1923The Good Soldier Švejk
Jaroslav Hašek
Hašek's great comic novel follows the imperturbable Josef Švejk, whose blank-faced obedience makes a mockery of the Austro-Hungarian army, from his arrest in a Prague pub through the bungled machinery of the First World War toward a front he never quite reaches. The route is real Bohemia: the tavern U Kalicha where it starts, the garrison at České Budějovice, the famous 'anabasis' on foot around the South Bohemian villages, and the training camp at Bruck an der Leitha before the troop trains east.
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