The Good Soldier Schweik
- Schweik also spelled:
- Svejk
The Good Soldier Schweik, satiric war novel by Jaroslav Hašek, published in Czech as Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války in four volumes in 1921–23. Hašek planned to continue The Good Soldier Schweik to six volumes but died just before completing the fourth.
The novel reflected the pacifist, antimilitary sentiments of post-World War I Europe. The title character is classified as “feeble-minded”; nevertheless, with the advent of World War I he is drafted into the service of Austria. Naive, instinctively honest, invariably incompetent, and guileless, Schweik is forever colliding with the clumsy, dehumanized military bureaucracy. Schweik’s naïveté serves as a contrast to the self-importance and conniving natures of his superior officers and is the main vehicle for Hašek’s mockery of authority.