Volume 20, Issue 3

2025

Publication date: 28.04.2026

Description

The publication has been supported by a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University.

Cover design: Paweł Bigos

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Editorial team

Editor-in-Chief Katarzyna Bazarnik

Zastępca redaktor naczelnej / sekretarz Natalia Palich

Issue Editor Natalia Palich

Issue content

Dobry wojak Szwejk: pomiędzy emblematem a bezkształtem

Piotr Gierowski

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2025, pp. 175-182

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.25.015.22937

The article is an attempt to point out two opposing directions in which the interpretations of the main character from Jaroslav Hašek’s novel The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War are going. The first one exposes the distinct obviousness and definiteness of the meanings of this character, contained in the category of emblem. The second direction, related to the category of shapelessness, emphasizes the meaningful elusiveness of Svejk and his character as a kind of aporia.

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Szwejkiem – Haškowskie dystynkcje i agregat Szwejk

Joanna Derdowska

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2025, pp. 183-190

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.25.016.22938

The article presents an attempt to apply the category of distinction formulated by Pierre Bourdieu in the study of Jaroslav Hašek’s novel The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War. Working with the theoretical background of sociology of literature, the author proposes to consider how Jaroslav Hašek and Josef Švejk function primarily in the extratextual areas of the literary field. To emphasize transcending the textual world and highlighting the fact that in social practice actors often do not follow the basic literary knowledge separating the author from the literary character, she formulates the theoretical tool of the Švejk-aggregate.

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Szwejk przy tablicy. Dydaktyczny potencjał Przygód dobrego wojaka Szwejka Jaroslava Haszka i jego realizacje w polskim dyskursie edukacyjnym

Piotr Sebastian Ślusarczyk

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2025, pp. 191-206

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.25.017.22939

The paper analyses the reception of Haszek’s novel in Polish educational discourse. On the basis of selected interpretative proposals by literary scholars, conclusions are formulated concerning the didactic potential inherent in the work. Attention was also paid to translation as a problem of world literature didactics: Bohemian studies on Polish translations of the text of Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války were analysed in terms of their implications for contemporary school reality.

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Dobry wojak Szwejk w niedobrych czasach. Szwejk w epoce stalinizmu

Joanna Królak

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2025, pp. 207-216

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.25.018.22940

The article aims to trace the enduring presence of the Schweikian character transferred into the realities of the Stalinist era. The basis for analysis and interpretation consists of two texts of different genres by Josef Jaroslav Marek (Martin Petiška), The Fate of the Good Soldier Schweik after World War II, and Vladimir Vokolek’s So Spoke Schweik. While the former primarily relies on updating elements of Hašek’s poetics, the latter references Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In both cases, the aim is to depict the absurdities and grotesqueness of the Stalinist era, as well as to expose the mechanisms of a totalitarian state.

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„Portret pamięciowy” Józefa Szwejka: powieść i polskie przekłady – tytułowa postać – język

Dariusz Tkaczewski

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2025, pp. 217-233

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.25.019.22941

Jaroslav Hašek’s book Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války (The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War), which was written between 1921 and 1923, is one of the bestselling works of world literature and has entered the canon of the most outstanding anti-war novels with clear dramatic and satirical features. This humorous and at the same time pacifist and anti-militarist 4-volume book by the Czech writer has received hundreds of translations and thousands of studies in the Czech Republic and around the world. The iconic popularity of the author and his title character Josef Švejk has been effectively perpetuated by Josef Lada’s unique illustrations, as well as several film adaptations and many theatrical adaptations. In this article, the “memory portrait” of the title is an abbreviated attempt to present the state of our previous knowledge of Josef Švejk on the basis of his book fate and to search for new counterpoints of how this cult hero functions today. It will attempt to answer questions such as: who he was in the book, what he looked like and lived like, how he behaved and spoke, and who he is today as a hero of Czech and world pop culture.

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„By nie być własną odwrotnością” – Józefa Wittlina zmagania ze szwejkizmem

Magdalena Brodacka-Dwojak

Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 20, Issue 3, 2025, pp. 235-246

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.25.020.22942

This article is a comparative study of two Central European novels focusing on World War I: Jozef Wittlin’s Salt of the Earth and Jaroslav Hašek’s The Fate of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War. The first part of the text shows the history of the reception of the Czech novel in Poland, its influence on Wittlin’s work and the discussion with it that the Galician writer undertakes in the pages of Salt of the Earth. In the second part of the text, The History of the Irrational Hero, there are shown the philosophical issues of both works, specifically, the retreat from the Enlightenment philosophy of rationalism and the advent of “weak ontology” (G. Vattimo). There are analyzed the disintegration of the previous European order, the destruction of the identity of the main characters, and the symbolism and semantics of the representation of World War I common to the both writers. I ask whether the protagonist of Salt of the Earth – Piotr Niewiadomski – is Švejk’s alter ego, his opposite, or a representative of an alternative history of “provincial Galicia” in contrast to “central” Prague.

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Title and imprint pages PDF Table of Contents PDF About the Authors (pl) PDF

Słowa kluczowe: the good soldier Švejk, Jaroslav Hašek, 20th century Czech literature, emblem, shapelessness, sociology of literature, Czech literature, Jaroslav Hašek, distinction, didactics of literature, school reception of a literary work, translation, Jaroslav Haszek, Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války, Schweik, Zarathustra, Nietzsche, eternal return, Ubermensch, pub anecdote, pastiche, totalitarianism, Švejk, „memory portrait”, novel, translations, protagonist, language, Jozef Wittlin, Salt of the Earth, Jaroslav Hašek, Švejk, schweikism, Central European novel, World War I, Austria-Hungary, Central Europe

Funding information

This publication was supported by a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Excellence Initiative – Research University programme at the Jagiellonian University.

Volume 20, Issue 3

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2025