The Good Soldier Švejk

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The Who's who page on Jaroslav Hašek presents a gallery of persons from real life who to a varying degree are associated with The Good Soldier Švejk and his creator. Several of the characters in the novel are known to be based on real-life people, mostly officers from Infanterieregiment Nr. 91. Some of Hašek's literary figures carry the full names of their model, some are only thinly disguised and some names diverge from that of their "model", but they can be pinpointed by analyzing the circumstances in which they appear.

A handful of "prototypes" are easily recognisable like Rudolf Lukas and Jan Vaněk, others like Zdeněk Matěj Kuděj and Emanuél Michálek are less obvious inspirations. One would also assume that most of these characters borrow traits from more than one person, one such example is Švejk himself.

A far larger number of assumed prototypes are connected to their literary counterparts by little more than the name. Josef Švejk is here the prime example, but Jan Eybl also fits in this category. The list of prototypes only contains those who inspired characters that directly take part in the plot.

Researchers, the so-called Haškologists, are also included on this page but this list is per 15 June 2022 restricted to Radko Pytlík and two important but relatively unknown contributors to our knowledge about Hašek and Švejk. In due course entries on other experts like Václav Menger and Zdena Ančík will be added.

Obvious inspiration

Hašek Lacina Schlager Vodička Lukas Adamička Wenzel Bigler Sagner Vaněk Kompit

Haškologists

Morávek Hůla Pytlík Menger

Mašek, Hynek

*4.9.1882 Troja - †20.6.1909 Studenec

Mašek may well have been the main inspiration for Hašek's literary undercover police detective detective Bretschneider. He was a notorious thief, adventurer, fraudster, and agent provocateur, from time to time working for Staatspolizei. Hašek knew him and even had one or two encounters with him around 1907. In 1916 Hašek wrote a very detailed story about a man he presumed to be the same person, a certain Alexander Osipovič Mašek. The latter was eventually shot when the Legions hastily withdrew from Ukraine in February 1918.

In hindsight it is not obvious that Hynek and Alexander were the same persons, although both no doubt were questionable characters and shared some characteristics. Could detective Bretschneider's tragic fate, being eaten by his own dogs, refer to Alexander Mašek's death?

Mašek is also mentioned in Strana mírného pokroku v mezích zákona but here his first name is not used. According to Hašek the party was founded "at the time when the agent provocateur Mašek appeared as the Italian anarchist "Pietro Perri" in the offices of Komuna, having fled from Sevastopol in Russia".

Birth and background

Whether the same person or not, let's start with Mašek. Not much is known about his early years. He was born in Troja (now a suburb of Prague) 4 September 1882, son of Václav Mašek and Anna (neé Valterová). His father hailed from Kamberk by Tábor, and this is reflected in news stories that appeared many years later.

A juvenile delinquent

Details from the first 22 years of his life can be drawn from newspaper reports that appeared between 1904 and 1909. Some of it is through his own admissions to the police, and reveal an extremely chequered existence. How much one should believe such a notorious hoaxer is debatable, but we have few other sources available. The picture that emerges from the news items is roughly the following: in 1897 he was convicted after taking part in street riots and in 1899 he was caught for fraud and theft, and banned for life from staying in the Prague police district. Presumably he was too young to be given a prison term, or at least no such sentence is mentioned. At some stage he stole a bike in Královéhradecko and from the profit of the sale he went abroad and joined the French Foreign Legion in Algeria.

Foreign Legion

Newspapers reported that the kept a book with notes about his stay in Algeria but there is nothing to indicate when he went there and when he left. He told the police that he was caught stealing from fellow soldiers and was about to be punished when he managed to escape. Another account has that his unit was transferred to another country via the Suez canal and there he jumped ship, shots were fired at him, but he escaped. Fearing the French authorities[1] he got onto a train as a stowaway and arrived safely in a British colony in Africa. From here he returned home via England, and appeared in Prague in 1904 where he surfaced as the "French student" Victor Chatany.

French student

From 1904 onwards newspapers started to take notice of the young adventurer. Back in Prague he pretended to be a pure-bred French student named Victor Chatany. He frequented franchophile circles, with the aim of luring money from his various victims. He was elegantly dressed, wore a French tricolour, boasted that he studied at the oriental academy in Paris, and also happened to mention that he was short of money. Several prominent citizens were tricked, amongst them Sokol chairman Scheiner. Two ladies from Roztoky also fell in his trap, but in the end the police found out and he was arrested on 18 June 1904. His identity was revealed by using fingerprints and photos, and it turned out that the "French student" was identical to Hynek Mašek who had been arrested and tried during street riots in 1897. Initially he claimed to be Vítěslav Mašek and pleaded innocent. He was taken to court at c.k. zemský co trestní soud on the 19th, and he was handed a six month sentence.

Deceiving school children

On 27 July 1905 Čech and Národní listy printed stories that revealed more about his background. It appears that he was a mechanic from Troja, and was 22 years old with a colourful past, and again his stay in the Foreign Legion is mentioned. In 1904 he had been in Prague but had gone to Trieste from where he returned after two months. In April and May 1905 he committed repeated thefts by deception, and he even robbed school children! He was arrested on 17 June and was sentenced to 18 months in gaol.

Agent Provocateur "Pietro Perri"

Given this 18 months prison term from June 1905, he appears to have kept out of the limelight. But almost exactly one and a half year later he appeared at the offices of the anarchist newspaper Nová Omladina on 30 December 1906. Here he claimed to be an Italian anarchist Pietro Perri who had escaped from Russia via Berlin. He spoke French, German and English. The anarchists didn't put trust in this story so he choose to disappear.

The information about "Pietro Perri" and the Anarchist movement is mainly drawn from an article by Nová Omladina editor Ladislav Knotek (1884-1957). It appeared in České slovo 12 January 1909 (partly reproduced in Čas, Pozor, Prager Tagblatt the same day). Knotek was scathing about Mašek as a person (of low moral substance) but also when describing his talents as an infiltrator. His lies and fabricated stories were stupid and easy to see through and he didn't even manage to keep his cover stories consistent. Knotek thus didn't regard him a major threat.

His identity thus revealed, Mašek moved to North Bohemia, and in an attempt to incriminate anarchist miners, he provided them with instructions for making bombs. On 27 June 1907 he was arrested after it was revealed that he had tried to cheat ladies tailor's and fashion designers. He had pretended to be half French, half American and was handed over to c.k. policejní ředitelství again and identified as Ignaz Maschek aus Kemberg bei Tabor.

In May 1908 he was again caught after committing some common crime, and put on trial in Litoměřice under his real name. For the rest of 1908 his whereabouts are unknown.

Klofáč's reveleations

On 9 January 1909 the name Mašek reached notorious fame after České slovo printed a sensational story on its front page. During the next few days his name was known all over Cisleithania. Already the same evening Prager Tagblatt decorated its front page with the case, calling it a "sentimental spy story". The author of the story was Klofáč, chairman of Česká strana národně sociální. He claimed that the state police via Mašek had fabricated compromising evidence against the party. When the case hit the headlines, more information about Mašek was revealed in the newspapers, mainly about his activities from 1906 until 1908.

Assaulted

On 19 February 1909 Mašek was allegedly recognised by members of the public and beaten with sticks. This happened late at night in Hybernská ulice, but he managed to escape to his nearby flat. He was then taken to hospital, but now using the name Robert Herzog. He was reportedly seriously ill, and his hospitalization at first sight didn't seem to be connected to the assault. Still from the hospital "Herzog" contacted two editors from the press of Česká strana národně sociální, revealing that he had some important news for them. During the Šviha affair in 1914, the editors, Emil Špatný and Karel Půlpán, revealed that they had indeed visited "Herzog", who was then very ill, but nothing came out of it. The next time they went to see him at the hospital he had disappeared.

Debated in Parliament

Klofáč took the case to Reichsrat where it was filed on 10 March 1909 as a Dringlichkeitsantrag (Urgent plea). The plea had 22 signatories and was accepted for debate the next day. The K.k. Regierung (government of Cisleithania) was urged to put an end to the shameful activities of agent provocateur Hynek Mašek, also known and Viktor Mašek.

The case was brought up on the 12th. Klofáč himself presented the it and after an introduction in Czech, he continued in German. He first spoke about the activities of the state police in Prague, seasoned with political demagoguery. Eventually he got to the point, and described the activities of Mašek in detail, based on his original article in České slovo. Klofáč said that Mašek had been imprisoned no less than seven times. He also claimed that Mašek was paid by the head of the Prague state police, Viktor Chum, from a secret fund.

Klofáč's speak in Reichsrat was seasoned with nationalist, anti-German and pan-Slavic rhetoric, and the Austro-German press was singled out for particular criticism. He explicitly warned about provoking a conflict on the Balkans and said that the consequences of a bloody war would be economical ruin for Austria-Hungary and that it could even lead to the breakup of the empire[2]. Minister of the interior, Freiherr von Haerdtl[3], categorically rejected that any Mašek (or others) were used as agent provocateurs by the state police. He also claimed that the proofs that Klofáč sat on were not handed over when the state police wanted to investigate the matter. The debate that followed became more of a general discussion on the tense relation between Czechs and Germans, and Klofáč was supported by his party comrade Baxa, and the social democrat Němec. The case was however rejected with 182 votes against and 156 for (it would have needed a two third majority anyway).

Still there is little doubt that the allegations were based on reality. Klofáč provided detailed information about the spy's background but the Austrian authorities were obviously not willing to put spanners in the wheels of Staatspolizei, despite the claim that they used illegal methods.

Reported dead

In June 1909 it was reported that Mašek had died in Jilemnice near Trutnov, and that the death cause was tuberculosis. Some newspapers carried short obituaries. Whereas most Czech publications accepted the fact that Mašek was an agent provocateur serving Staatspolizei, Prager Tagblatt and other German language publications classed him as no more than a common criminal with no proven link to the police. The Realist Party newspaper Čas landed in between and commented in their terse and realistic way: "we know that Mašek has a peculiar relationship with both the police and Česká strana národně sociální, but that's all there is to it".

News about his death were entered in the church books, and revealed that he actually had died in Studenec No. 180 on 15 June 1909, but that the body was brought to Jilemnice where he was recorded dead on the 20th, and buried on the 22nd. Significantly he is entered as tajný policista z Prahy (secret policeman from Prague) so he did indeed have "a strange relationship with the police" as Čas correctly pointed out! Only an investigation of the police archives could shed further light on the life, fate, and misdemeanours of this strange character named Mašek, alias Robert Herzog, Victor Chatany, Hrabě - acting as a French student, Italian anarchist, and surely in many other roles.

Rumoured "resurrection"

Still it didn't take long before rumours started to circulate that Mašek had risen from the dead. Several newspapers reported that he had been observed on the streets of Prague, and already on 9 July 1909 the national-social newspaper Naše snahy from Plzeň urged their readers to be alert and keep a photo of him, published in Mladé proudy, in mind. Some time later the paper reported a story about the body of Mašek had been transported from Studenec to Jlemnice on a dung chart but this story has not been confirmed.

In the steps of the state police in Prague

The notorious fraudster Mašek now disappeared from the news, but in 1916 his name would appear again, in faraway Kiev, and under the first name Alexander. The person who first publicly claimed that Mašek had resurfaced in Russia was none other than Jaroslav Hašek. Still there remains doubt whether or not Hynek and Alexandr was/were the same person(s).

The medium for Mašek's "resurrection" was a story by Jaroslav Hašek in Čechoslovan on 21 August 1916: Po stopách státní policie v Praze (In the steps of the state police in Prague). After a general introduction about various persons and their encounters with the state police, the story focused on the period Hašek contributed to the anarchists newspapers Nová Omladina and Chuďas, published by Knotek in Žižkov.

One day an "Italian Anarchist" Pietro Perri appeared in their offices, telling them he had escaped from Russia. He spoke poor Italian, claiming that he had forgotten much of his mother tongue after a long stay in Russia. Strangely enough he didn't even know Russian so he communicated with his hosts in bad German. Present were Hašek, Knotek[4], Rosenzweig-Moir[5], Kalina[6] and Opočenský[7]. When Hašek said "let's drag him into the bathroom and cut his throat", Pietro Perri turned pale and said he was feeling unsafe. In the end he was allowed to stay in the flat of Rosenzweig-Moir. After two days there he disappeared but only after having rummaged through his host's documents.

Two days later a young man with a bandaged head appeared in the offices. He claimed to be an anarchist who had been beaten up by German nationalists in North Bohemia and begged for help. The bandage was however far too perfect and the voice sounded familiar, so they tore his bandage off and in front of them stood "Pietro Perri"! After interrogation "according to the Spanish inquisition" he admitted that his name was Alexandr Mašek and that he was in the service of Staatspolizei, trying to plant instructions for bomb-making in their offices. The anarchists suspected on upcoming house search and destroyed all material that could compromise them. The house search duly took place but they came through unhurt and from then on the state police left them in peace.

Hašek also states that Mašek was involved in the anti-militarist process and that the police spread the news that he was dead. Hašek finished the story like this: "Alexandr Mašek remained alive and is now in Russia where he was very interested in the Czech issue. I heard that he is locked up and that he might be hanged. If he is hanged I'll place this story on his grave".

Analysing Hašek's story

The story contains many of the details that appeared in the newspapers in 1909. The article by Ladislav Knotek in České slovo in January confirms Hašek's assertion that "Pietro Perri's" appeared at Nová Omladina in Žižkov, and also that he was found out and then disappeared. Hašek also mentioned that Mašek was assaulted in Hybernská ulice. The details about Mašek's second appearance "two days later" in the editorial offices bear certain similarities with reports that Mašek had been to North Bohemia where he tried to plant bomb-making instructions in the hands of anarchist miners. In the story this attempt however takes place in Žižkov.

Hašek times the incident with Pietro Perri to the eve of a visit by Emperor Franz Joseph I. to Prague, a schedule that included Žižkov. This fits fairly well with information from Knotek that "Perri" visited them on 30 December 1906. The emperor's visit duly took place from 15 April 1907 (it lasted for nine days) and the imperial visit would have been common knowledge at new year, so it is surely this visit Hašek had in mind. He also mentioned that the emperor knocked on the foundation stone of some new bridge, and he actually did so on the 16th. His majesty duly visited Žižkov on the 24th.

Faked death?

Although many details in Hašek story fits available information from newspapers, it is at odds with the reports on two important accounts. The first name Alexandr conflicts with information from pre-war newspapers and also the death certificate, and his given name was no doubt Hynek. Although he himself according to Hašek reported as "Alexandr" they also checked his identity at c.k. policejní ředitelství. The name Alexandr Mašek is not mentioned at all in the numerous newspaper articles from 1904 to 1909. Here he was always Hynek/Ignaz or known under some cover name.

A more crucial discrepancy concerns the circumstances of his death. Not even the editor's of the Česká strana národně sociální press (who saw him in February 1909) seemed to suspect that the story about his death was fake: during questioning of witnesses during the Šviha[8] trial in 1914, they confirmed that he was very ill when they last saw him. The death record from Jilemnice is definitely real. If Staatspolizei really faked his death, they have been unusually attentive to detail. To plant stories in the press is an easy thing to do, but going to the length of issuing a fake Church record? Moreover the death record lists him as "secret policeman", which is very strange for a record allegedly faked by those who employed him. It is also odd that after repeatedly getting caught red-handed between 1904 and 1909, he now kept out of the news for the next seven years.

On the other hand it is odd that he suddenly disappeared from a hospital in Prague and ended up in the unlikely location of Studenec by Jilemnice. It should also be noted that rumours in the press that Mašek had been seen on the streets of Prague appeared only weeks after his reported death. Only an investigation of the Prague police archives could shed further light on the matter, perhaps also the files on anarchists and Česká strana národně sociální at ÖStA (Austrian State Archive).

Alexander Osipovič Mašek

On 23 April 1917 Čechoslovan reported that the Austrian agent provocateur Alexandr Mašek had left the prison in Minsk, was wandering about in a Russian uniform and carried documents to testify that he was an Austrian prisoner of war. He was allegedly heading towards Turkestan. The newspaper warned that his unhindered movements may hurt the cause of the Czech revolution and that he might also be a spy. The readers were urged to report him to the authorities.

On 11 June 1917 (24 June) more information appeared in the newspaper. The news arrived from Tashkent that Mašek had been arrested, and more information appeared in the paper two weeks later. It reported that the suspect claimed he was working for the Russian secret police but had also served in a Czech regiment. He had turned up hungry, was wearing a dirty Russian uniform and tried to get involved with Czech prisoners of war.

The research of Břetislav Hůla

For more information we have to lean on the research of Břetislav Hůla. Not only did he collect and translate material related to A.O. Mašek (some of it in Russian), he also provided photos of him. Hůla focussed his research on material from VHA regarding Alexander, so he collected little material related to Hynek. The documents are still preserved at LA-PNP in Prague, and appear in the collection of Hůla himself as well as that of Zdena Ančík. They contain transcripts of the articles in Čechoslovan, translations of the correspondence from Alexander Osipovič Mašek and other related material. Here Mašek tells his own story, end also sent letters to Jaroslav Hašek and C-Slovan's chief editor Venceslav Švihovský where he ask both them to leave him alone, and also threatened to sue them. Part of the material on Mašek was reprinted in Radko Pytlík's Toulavé house in 1971 but the chapter in question is left out in later editions.

The first dated item in Břetislav Hůla's collection is however from January 1916 when Alexander Osipovíč Mašek appeared at the Czech Petrograd newspaper Čechoslovák and asked editor Bohdan Pavlů to print a letter declaring that the Mašek who was involved in the pre-war "Omladina" process was a Russian spy and not an Austrian one. This rose suspicion, because the standard bearer of the Česká družina, Jaroslav Heyduk, had already written a letter to the Czech Union in Petrograd where he warned that Alexandr Osipovíč was identical to the mentioned detective from Prague. It is also stated that A.O. Mašek worked for the counter-espionage unit at the staff of the Russian 9th army. The investigations eventually led to Mašek's arrest on 21 August 1916, and he was subsequently detained and interrogated in Minsk. The information was sent to the Union of Czecshoslovak societies in Kiev and also contained a photo of the detained.

In a personal letter to the Union dated 1 May 1917 Mašek demanded that Čechoslovan editor Švihovský be taken to court, that what the paper wrote were pure inventions, and he even invited "whoever wrote the article in 1916" (i.e. Jaroslav Hašek) to a revolver duel! He also hinted that Švihovský was on good terms with Austrian spies and gave details about his contacts in Prague in 1908 and also claimed that there were eight Mašeks in the service of the Prague state police.

In several rambling accounts Alexander Osipovič gave details of his activities from 1908 onwards. For Okhrana[9] (the Russian secret police) he had operated in Prague, in Serbia and elsewhere on Balkans and was very well informed on the situation in Odessa. He gives information about a number of contacts in these places. He denied having fled from Minsk, rather he was released during a general amnesty after the Russian February Revolution.

The stories, whether from his pre-war activities as an undercover, or during the war, are every bit as fantastic as Hynek's adventures in Africa and elsewhere, many years earlier. It is difficult to decide what to make of it, but it is tempting to believe that most of the fantastic events only existed in A.O. Mašek's own imagination.

Earlier life

In Břetislav Hůla's files there is an undated and unsigned document that gives details on A.O. Mašek's activities until 1 April 1916. It seems to be based on interrogations of the suspect himself and is surely from 1916. Some of the content, mainly post 1908, is repeated in personal a letter to Josef Gotfrid, dated 3 June 1917. He asked that it be forwarded to the authorities it may concern. Certain details also appear in an undated letter to Jaroslav Heyduk, seemingly from 1916.

Born in 1880 in Kiev, the family moved to Prague in 1886. He studied for 6 years at an academic gymnasium. Then he studied gardening at Troja. He was involved in the Omladina[10] movement in 1892 and knew some of the members. During his student years he was also introduced to Serbian students. In 1900 he left Prague for Kiev and then went to Caucasus where he worked as a gardener.

A.O. Mašek portrayed himself as an ardent Slavophile and anti-German, using every possible opportunity to fight for the Slav cause, rifle in hand. In 1903 he was called to Caribrod (now Dimitrovgrad) in Serbia, believing he was to assist in the Ilinden uprising[11] in Macedonia. Instead he was drawn into the coup against king Alexandar Obrenović[12], and during the action he claimed to have killed several Austrian agents and even a Serbian minister! Then he was off to Makedonia to assist the mentioned uprising. In 1904 he was back in Caucausus, fell ill, and also went to Kiev to present himself at the draft board at the Austrian Consulate. He was rejected so did no military service at all. From January 1905 he lived in Trieste where he got to know Czech police agents and presented himself as a Russian anarchist.

From Trieste he went on to Montenegro where he was poisoned with arsenic by some other spy but survived. He was advised to get out of Montenegro, but on the border he clashed with three Austrian agents and killed them all! Two of them were Czechs, the third a Serb. The Serb's head was "sent by mail to the victim's relatives and it weighed 10 kilos". Then there is a long white spot in his narrative but around 25 July 1907 it continues as he arrived in Sofia through Serbia! He lived there and in Plovdiv until 1 March 1908 and 20 March he arrived in Petrograd, and from 15 June in Uman.

In October 1908 he undertook a reconnaissance trip to Prague via Lwów in the guise of a Georgian nobleman. He arrived 6 days after the Jubilee Exihibition closed[13]. He also claimed that he met police president Křikava. The trip was short (20 days in total) and it is not clear what the results of the trip were. When he returned to Kiev he fell ill, but still undertook a shorter trip to Czernowitz, then in Austria. In 1909 and 1910 he lived in Turkey, Egypt and India for health reasons, and at his own expense.

In 1911 he was back in Russia, now in Tashkent, where he was granted Russian citizenship (this is confirmed by Gotfrid). He worked as a gardener until the outbreak of the Balkans wars when he again left for Serbia. His activities there are not known, but at outbreak of war he reported as a volunteer in Kamenec Podolski. He was rejected as an ordinary soldier, but allowed to work as a spy on enemy territory. Here he was arrested by Landwehr-regiment Nr. 66, pretended to be a Bulgarian trader and handed over to the Bulgarian consul in Budapest. When transported to Bulgaria he escaped to the Russian consul in Bucharest and thus got back to Kamenec Podolski. Here he contracted typhus and was ill for two months.

As soon has he was partly fit again he immediately volunteered for service. Assigned to the 1st Siberian Amur Border Regiment he was transferred to Kołomyja with them. Due to his knowledge of languages he was on 15 May 1915 transferred to the counter-intelligence unit of 9th Army in Tarnopol where he remained until September. During this assignment he wore an officer's uniform and interrogated many Czechs. Again he fell ill and on 13 September he left for Petrograd. After recovering he reported for service and wanted to join a Russian regiment but was instead assigned to the Czechoslovak reserves and in March 1916 he enrolled in the 9th company of the 1st Czechoslovak Regiment. Around 1 April 1916 he was arrested but didn't know why.

Gymnasium, Žitná ulice, 1896

A hitherto unsolved mystery is an Alexander Mašek from Kiev who was a fellow pupil of Jaroslav Hašek at the gymnasium in Žitná ulice in the 3rd school year (1895-96). Whether or not this person could have been the above-mentioned Alexander Osipovič is of course pure speculation but at least the name that Hašek used in his story from 1916 corresponds. Interesting is also that the alleged agent A.O. Mašek later claimed he was born in Kiev in 1880, in which case he would not have been in the 3rd year at the gymnasium.

Legion service record

A.O. Mašek's service record[14] is kept in the Czech Central Military Archive and states that he joined Družina[15] on 15 November 1915, it is noted that he was a suspect agent provocateur and was detained because of this. He was shot by the guard as he tried to desert. His place of birth is not entered and his birth date in an obvious error (24 February 1916). His date of leaving the Legions is given as 24 March 1918 (it should certainly read 24 February, the day he was killed).

Unbelievable stories

It is in general difficult to put much trust in A.O. Mašek's narrative. On one side it sounds much like a fantastic spy novel (or a series of them), and Mašek's is strikingly eager to emphasize his patriotism, his hatred of everything German and boasting of his great exploits in fighting for "the cause". It is therefore no surprise that he was viewed with suspicion from many quarters, and not only by Jaroslav Hašek. On top of this there are inconsistencies in the various accounts he gives; in the unsigned/undated notes above, in letters to Jaroslav Heyduk, Josef Gotfrid, Věnceslav Švihovský and Jaroslav Hašek. In this respect it's tempting to draw a parallel to Knotek's description of Mašek, who "was incapable of keeping his cover stories consistent". One example is how he presented his capture by Austro-Hungarian forces soon after the outbreak of war. His two alternative narratives contain many contradictions, and the units he refers to vary from one to the other. He even managed to mention Landwehr-Infanterieregiment Nr. 66, a non-existing unit in the Dual Monarchy's armed forces (it could have been in the German army though).

Few clear answers

We might never arrive at a definite conclusion as to whether Mašek and A.O. Mašek were/was the same person(s). That said they had strikingly much in common, apart from the surname. Both had a very colourful and tumultuous background, both were capable of boasting the most fantastic exploits, both were unable to keep their stories consistent, and both were notorious hoaxers. Although the "Russian" Mašek was never tried and convicted, he was perceived as suspicious, and was arrested on at least three occasions during the war.

Hašek's story in Čechoslovan no doubt made it more difficult for him, but the revelations in the story was not the sole reason for him being kept in custody. The suspicion that the two were identical persons had been raised already by January 1916, at a time when Hašek was languishing in the Totskoye prisoner camp. The news about Hynek's death in 1909 was greeted by scepticism already at the time. Two people or one? We have no hard evidence, but the fact remains that both were extremely lugubrious personalities, whoever they spied for...

Credit: Jaroslav Šerák, Břetislav Hůla

Notes
1.	Why he would need to get on a train to reach British colonial territory from Suez is a mystery. Egypt was after all a British mandate, though formally part of Turkey.
2.	Klofáč's prophesies were tragically fulfilled five years later ...
3.	Guido von Haerdtl (1859-1928), lawyer and minister of the interior of Austria from 1908 to 1911.
4.	Ladislav Knotek (1884-1957), anarchist editor and publisher.
5.	Josef Rosenzweig-Moir (1887-1944), anarchist writer.
6.	Bedřich Kalina (1876-1950), anarchist politician and journalist.
7.	Gustav Roger Opočenský (1881-1949), poet, one of Hašek's closest friends.
8.	Karel Sviha (1877-1937), Czech lawyer and National-Social politician, member of parliament. In March 1914 it was claimed that he was a police informer. Šviha then sued Národní listy, the newspaper that first published the allegations. He was not able to prove his innocence and withdrew from politics.
9.	Охрана (Okhrana): The Imperial Russian secret police, existing from 1881 to 1917.
10.	Omladina: A radical youth movement whose leaders were put on trial in 1894.
11.	Ilinden uprising: A Macedonian revolt against Ottoman rule, launched 2 August 1903.
12.	Alexandar Obrenović: Serbian king killed during a coup in May 1903.
13.	The Prague Jubilee Exhibition closed 18 October 1908.
14.	As entered on the web page of VÚA (database of legionnaires), the actual document has not been studied.
15.	A unit of mainly Czech volunteers serving in the Russian army from 1914 to 1916. Eventually they grew more numerous and became the cornerstone of the future Czechoslovak Legion. See České legie.