The Czech Republic is a country that does not show mountains and dew, but some time ago it appeared at a high rate, but it is a relatively negative image, the reason is well, everyone knows. In fact, Before Czechoslovakia was divided into two countries, it was also a member of the socialist camp, and its relations with us were not bad, and there were many cultural exchanges. Take the "Good Soldier Shuai Ke" that I want to talk about today, which has always been the recommended reading for Chinese students, at least in my reading era.
However, this work by the Czech writer Hašek is not just a student reading. Today, we will talk about this satirical and highly comedic novel work, "Good Soldier Shuaike".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > briefly talk about the author</h1>
Hašek, born in Prague to a poor family of teachers, had a very difficult childhood. During his secondary school years, he actively participated in demonstrations against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was repeatedly detained and arrested. After graduating from high school, he traveled all over the world and extensively understood social life, providing rich materials for his future literary creations.
Hashek
Between 1903 and 1904 he had contacts with and influenced anarchists. After the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted in the army and went to fight in Russia. At the outbreak of the October Revolution, Hašek, who was in Russia, joined the Revolution, joined the Red Army in February 1918 as a propagandist worker, and soon joined the Bolshevik Party. In 1920, Hašek returned to the Czech Republic and lived in Prague. He died in the town of Lipnice in 1923.
Hašek began writing literature in the early 20th century. There are more than a thousand short stories, essays, and political essays, all of which expose and satirize various aspects of Czech capitalist society under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. "The Day of The Maid Anna", "Salvation", "Lake Balaton" and so on are the best masterpieces of his short stories. The biggest achievement of Hashek's creation is the novel "Good Soldier Shuaike".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > about Good Soldier Shuaike</h1>
It is an outstanding work of political satire based on material that the author heard and witnessed while serving in the Austro-Hungarian army. The full title of the novel should actually be translated as "The Encounter of the Good Soldier Shuai Ke in the First World War", and sometimes translated as "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Shuai Ke".
Shuaike's experience looks more like a farce:
The ordinary soldiers from the common people are honest and honest, simple and generous, humorous and clever, smiling, like to bluff the orders of their superiors, and skillfully exploit loopholes in military discipline to make these orders seem absurd and ridiculous, and also make their superiors laugh and helpless. He effortlessly made it difficult for him to make the mighty relatives of the emperor and the state, the dignitaries and nobles, the generals, the police officers, and the judges and priests of good manners and priests miserable and ugly.
Shuai Ke suffered from rheumatism, was declared by the military district review committee to suffer from a chronic disease of nervous insanity, and retired from the army and returned home to live on dog trafficking. One day, he was arrested by a secret agent and taken to the police station for asking which Ferdinand had been assassinated. After signing the indictment, Shuai Ke asked, "Is there any other official document that I need to sign?" ”
When he saw a portrait of the Austrian Fuehrer hanging on the wall of the forensic room, he cried, "Long live our Emperor, Joseph I!" The forensic doctor asked him, "Is radium heavier than lead?" He said, "I've never weighed it." "Do you believe in the end of the world?" "I'll have to see the end of the world first." So the three medical experts agreed that Shuai Ke was an idiot.
Good soldier Shuaike
When he saw the people watching the emperor's declaration of war, he shouted, "Long live Joseph!" "As a result, he was arrested again. The Austro-Hungarian army was tight, and the War Department suddenly remembered Shuaik again. He borrowed a wheelchair from a neighbor and had people push him to join the army, but he was considered to be suffering from pretending to be ill to avoid military service.
One day, Shaker wept as he listened to the priest preach, explaining why he was crying bitterly, saying, "I see that what your preaching needs is a repentant man, and this is what you have not found in half a day." So I want to do you a favor and make you feel like there are a few honest people in the world. The priest took Shuaik as his messenger and later lost him as a bet to Lieutenant Lukasch.
The lieutenant loves animals, and Shuaike releases his beloved canary so that he and the cat have a deep understanding of each other, and the canary is eaten by the cat, which makes the lieutenant furious. Later, because Shuaike stole one of the colonel's dogs for the lieutenant, the lieutenant was sent to the front line by the colonel.
On the train to the front line, Shuai Ke taunted a bald general, saying that the hair loss was due to nerve stimulation when raising children. He called the police for no reason, causing a sharp brake, and was left at the station and punished, but detained for not carrying documents. After a few final twists and turns, he returned to Lieutenant Lukasch, who had always wanted to get rid of him. As a result, the lieutenant was punished by being transferred to the advance team for shuaike.
It is worth mentioning that the works are written almost strictly in accordance with the chronological order of the First World War, from the second volume (after Shuaik enlisted in the army from Prague), the war situation, events, routes, are basically consistent with the Austro-Hungarian army combat history of that year, and even the number of The Regiment to which Shuai Ke belonged and some of the characters in the work (Lukasch, Vannick, Dub, etc.) are not fictional.
Through the various experiences of the protagonist Shuai Ke in the First World War, the novel profoundly exposes the vicious tyranny of the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the corruption and degeneration of their armies. The author succeeds in portraying an ordinary Czech soldier connected to the flesh and blood of the people. In The body of Shuaik, it vividly reflects the wisdom of the Czech people, showing their dissatisfaction and resistance to foreign rulers, which is of typical significance.
"Good Soldier Shuaike" has a great influence in the Czech Republic and abroad, and has been translated into more than 50 languages, including Chinese, and is loved by people of all countries. But at the time, the work was controversial.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > controversy over the work</h1>
Hashek's active, humorous, cynical, debauched personality, pranks and absurdity have caused some resentment. Thus, the Czech bourgeois first republic did not recognize Hasek as a writer and imposed on him a number of charges: vulgar literati, alcoholics, "sphinx sitting in taverns" and so on.
There have even been many analyses of his wandering behavior: abnormal psychological manifestations, and his blood is filled with a demonic alcohol component that only animals can have. Biographer Wa Menger said: "Wandering is a biological phenomenon in some people, sociological in others, and both in Hasek." He was a natural wanderer", "His whole life was a living myth." His unfettered lifestyle was a dada-like work long before the advent of Dadaism. ”
And because Hasek was unwilling to fight for the foreign rulers who enslaved his own people, he took advantage of the Russian army to break through the defensive line, cutting off the connection between Hasek's troops and the main army of the empire, thus becoming a prisoner of the Russian army. The Austrians issued an arrest warrant confirming him as a defector. Thus, upon Hašek's return to the Czech Republic at the end of 1920, there was an immediate wave of anti-Hasek, who was brutally besieged and relentlessly persecuted, and no one was willing to publish his works.
Stills from the movie of the same name
At that time, the proletarian writers and critics headed by Vucic expressed completely different views, and in Vucic's article "The War of siege of Shuaik", he made this assessment of Hasek: He came from a poor background, always sided with the oppressed and exploited people, placed infinite sympathy and hope on them, and dedicated all his love to them. "His remarkable life of debauchery is just a comical mask to disguise his natural shyness and hidden personal tragedy. He was both a humorous satirist and a revolutionary. He was a communist fighter who went from unconscious to conscious. ”
The debate between these two opposing views was particularly intense in the 1920s and 1930s. It was not until the czech liberation in 1945 that the views of the proletarian left prevailed, and Hasek and his works attracted the attention of many famous scholars and comparative literature researchers in the international literary world, and Brecht, Bullock, Snow, etc. expressed many incisive views on him.
"Good Soldier Shuaike" is Hašek's most outstanding novel, nearly 600,000 words, accused by the authorities of "poisoning the vulgar literature of young people", "obscene", "difficult to climb the elegant hall", "no help to the cultivation and cultivation of the people's cultural upbringing", the government at that time once ordered a ban on the publication and strict prohibition of young people to read the book, and required libraries not to borrow it publicly.
After the first volume of the novel was written, no one published it, and Hashek had to engrave chapter by chapter with his friends and sell it along the street. When the book was greatly welcomed by readers, the authorities organized a siege of Hasek by bourgeois right-wing, Catholic literary critics.
First of all, they were very disgusted with Hasek's style, believing that the words of the dog sellers and liquor sellers were despicable and shallow, and the ignorant were not worth a word", and that the book was full of foul language and a variety of insults.
Hashek snapped back at them sharply: "I think it's the stupidest manner to copy mild-mannered words and use ellipses... Anyone who makes a fuss about 'heavy words' is a coward, because they are amazed by the real life, and this weak person is the greatest nuisance of culture and morality. They want to cultivate the nation into a sentimental philistine community, a hypocritical culture of the saint Alois type. The monk Ouistah said in his book that Alois cried when he heard a man fart in the midst of a cacophony, and that only prayer could calm him down. This kind of person is indignant in public, but with great pleasure he goes to the public toilets to admire the obscene words painted on the walls... We can't ask the hotel owner Barrywitz to speak as gently as someone sitting in a salon. Those who stayed in the salon, dressed in tuxedos and white gloves, spoke with a chewing tongue, were polite and polite, and had a salon-style elegance, and beneath this veil of morality was some salon beast that indulged in the most despicable and unnatural life. ”
Thus, Hashek opposed the literary aesthetic tendencies of his critics. And the vast number of readers are satisfied with Hasek's style: plain and popular, with few flowery words, trying to use the pure language of the citizens of Prague.
In addition, there has been controversy over the "spirit of the Suk" and whether the Szyk itself represents the Czech national character.
Some people say that there are handsome people everywhere in the Czech Republic, and every Czech has a bit of a handsome taste, and some people call the Czechs handsome. In the life of the Czech people, you can often hear someone being called "our handsome" by love, and when people joke with each other, they can also hear: "Less follow me to the handsome set." ”
Of course, there are also people who exaggerate Shuaike's stupidity, which makes Hašek a little dissatisfied. He once said: "Once I heard one person scold another person, 'You're as stupid as Handsome'! This only shows that it is contrary to my original intentions. However, if the word 'handsome' turns out to be a colorful swear flower on the garland of abusive language, then I can only be satisfied with the honor of enriching the Czech language. ”
Czech restaurant "Good Soldier Shuaik"
Others accuse Shuai Ke of being a "dangerous model", "a negative model", "just a character who makes people laugh", "he is passive and sluggish, does not resist, just wants to live himself". Thus, the reason why the Czechoslovak people did not take up arms to resist in several foreign aggressions was found in the "Spirit of The Handsome".
In his 1928 essay "The Siege of Shuaik", written in response to the bourgeois and Catholic siege of Shuaike, Vucic pointed out that "Shuaik is not a funny figure, he is a critical model" and that "all the ideas of capitalism: patriotism, ethics, justice and order, are ridiculed by Shuaik." He played the role of a 'genius fool', resisting the perverse actions of all reactionaries in a way that was not a positive resistance, or a passive resistance, and he was resisting, fighting. In the face of national distress and humiliation, he is still calm, optimistic and confident, skillfully maneuvering with the enemy and being able to defeat the opponent. ”
According to Vucic, "it is not impossible to regard this 'handsome spirit' as an integral part of the character of the positive, Czech people. But there is still a sense of "shame" among some Czechs: why can the partial handsomeness represent Czech literature entering the forest of world masterpieces?
Only six or seven of Hašek's works were known, and it was not until after 1945 that Hašek's name began to shine brightly, and the Czech literary community began to collect, organize, and publish his works, which have been published in 16 volumes, and Hašek's name has long since crossed the borders of the Czech Republic and is well known to the people of the world.