Publication details
Fenomén Švejk: Můžeme sčítat zajíce, protože je po honu?
| Title in English | The phenomenon of Švejk: Can we count the chickens, because they are hatched? |
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | "Czech should be the language of choice for a foreign student, if only to read Švejk in the original." At least, that is what Jan Jiroušek from the University of Munich presented in the introduction of his study, which was published in 2006 in the proceedings of the Third Congress of World Literary Bohemistics and was devoted to the issues of the Czech canon. Švejk's adventures are famous throughout Europe, as evidenced by the numerous translations of the novel into various languages. The figure of Švejk, or perhaps more likely the image of the spiky fat man associated with Josef Lada's illustrations, has become a cultural emblem: think of the supposedly typically Czech attitude of "švejkovat" or the gnomic claims such as "The Czechs are a nation of Švejks!" belonging to the established phrases. It has also become one of the tourist symbols of the Czech Republic. The arriving foreigner is attacked everywhere: in any souvenir shop on Prague's "King's way", and in overpriced pseudo-authentic restaurants bearing the name of this Hašek character. In Jiří Trávníček's research, Švejk represents primarily male reading, not infrequently associated with former compulsory reading, and also universal wisdom, for in Švejk there is - at least according to some of his respondents - everything. It might follow that at least the character of Švejk, if not the whole novel, belongs even today to a universally recognized classic, which is inscribed in the general Czech cultural consciousness and is respected by it almost as part of the national identity. But is it really? Isn't today's Švejk already a hollowed-out symbol intended more for export? Does it still have its readers today? And how is he taught and received by today's high school graduates? I will try to answer these questions in the present paper, which was written as part of my dissertation on "A living classic? Significant literary works in an intermedial perspective". |
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