HAEK, JAROSLAV

born April 30, 1883, Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now in Czech Republic] died Jan. 3, 1923, Lipnice nad Szavou, Czech. Czech writer best known for his satirical novel The Good Soldier Schweik. Haek worked in Prague as a bank clerk, although at 17 he was already writing satirical articles for Czech newspapers. He soon abandoned business for a literary career, and before World War I he published a volume of poetry, Mjove vkriky (1903; Shouts in May), and wrote 16 volumes of short stories, of which Dobr vojk vejk a jin podivn historky (1912; Good Soldier Schweik and Other Strange Stories) is among the best known. From 190407 he was an editor of anarchist publications. Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army, Haek was captured on the Russian front during World War I and was made a prisoner of war. While in Russia he became a member of the Czech liberation army but later joined the Bolsheviks, for whom he wrote communist propaganda. Upon returning to Prague, the capital of the newly created country of Czechoslovakia, he devoted himself to writing Osudy dobrho vojka vejka za svetov vlky (192023; The Good Soldier Schweik). It was intended to be a six-volume work, but only three were completed by the time of his death. The fourth volume was completed by Karel Vanek. The Good Soldier Schweik reflects the pacifist, antimilitary sentiments of post-World War I Europe. The title character is drafted into the service of Austria but does not fight in the war; instead, he serves as orderly to a drunken priest, who in a poker game loses Schweik's services to an ambitious, lecherous officer. Naive, instinctively honest, invariably incompetent, and guileless, Schweik is forever colliding with the clumsy, dehumanized military bureaucracy. His naivete serves as a contrast to the self-importance and conniving natures of his superior officers and is the main vehicle for Haek's mockery of authority.