One Hundred Years with Svejk

The text discusses the world of Hasek's Osudy dobreho vojaka Svejka ( The Good Soldier Svejk) and demonstrates how, in the novel, the loss of the social cohesion of the individual cultural spheres (science, religion, state), patriotism, and public forms of recognition are pictured. It argues that in the Hasek's depiction the loss of the public role of these spheres is something that can only be denied at the cost of collaborating with the stupidity and cruelty that rules the world. It reflects on the clash and penetration of the grotesque and the ridiculous in the novel. Thematically, however, the text is oriented towards the distance that Czech public has maintained already for a century to the character of Svejk, repeatedly in this regard touching on two major interpretations of the novel by Karel Kosik and Vaclav Cerny.