The Good Soldier Švejk

	Švejk, Josef
*8.6.1865 Svatá Kateřina - †18.11.1939 Svatá Kateřina
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Švejk was the name of at least two persons that Jaroslav Hašek could have heard of (or even met) when he created his famous soldier. The author hardly ever picked names for his characters at random, so it is safe to assume that some Švejk lent the author the famous-to-be name and perhaps the odd piece of biographical information. Probably it is just a case of using a name, and there is of course also a possibility that only the surname was borrowed (as was the case with Oberleutnant Lukáš and Kadett Biegler). In general the author only re-used the family name, and even these were often twisted slightly.

It is important to note that The Good Soldier Švejk was invented in 1911, so any inspiration for the author’s choice of name must be looked for amongst people who Jaroslav Hašek knew (or was aware of) before May 1911.

The origins

Hašek's brilliant idea, hardly legible.

The idea of creating a literary “company idiot” seems to have been spontaneous. Jaroslav Hašek's wife Jarmila remembers that he one evening arrived home in a sorry state, but scribbled down a few sentences on a piece of paper, hardly legible. She attached no importance to it, threw it in the bin, but as her husband woke up the next morning he remembered his brilliant idea and frantically looked for the sheet, found it, had a quick look at it, and threw it away again. This time Jarmila kept it and copies of it since appeared in most major publications on Hašek. The headline was Pitomec u kumpanie (The company fool).

On 22 May 1911 the first story appeared in Karikatury, titled: Švejk stojí proti Itálii (Švejk stands against Italy), and four more followed during the summer. It should be noted that his first name Josef never appeared at this stage. It was first revealed in Dobrý voják Švejk v zajetí (1917), the second version of The Good Soldier Švejk. Even in the novel it appears only a couple of times.

The name Švejk also appeared in two cabarets that were performed in the summer of 1911 by the group around Strana mírného pokroku v mezích zákona: Pevnost[a] and Agadir[b].

The politician Švejk

Album representantů všech oborů veřejného života československého,1927

For years researchers found little that could explain the origins of the name Švejk. Most were content to link him to a politician Josef Švejk from the Agrarian Party, and the possible connection between him and the good soldier was first suggested by Václav Menger in the inter-war years (according to Radko Pytlík). This Švejk was from Svatá Kateřina by Kutná Hora and in 1907 he was elected deputy for the Czech electoral district no. 58. At the time he was the only well known person carrying the surname.

Born in 1865, a notice about his marriage (from 1889) reveals that he was a k.u.k. reserve lieutenant at the time. In the army he served with the Trainregiment Nr. 3, in 1895 he was transferred to k.k. Landwehrinfanterieregiment Nr. 10, and on 31 December 1897 he was fully relieved from his duties in the armed forces.

Marriage on 16 November 1889, as reserve lieutenant

From 1903 Švejk's name started to appear in national newspapers in connection with a by-election in Chrudim. He even hit the front page of Národní listy after tumultuous election meetings where he regularly insulted his opponents, including František Udržal who in 1903 was elected ahead of his foul-mouthed opponent. Before the election in 1907 the outrageous behaviour repeated itself, and he is recorded calling his opponents traitors, dogs, scoundrels, socialists paid by Jews etc. Jaroslav Hašek must surely have read about or at least heard of Švejk's antics at some stage, particularly since Národní listy was a newspaper he often wrote for. It should be added that this time Švejk was in fact his party's candidate and he was elected to parliament with a solid margin. In 1909 a poem mentioning his name appeared in the satirical magazine Kopřivy, another publication that Hašek at times contributed to.

Transfer from Landwehr reg. no. 10 to non-duty on the 31 December 1897

In 1911 Švejk stood for re-election and this coincides well with the publishing of the first story about The Good Soldier Švejk story. This happened in the middle of the 1911 election campaign in which Jaroslav Hašek took part with his unregistered Strana mírného pokroku v mezích zákona (Party of moderate progress within the limits of the law). The party was designed to mock politics and politicians and the satirist/party chairman took aim at several of them, using their full name. Švejk's name is not found amongst those Jaroslav Hašek mentions in the history of the party, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't aware of him.

As a deputy Josef Švejk seems to have modified his eccentric behaviour somewhat. He repeatedly stood up for Czech interests in language, budgetary and cultural matters, campaigned for agriculture and the countryside in general, but most striking is his hostility to the military. In a speech in Parlament in 1908 he claimed that the military "used every opportunity to harass our nation". The parliamentary records shows that he was secretary of several sub-committees of the Abgeordnetenhaus, amongst them the defence committee. He campaigned against monopolies and cartels, mainly the sugar beet cartel. He himself grew sugar beet and eventually wrote a book on the history of the Czech sugar beet industry.

On 14 May 1911, eight days before Jaroslav Hašek published the first Švejk-story, the agrarian MP was again in the news after he in an article in the agrarian party's newspaper Venkov had attacked and insulted Dr. Hrachovský from Kolín, a member of the Christian-social party[d]. It is of course possible that Jaroslav Hašek heard about this dispute and that it inspired him to use the name Švejk for his story a few days later.

Čech,19.5.1915

On 19 May 1915 a note appeared in the catholic daily Čech, informing that deputy Josef Švejk from the Agrarian Party had served in the army as a lieutenant but had been superarbitrated. This obviously refers to his exit from k.k. Landwehr on 31 December 1897. The excact reason for his premature departure from the army is not known. Several news items from 1914 and 1915 confirm his superarbitration, but in 1915 he and 28 other Czech parliamentarians were called up for Landsturm medical examinations, but again he was let off the hook.

In 1918 he again raised his voice in Parlament supporting the Czech drive for parity within the monarchy and even proposed grabbing Slovak (i.e. Hungarian) land. His political career seems to have nose-dived in the newly created Czechoslovakia and he lead a relatively anonymous life during the first republic. He died in his home village at the age of 74 and is buried at the local churchyard and on the grave he is given the title captain!

Borrowing names

It could be argued that the agrarian politician had absolutely nothing in common with the good soldier (apart from the superarbitration, which Hašek may have heard of), but that in itself wouldn’t have stopped Jaroslav Hašek from exploiting his name. The author often picked the name of some person, only to attach a story to it that not necessarily had much to do with the unfortunate subject itself. Břetislav Ludvík and Offiziersdiener Baloun are good examples of this approach. Ludvík was an artist/writer who Jaroslav Hašek knew personally, and Baloun was the name of a Infanterieregiment Nr. 91 doctor, a one-year volunteer in the regiment, and a Vinohrady pub landlord respectively. Presumably none of them had much in common with the gluttonous miller from the Krumlov area, as little as Ludvík had anything in common with the cattle trader in Budějovice.

Introducing a second candidate

Květy, 7 September 1968

The next major revelation happened as late as 7 September 1968. The glossy weekly Květy published an article that sought to identify a certain citizen of Vinohrady, Josef Švejk, as not only the originator of the name, but also a person that Jaroslav Hašek knew in 1911 and who even served as a prototype for the good soldier. The article was signed Jaroslav R. Veselý and contained photos, a wealth of information, and several sensational claims. Haškologists were sceptical, but at least Radko Pytlík and Augustin Knesl attached some importance to it. Knesl even took the trouble to investigate some of the clues Veselý left behind, and could confirm that a Josef Švejk indeed had lived in Na Bojiští 463/10 by U kalicha before the war. But it was Russian Bohemist Sergey Nikholsky who instigated a more thorough follow-up on the article in Květy. More on that later.

The article in Květy was titled Hašek’s friend Josef Švejk and starts with an interview with Josef where he relates from his call-up for service in 1914, led to Střelecký ostrov by his mother, on crutches, about passive resistance, sabotage and feigning idiocy. He also gives a summary of his time in Russia with the Čs. army (see České legie), and adds that he was decorated twice. The interview also claims that Josef met Jaroslav Hašek repeatedly after the latter's return from Russia and that Švejk attended the author’s funeral at Lipnice on 6 January 1923. The article also claims that the two became good friends already in 1911.

Josef Švejk's army career

Kmenový list, čs. vojsko.

© VÚA

Veselý's article continues with Švejk’s army career. Allegedly he had been called up already before he met Hašek, but was “superarbitrated” after two months. He was called up again in January 1915, left for the front from Liberec, and defected to the Russians later that year. The prisoners were taken to the transit camp in Darnytsa by Kiev where Josef impressed camp commander Gribojedov with his cooking skills and seems to have stayed in the transit camp, and not sent onwards as one would expect.

Later Josef joined the Czechoslovak Brigade (Czech and Slovak volunteers under Russian command) and reportedly took part in the battle by Zborów on 2 July 1917. Here we see many parallels to Hašek’s own time in the volunteer corps. The most striking of the claims is that the two met in Samara on 8 June 1918. At the time Jaroslav Hašek had just left the Czechoslovak Army Corps to join the left wing of the Czech Social Democrats (communists). When the Czechoslovak troops (now officially part of the French army) rebelled against the new Bolshevik regime, Hašek became regarded a traitor and was in a very difficult situation when his former comrades occupied Samara that morning. Apparently an arrest order was issued by the command of the 4th infantry regiment, one of the units that attacked Samara. A patrol where Josef Švejk took part found Jaroslav Hašek, but, according Veselý, Josef mercifully let his enemy slip away.

Details confirmed

Police registers, 1912

The Květy article is written in a style that has more in common with fictional stories from magazines than with a research publication. It even includes many dialogues, a fact that in itself detracts from its credibility. This should be no surprise as Květy was in fact a glossy magazine, although oriented towards news. The article makes no reference to sources (apart from the interview with Josef Švejk), and there was no chance of getting hold of his (assumed) primary source anymore as Švejk had been dead for three years. Who Jaroslav R. Veselý was is also a mystery, presumably it is a pseudonym.

Church record, Dubí

Nevertheless a surprising number of the claims in the article have been verified. According to police records a young Švejk was registered with address Na Bojišti 463/10 (next to U kalicha) with his mother Kateřina and his brother Jindřich on 13 June 1912, so they may have lived there also 13 months earlier, assuming they were late to register with the police (Jaroslav Šerák). It can also be confirmed that a person with the same name joined the Czechoslovak Brigade in Kiev on 25 June 1916. He may well have met Hašek there as the author of The Good Soldier Švejk arrived from the Totskoye camp only four days later and both were enrolled in the replacement battalion of the brigade. The article’s reference to events that took place around May 1911 is also correct (parliamentary elections, unveiling of a monument of Karel Havlíček in Žižkov, and so on. It has also been confirmed that Švejk was decorated in 1924 and 1947, and that he was captured by Sienawa on 14 May 1915 (Nikholsky/VÚA). Thanks to Šerák's research his birth date has been confirmed: 22 November 1892.

Creating a bogus story

Josef Lada's first drawing of Švejk. Veselý claims Josef Švejk was sitting model at Kavárna Union in January 1921. Lada himself contradicts this information.

Although many of the claims from Květy can be verified, numerous remain unconfirmed and several of them appear to be products of hearsay, and attempts to “fit the legend”. Josef Švejk is supposed to have been a good friend of Jaroslav Hašek and even attended his funeral. In that case it is a mystery why none of the author's friends and biographers noticed Josef's existence. According to Jan Mikolášek (allegedly the last living friend of the author, but for similar mysterious reasons unknown to biographers), Jaroslav Hašek told him that he had heard of a Švejk but never met him (Jan Berwid-Buquoy).

It is also striking that the story of him sitting model for Josef Lada for the first drawing of Švejk is flatly contradicted by the artist himself. According to Lada, Hašek visited him in his flat and asked him to make a drawing for the cover of the The Good Soldier Švejk instalments. He did, but adds that he created this slim and tall figure according to how he imagined Švejk was and how the author described him. He delivered the result in café U Mohelských, and did not met Švejk and Hašek in Kavárna Union as Veselý claims.

Questionable is also a picture of Josef in uniform that supposedly hails from 1911. At the time he would have been only 19 and too young to have been called up for the army. On the picture he also wears distinctions, hardly likely to have been awarded to a raw recruit who on top of that was dismissed due to idiocy (Sergey Soloukh). It has been confirmed that he had the rank of corporal in k.u.k. Heer, but surely not in 1911 and not even in 1914 (another picture). The story about him feigning idiocy and walking on crutches to the draft board carries the familiar sign of “reverse-engineering” literature back into the real world. This very phenomenon occurs frequently in “Haškology”, particularly in newspaper and magazine articles published after World War II.

Another discrepancy was discovered by Jaroslav Šerák when he investigated police registers. Mother Katěřina was not married and was born Švejková so the story about the father who was also named Josef Švejk clearly doesn’t hold. He might have been a common law husband or an uncle, but his identity has not been established.

From Russia there is the story about the two meeting in Darnytsa. Josef Švejk was captured four months before Jaroslav Hašek and surely wouldn’t have been kept in a transit camp all summer. The story gives the appearance that the pair met again in this camp and stayed there until they both joined the Czech volunteer brigade. Army records reveal that Josef was sent onwards to Tashkent and Chelyabinsk, and it is well documented that Hašek spent his time in Russian captivity in Totskoye in southern Ural. In Darnica he was kept for only three days (Jaroslav Kejla), not much time to meet any Švejk (who had probably been in Tashkent or Chelyabinsk a long time by then). The Samara story is also difficult to put trust in. Army records shows that Švejk belonged to the 3rd regiment, a unit that did not take part in the attack on Samara, it had in fact just occupied Chelyabinsk, much further east. Unfortunately the documents that cover this part of Josef Švejk's army career are missing.

Infantryman Josef Švejk from IR36, 5th company, in a Vienna hospital on 9 October 1914

Čech,16.10.1914

Newspaper clips and Verlustliste discovered as recently as 2015 undermines the story further, and provides overwhelming evidence that Veselý was inventing not only Švejk as a soldier in 1911, but also fictionally lets him turn up at Střelecký ostrov in 1914. Infantryman Josef Švejk is listed as a patient in a Vienna hospital on 9 October 1914. According to Verlustliste Nr. 644 Švejk was a regular infantry man and would as such not been examined at Střelecký ostrov (those were examinations of Landsturm recruits who had previously been declared unfit for armed service or dismissed from the army, the Landsturm draft commission started operating on 1 October). Thus Švejk would never have been superarbitrated, never mind been helped to the draft commission on crutches by his mother. At Střelecký ostrov Švejk was also supposed to have been examined by the dr. Halbhuber, a person who served in Košice at the time! See also Doctor Bautze.

Josef Švejk was no "landšturmák", as opposed to his comrade from IR36, Karel Švarc from Kutná Hora

The general impression of the article is that Jaroslav R. Veselý actually gathered enough facts to claim some credibility and knew the life story of Hašek in detail, had met and interviewed Švejk, but then liberally filled in the holes with his own colourful accounts when necessary. And not only that: there is every reason to believe that the core of the story, the connection and friendship between Josef and Jaroslav is pure fiction. It is therefore no wonder that the article at the time was viewed with scepticism by established Hašek experts. Still Radko Pytlík includes the more credible parts in his books, but attaches little importance to the rest.

Sergey Nikholsky's research

Apart from the investigations by Augustin Knesl around 1983, the only serious researcher who followed up the story was Russian bohemist Sergey Nicholsky who devotes about a third of his book News about Hašek and his hero (1997) to the story. Nikolsky found material in the archives that confirms some details about Švejk in the k.u.k. Heer and in the Čechoslovak legions. Apart from this he provides nothing that verifies Veselý's claims that Jaroslav Hašek and Josef Švejk were friends or even knew (about) each other.

Sergey Nikholsky discusses two other possible prototypes of Švejk, claims that have been circulating for decades. The first is well known: František Strašlipka. Nikholsky is sceptical to the role Strašlipka has been assigned as model for Švejk, noting that apart from the story-telling and position in the army hierarchy there is little that links them, and that the story of their lives are otherwise very different. The second is a little known story that appeared in Prager Presse on 5 December 1929. It was penned by Maximilian Huppert and here a František Švejk is introduced. The whole story bears traces of being adapted from the novel and no-one seems to have taken it seriously (or been aware of it).

Other Švejks?

Another Josef Švejk also appears in Verlustliste and has like his namesake his right of domicile is Nový Bydžov. This person is however listed in IR74 and reportedly landed in Serbian captivity (Niš). Then there is a wood trader by the same name from Karlín who repeatedly placed adverts in Národní listy in 1909. According to biographer František Langer (Byli a bylo, 1963) Jaroslav Hašek was an avid newspaper reader, who often started by reading adverts, in fact reading papers back to front. On top of that he had a photographic memory so if he had seen those adverts he would surely have remembered them. Jaroslav Šerák has done a comprehensive study on families named Švejk which lists numerous persons[c].

A curiosity is an advert in Národní listy from 1891 where a Josef Švejk in Salmova ulice No. 14 advertises bukové fošny (beech planks) for sale. This Švejk was a wood trader and lived in the area only for two years but it is still possible that the 8 year old Jaroslav Hašek could have heard of him. He also has a son Josef (born in 1878) that Hašek could have known. That said, the likelihood that this person lent his name to a figure that was invented 20 years later is remote.

Conclusion

Das Oestrreichische Abgeordnetenhaus 1911, p. 295

© Tom Alner

Although Veselý provided interesting new information and Nikholsky added more through his meticulous research, what we are left with boils down to the following: Josef Švejk, born 22 November 1892 in Dubí (hejtmanství Kladno) indeed lived two doors from U kalicha in 1912. He served briefly with Hašek in the reserve battalion of the Czechoslovak brigade in 1916 and they both continued as Czech volunteers until Hašek left the legions in March 1918. The photos Veselý provides appear to be authentic, and shows an infantryman from IR36, 5th company. This is consistent with Švejk's documents from k.u.k. Heer so we can safely assumed that Veselý at least got some of his information and photos directly from Josef Švejk and that he indeed was identical to the 19 year old from Dubí who lived by U kalicha in 1912.

But does this prove that Josef Švejk was a friend of the author and an inspiration for the famous good soldier? Not at all. The information from Vesely´s article that is designed to provide the missing link between the two is highly questionable. In fact not a single detail from Veselý's attempt to link Švejk to Hašek has been confirmed, and some of them can be flatly dismissed. Veselý and Nikholsky may have given Švejkologists some alternative perspectives, and a lot of information on Josef Švejk himself, but nothing of value regarding the connection between Švejk and Hašek. This leaves the good soldier from Infanterieregiment Nr. 36 and 3. pluk "Prokopa Velíkeho" as a rather peripheral figure. Peripheral or not, at least we know about his existence!

So who is the most likely person to have lent his name to Švejk? We will never know for sure what Jaroslav Hašek had in mind in 1911 but it is overwhelmingly likely to be the well-known politician Josef Švejk from Kutná Hora district rather than the obscure 19-year old boy who probably didn't even lived in Prague at the time the soldier Švejk was conceived. That said it is likely that Jaroslav Hašek could met or heard of the young Josef Švejk during or after the war and that this somehow rekindled his interest in his 1911 hero, be it in 1917 or 1921. It should also be noted that U kalicha became a theme for Jaroslav Hašek only in 1921. It may be a coincidence, but it is tempting to suggest a link to the neighbour of U kalicha.

Credit: Národní listy, Čech, VÚA, K.k. Reichsrat, Jaroslav Šerák, Jaroslav Veselý, Sergey Nikholskij, Sergey Soloukh

Literature

• Pevnost, Jaroslav Šerák [a]
• Agadir, Jaroslav Šerák [b]

• ---

• Hledání Josefa Švejka v archivech, Jaroslav Šerák [c]
• Josef Švejk (politik), Wikipedia
• The unknown Švejk, Jomar Hønsi
• Hašek v předčasných volbách lákal na sloní rypák v rosolu, Ivan Motýl

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• Bukových fošen, Národní listy,6.6.1891
• K volbě do řišské rady ve volebním okresu chrudimském, Národní listy,14.9.1903
• Übersetzungen in der Landwehr, Local-Anzeiger der 'Presse',31.12.1895
• Neslýchaný teror agrárního kandidata Švejka, Národní listy,12.4.1907
• Když agrárnik Švejk opustil posvícení pro menšinovou schůzi, Kopřivy,14.9.1909
• Z Kutnohorska, Čech,14.5.1911 [d]
• Zajímavé válečné setkání, Český svět,3.3.1916
• Jaroslaus Hašek, Einj. Freiw. I. R. Nr. 91., Jihočech,15.12.1927
• Historisches vom Švejk, Maximilian Huppert,5.12.1929

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• Švejk Josef, Gemeindevorsteher, Stenographische Protokolle - Abgeordnetenhaus - Session XVIII.
• Švejk Josef, Gemeindevorsteher, Stenographische Protokolle - Abgeordnetenhaus - Session XIX.,1909
• Švejk Josef, Grundbesitzer, Stenographische Protokolle - Abgeordnetenhaus - Session XX.,1909-11
• Švejk Josef, Grundbesitzer, Stenographische Protokolle - Abgeordnetenhaus - Session XXI.

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• Prohlídka domobranců, Magistrát král. hlav. města Prahy,20.9.1914
• Verlistliste Nr. 644, K.u.k. Kriegsministerium
• Švejk in the archives of the Legions, Československá obec legionářská