Jaroslav Hašek (Czech: [ˈjaroslaf ˈɦaʃɛk]; 30 April 1883 – 3 January 1923) was a Czech writer, humorist, satirist, journalist, bohemian, first anarchist and then communist, and commissar of the Red Army against the Czechoslovak Legion. He is best known for his novel The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, an unfinished novel about a soldier in World War I and a satire on the ineptitude of authority figures. The novel has been translated into about 60 languages, making it the most translated novel in Czech literature.
Jaroslav Hašek's paternal ancestors were farmers rooted in Mydlovary in South Bohemia. Hašek's grandfather from his father's side, František Hašek, was a member of the Czech Landtag and later also the so-called Kromeriz convention. He was also involved in barricade fights in Prague in 1848. According to some rumors, he worked with Mikhail Bakunin during his stay in Bohemia in 1849.
The family of his mother, Katherine, née Jarešová, was also from South Bohemia. His grandfather Antonín Jareš and his great-grandfather Matěj Jareš were pond-keepers of the Schwarzenberg princes in Krč village No. 32.
His father, Josef Hašek, a deeply religious mathematics teacher, died early of alcohol intoxication. He put an end to himself due to pain caused by cancer. Poverty then forced his mother Kateřina with three children to move more than fifteen times.
At the age of four, the doctor diagnosed a heart defect and "stunted thyroid gland" in little Jaroslav. Because of this, he spent a lot of time in the country, with his grandfather from his mother's side, in the so-called Ražice dam-house, especially with his younger brother Bohuslav. In his childhood, Jaroslav was jealous of Bohuslav and even tried several times to hurt him as a baby. Later they had an extremely strong relationship and traveled together a lot on foot. Bohuslav drank himself to death one year after Jaroslav's death.
Hašek's childhood was ordinary, boyish, imbued with adventures with peers and reading Karl May and Jules Verne. However, this changed when Hašek was eleven: the retired sailor Němeček moved to Lipová Street, where the Hašeks lived at that time. Němeček wrapped the teenage Hašek around his little finger, pilfered the money that Hašek had stolen at home, and began to lead him into bars, including the infamous Jedová chýše (Poison Hut) on Apolinářská Street, where he taught him to drink alcohol. In addition, he intentionally had sex with his girlfriend in front of the boy. It was traumatic for Hašek. He later remembered these experiences with disgust and remorse. It probably influenced Hašek's relationship with women. In his discussions with his comrades in the Russian legions, it is said that he said the following about women:"Can there be anything worse in the world than such a human pig? I didn't know anything about these things, and yet I felt such disgust and revulsion that it was enough to poison my whole life. I could never look at the woman again, and I have also been afraid of women since then."Some theories about Hašek's homosexuality, spread mainly by the literary historian Jindřich Chalupecký (the essay "Podivný Hašek" in the book Expresionisté), have also originated here, as well as in the testimony of Hašek's friend Rudolf Šimanovský.
Shortly after Hašek began his studies at the grammar school in Ječná Street, his father died. In 1897, he was present at anti-German riots in Prague as a student. He was arrested and the gymnasium teachers forced him to "voluntarily" leave the institution. He then trained as a druggist in Kokoška's drugstore on the corner of Perštýn and Martinská Street, but eventually graduated from the Czech-Slavonic Business Academy in Resslova Street.
At the academy, he made friends with Ladislav Hájek, and in 1903 they together wrote and released a parody of the lyrical poetry of May Shouts, in which Hašek first laughed at pathos and entered the field of humorous literature.
After graduating in 1902, he was employed by the Slavia Bank; however, he was dismissed on May 28, 1903, for being absent without permission.
Thereafter, he began to earn his living exclusively in journalism and literature. At that time, he also met Czech anarchists. He began to lead a bohemian and vagrant life. Together with his brother Bohuslav, he walked through, among other places, Slovakia and western Galicia (now in Poland). Jaroslav Hašek published stories from these trips in Národní listy.
In 1907, he became editor of the anarchist magazine Komuna and was briefly imprisoned for his work.
In the same year, he fell in love with Jarmila Mayerová but, because of his bohemian life, her parents did not consider him a suitable partner for their daughter. When he was arrested for desecrating the Austro-Hungarian flag in Prague, Mayerová's parents took her to the countryside in the hope that it would help end their relationship. In response, Hašek tried to back out of his radical politics and get permanent work as a writer. In 1908 he edited the Women's Horizon. In 1909 he had sixty-four published short stories.
In February 1909, he was appointed editor of Svět zvířat (Animal World), a popular biweekly magazine that focused on animals and animal breeding. Hašek's engagement with the magazine was only the second time in his life that he had been permanently employed, and now he kept the job longer than he had at Banka Slavia, probably around 20 months.
Obtaining permanent employment at Animal World was instrumental in overcoming Jarmila Mayerová's parents' resistance to her marrying Hašek, and the wedding took place on 23 May 1910. In October 1910, Hašek was dismissed as editor of Animal World "when it was discovered he'd written articles about non-existent animals he'd made up". In November, he and his wife set up a dog trading business named "Cynological Institute of Prague", which failed after a few months. After a year of marriage, Jarmila returned to her parents after Hašek was detained for trying to feign his own death. According to other sources, however, this was a serious attempt at suicide, motivated by the understanding that he was unable to live a marital life. After this attempt, he was briefly hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital.
From 1911, he contributed to the Czech Word, then to the Torch, Humorist Letters, Nettle, Cartoons, and for some time led the Institute of Cynology, which inspired his later book My Dog Shop.
In 1911, he founded The Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law. He founded it with his friends in the Vinohrady pub called U zlatého litru (The Golden Liter) to parody the political life of that time. He also wrote the satirical work Political and Social History of the Party of Mild Progress within the limits of the law, but it was not published in book form until 1963.
During this period, together with František Langer, Emil Artur Longen and Egon Erwin Kisch he co-authored a number of cabaret performances, where he was also the main performer.
In the summer of 1912, Hašek spent several weeks in a pub in Chotěboř, where he could not be gotten rid of and the proprietors waited in vain for payment. He described his stay in Chotěboř in the stories "Traitor of the Nation in Chotěboř", the "District Court in Malibor", and "How about the birthplace of Ignát Herrmann or the Consecration in Krivice".