland, Galicia, and finally for 18 months in Albania. These records do not contain firm dates for his assignments in the k.u.k. Heer.

Disciplinary record

When he entered the army clergy, Lacina had a spotless record, but this was soon to change. Several incidents are recorded during his 12-year army career, resulting in several written warnings. Lacina, however, defended himself quite eloquently, and the measures taken against him never seem to have gone beyond reprimands and transfers.

The first recorded incident occurred in March 1910 in Gorizia when Lacina allegedly charged the widow of an officer 6 crowns for her late husband's funeral and accompanying holy mass. K.u.k. Feldvikariat in Vienna issued a strongly worded response stating that "he, despite previous warnings, didn't seem to have bettered himself". He was berated for his "filthy greed" and "unusual laziness and indolence", and the Feldvikar (Roman Catholic military bishop) had "lost every remaining trust in him (Lacina) that he ever had". Expulsion from k.u.k. Militärseelsorge loomed, but in the end he was shown mercy and allowed to continue. It will have helped that fellow officers put in a good word for him.

Less than a year later, he was in trouble again. During a masquerade ball at Deutsche Schulverein in Gorizia on 21 January 1911, Lacina was present, and he was soon after accused of behaviour incompatible with that expected of a military cleric. Reportedly, he was involved in a joke with an officer dressed as a lady, which was deemed inappropriate. More gravely, he was accused of allowing a lady to stay overnight at his flat. These incidents caused gossip and consternation in the city, and reflected badly on the military clergy as a whole. Again, fellow officers backed him, but a few months later he received a stern warning from military bishop Bjelik. He was offered the chance to resign voluntarily within six months, and if anything untoward happened during this period, he would be dismissed.

He was even ordered to report to a monastery for eight days to undergo geistliche Exercisien (spiritual retreats). In a letter dated 22 April 1911, he informed his superior in Vienna that he had undergone spiritual cleansing at Kapuzinerkloster in Gorizia, and the attached testimony from the monastery (written in Latin) confirms that this took place from 8 to 15 April.

The incident at the masquerade ball is almost certainly the reason for his transfer from Gorizia to Maribor. This seems to have taken place in February 1912.

During the war

When the war broke out, he was still with Kavalleriedivision Nr. 7 in Kraków. He served with this unit at the front in Poland and Galicia from 1 August 1914 to 14 August 1916. In 1915, he was decorated, but in 1916 the division requested that he be transferred to a less demanding post as he "was not up to the tasks demanded by a cavalry division".

He was thus, in August 1916, transferred to Mobile Reservespital Nr. 2/10 (the 10th mobile reserve hospital of the 2nd Army), but before that he had been proposed for promotion by Kavalleriedivision Nr. 7. The attempted promotion was so-called Aussertourlich (out of turn), as 29 priests were ahead of him in the queue for promotion. Military bishop Emmerich Bjelik therefore rejected the application, not only for this reason but also due to the field chaplain’s relatively short time in service (10 years) and his poor disciplinary record.

The rejection led to another incident, and this time the bishop himself was on the receiving end. Lacina turned up in the bishop’s office on 18 October 1916 to enquire about the promotion. When told the verdict, he lost his temper and lashed out at his superior, accusing Bjelik of persecuting him and wishing that the Mother of God punish him. In the end the bishop was quite lenient: he reported the incident to Kriegsministerium but asked that the punishment be no more than a stern warning.

Miha Šimac has recorded Bjelik’s disciplinary report on Lacina during his research, and reproduces it in his book Vojaški duhovniki iz slovenskih dežel pod habsburškim žezlom, Ljubljana: Teološka fakulteta, 2014, pages 373–374.

Feldkurat Lacina – Disziplinärwidriges Genehmen

Der Feldkurat Lacina des Mob. ResSpitals Nr. 2/10, welcher schon von meinem Vorgänger wegen seiner Lauheit im Dienste und Pflichtvergessenheit oft gemahnt und gerügt, wiederholt strafweise versetzt und wegen grober Verletzung der Standesehre auch mit einem strengen Verweise bestraft, von den namentlich jüngeren Offizieren aber, - weil er ein guter Gesellschafter, Klavierspieler und kein Spassverderber war – gerne in Schutz genommen wurde, ist mit Befürwortung des 2. A-Kmdos von der 7. KTD zur Beförderung in die VIII. Rangklasse außer der [Bar. ?] beantragt worden.

Er ist am 18. i. Mts. bei mir erschienen und hat sich auf den vorerwähnten Antrag berufen und um seine Beförderung gebeten. Ich habe unter Hinweis auf sein so oft beanständetes Verhalten vor dem Kriege die Erfüllung dieser Bitte abgelehnt und musste dies, als er unter Hervorhebung seiner 10-jährigen Dienstzeit und seines Alters das Ansuchen mit heftigem, ungebührendem Ton und eben solcher Haltung wiederholte als eine Dreistigkeit und Kränkung seiner wohlverdienten Vordermänner energisch zurückweisen. Er gebärdete sich aber in ungehöriger Art weiter und warf mit verletzendem Ton und anmassender Haltung vor, dass ich ihn verfolge und verfluchte mich, die Mutter Gottes solle mich strafen und sie werde es auch tun, wie es auch dem verstorbenen Weihbischof Marschall geschehen, dem er auch gleiches gewünscht habe. Ich bringe dieses achtungswidrige, die Auktorität und Disziplin tief verletzende Benehmen des Feldkuraten Lacina zur Kenntnis und bitte, - da es sich um meine Persone handelt, - von einer härteren Ahndung absehen und ihn nur mit einem strengen Verweise und Verwarnung bestrafen lassen zu wollen.

Bjelik, Bischof, Apostolischer Feldvikar

Throughout the rest of 1916 and 1917, Lacina continued in the mobile reserve hospital, and again there were controversies. During an inspection on 4 December 1916 by Feldsuperior Várady, a number of wounded soldiers at the hospital complained that they had not received Holy Communion from the field chaplain for eight weeks.

In September 1917, he was also accused of having arranged the illicit collection of money from the hospital’s patients. Lacina energetically refuted the accusations and requested that the case be investigated by the military judiciary. On 7 October 1917 XIX. Korpskommando concluded that he had indeed committed a transgression but had not violated the letter of the law. The case was thus left for the Feldsuperiorat to decide. The latest recorded correspondence regarding the matter is dated 16 December 1917, and the outcome is unclear.

Location

One of the documents suggests that the reserve hospital was located in the cavalry barracks of Kamionka Strumiłowa in 1916, and this makes sense as the 2nd Army was operating in eastern Galicia at the time. His documents from the Czechoslovak army claim that he served for 18 months in Albania, and the correspondence regarding the money-collection case shows the location of Feldsuperiorat as Skutari (now Shkodër). It thus appears that the mobile reserve hospital was transported to Albania in early 1917.

His whereabouts during 1918 are not known, apart from the fact that he was back in his native Moravia by the time Austria-Hungary collapsed, and that on 14 August 1918 he had arrived in the spa town of Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), registered with the permanent address Krasna.

In the Czechoslovak Army

When Czechoslovak independence was declared on 28 October 1918, he was stationed in Hranice na Moravě and immediately joined the army of the newly formed state, where he remained as an active military cleric for another three years. In the Czechoslovak Army, his record is spotless, and the army documents do not mention any of the disciplinary issues from his time in the k.u.k. Heer.

On 3 May 1919, he was promoted to vrchní polní kurát (chief field chaplain) and was stationed in Hranice na Moravě, Moravská Ostrava, Hradec Králové, Chomutov, and Pardubice. From 22 January 1921, he reported ill and was hospitalised in Pardubice and Prague. He was eventually superarbitriert on 26 August and retired on 27 September. The reasons for his illness and early retirement are not known. Lacina died in his native Moravia at the age of 60 and is buried in Valašské Meziříčí.

Meeting Hašek before the war?

The fact that Jaroslav Hašek knew exactly which unit Lacina served with indicates that the two met in person at some stage. According to Radko Pytlík and his book Kniha o Švejkovi p.146, Hašek met Lacina on one of his wanderings before the war and that the latter had a liking for animals, both alive and on the dinner table—something that may have drawn the author’s attention.

When and where the two could have met is, however, not clear because the author’s and the field chaplain’s domiciles never overlapped, and Hašek is not known to have travelled to areas where Lacina lived at the time (the opposite is of course possible). Nor do we know where Radko Pytlík obtained this information, but he mentions the first name Ludvík and the geographical affinity to Valašské Meziříčí, so the source appears reliable enough. In his book Osudy a cesty Josefa Švejka (2003), Pytlík elaborates on the theme and suggests that the two met already when Hašek was editor of Svět zvířat (1909–1910)[a]. Pytlík also adds that Lacina was a frequent guest in bars and coffee houses.

Given that Hašek knew which unit the field chaplain served with, any meeting between the two is unlikely to have happened before January 1913, when Lacina was transferred to Kavalleriedivision Nr. 7 in Kraków. In the summers of 1913 and 1914, Jaroslav Hašek, together with Zdeněk Matěj Kuděj, undertook two major trips, both in Bohemia, i.e. in areas where Lacina would not typically spend time. Kuděj later described both journeys in detail and never mentioned any field chaplain. In the autumn of 1914, Hašek spent some time around Jaroměř, but it seems unlikely that Lacina ventured into this area at the time. He had, after all, just been called up for front duty.

Meeting Hašek in 1915?

That the two met during the war is also possible, and if so, it is likely to have happened when the field chaplain was on leave—a hypothesis supported by the fact that the literary Lacina turned up at the railway station in Budějovice in a hard hat, indicating that he was off duty. Could he have been visiting someone in the city around 1 June 1915, when Ersatzbataillon IR. 91 departed for Bruck an der Leitha - Királyhida? That the two met in the field later that year is unlikely, as Kavalleriedivision Nr. 7 did not operate in the same areas as Infanterieregiment Nr. 91.

Polish translator of The Good Soldier Švejk, Antoni Kroh, claims that Hašek met Lacina on the way to the front in Galicia, but does not reveal the source of this information.

Pardubice 1920?

A more tangible link is Pardubice, where Jaroslav Hašek and his wife spent a week in quarantine after returning from Russia in December 1920. From 1 October 1920 to 27 September 1921, Lacina served with the local garrison in the 2nd reserve hospital, now, of course, as a Czechoslovak officer.

Interestingly, he had by now advanced to chief field chaplain, exactly the rank Jaroslav Hašek assigned to him in The Good Soldier Švejk. However, this may not mean much, as the author quite liberally juggled ranks (this was also the case with Feldoberkurat Ibl).

Another caricature?

It is open to speculation whether the grotesque traits that Jaroslav Hašek assigns to the chief field chaplain have any root in reality. Two of the field chaplains who take part in the plot are obvious caricatures without any obvious model from real life (Feldkurat Katz and Feldkurat Martinec); one shares a name with a real field chaplain (Feldoberkurat Ibl) but not much else. Lacina therefore remains the only field chaplain with some firm connection to a real person. The personal traits and situations that Hašek assigns to his Feldoberkurat travelling with Švejk and Einjährigfreiwilliger Marek are obvious caricatures, but there is no doubt that Lacina was a loose cannon in Militärseelsorge. Although not officially recorded, it is quite possible that his excesses also included drunkenness and gluttony.

Qualifikationsliste

Am mobilisierungstage eingerückt zur k.u.k. 7. K.D. (1. VIII. 1914 bis nach 14. VII. 1916). 2. Dezember. Hl. Messe mit Ansprache und hl. Segen für das k.u.k. Ulanenregiment Nr. 2 in den Schützengräben /: Seine wie stets stark im Vertrauen auf Gott; deutsch, polnisch./

Jaroslav Šerák

Jeho otec byl učitel v Nedakovicích a jeho matka pocházela také z učitelské rodiny Antonína Peka ze Štípě (Štípa u Zlína). Děd našeho pátera Jan, měl ve Štípě hospodu.

Credit: Miha Šimac, Václav Petera, Jaroslav Šerák, Radko Pytlík, VÚA, ÖStA

Literature

Osudy a cesty Josefa Švejka, Radko Pytlík,2003
Lacina Ludvík, Jaroslav Šerák
Ludvík Lacina, Wikipedia.cz
Matrika, Nedakonice, Moravský zemský archiv Brno
K.u.k. Militär- und Marinegeistlichket 1907, Feldkonsistorium
7. Nachweis. Einwohner von Wien nebst Floridsdorf und Jedlersdorf, Adolph Lehmann's allgemeiner Wohnungs-Anzeiger,1901
Lehreranstellungen, Die Neue Zeit,25.2.1877
Lehrer-Ernennungen, Mährisches Tagblatt,24.11.1881
Abiturienti, rok 1887, Gymnázium Františka Palackého Valašské Meziříčí
Die erste Verbandspartie des Verbandes der christlichen Radfahrer Oesterreichs, Deutsches Volksblatt,23.4.1899
Der Geistliche in Radfahrerdress, Arbeiter-Zeitung,2.12.1899
Musik-Staatsprüfungen, Marburger Zeitung,27.6.1901
Zu ernennen, Wiener Zeitung,28.10.1906
Aus dem Armee-Verordnungsblatte, Grazer Tagblatt,9.1.1909
Z c.a k.. apoštolského polního vikariátu, Čech,19.2.1909
Novarafeier des 47. Infanterieregimentes, Reichspost,30.3.1909
Aus dem Heeresverordnungsblatt, Neue Freie Presse,12.1.1913
Auszeichnungen für Verdienste om Kriege, Pester Lloyd,6.11.1916
Angemeldet am 14. August 1918, Karlsbader Kurliste,16.8.1918
Vrchním polním kurátem, Osobní věstník čs. ministerstva národní obrany,17.5.1919
Přeložini do vyslužby, Osobní věstník čs. ministerstva národní obrany,10.12.1921
Odvolání, Hlasy z Pobečví,6.11.1925
Haškův polní kurát Lacina zemřel, Národní listy,20.7.1928
Val. Meziříčí, Důstojnické listy,9.8.1928
Zemřeli, Osobní věstník čs. ministerstva národní obrany,22.12.1928

References
a	Osudy a cesty Josefa Švejka	Radko Pytlík	2003

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