Nfter the devastating town fire on September 19, 1869, this was probably the saddest day in the history of Lipnice nad Sázavou. Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek died here on January 3, 1923. He wasn’t even forty years old. Hašek, the bohemian. Hašek, the anarchist. The Red Army, Bigamist, Modernist. Hašek, the free spirit, the master of many mystifications, the brilliant writer who probably gave Central European literature the most famous character: the good soldier Švejk.
The program for the hundredth anniversary of his death looks like this: First, his admirers meet at Hašek’s small house in Lipnice. And also his descendants who live here in the village. The mourners then move on to his grave below the castle. Here people sing, drink and also read. And probably cried too. But laughed a lot more.
Because Jaroslav Hašek is known and valued above all as a humorist. But the last days of his life in Lipnice were anything but funny. Hašek didn’t make it back to his inn “Zur Böhmische Krone”, even though it was only a few steps away. His legs were heavy, everything hurt. He could hardly eat anything anymore. He was constantly throwing up. He couldn’t even drink his beloved beer. What remained was tea with milk. So he lay in his house in the shadow of a monumental castle ruin, which can be seen from afar and which Hašek described as an unsuccessful locomotive. The writer lived here for only three months, together with his second wife Šura, whom he met in Russia and brought to newly founded Czechoslovakia. Without telling her that he already had a wife and a son in Prague.
He feared nothing more than loneliness
But meeting people is what the ailing Hašek wanted to the last. Rather, it seemed as if nothing scared him more than loneliness. And before falling silent. He often invited his friends to play cards. And to tell. He dreamed of a trip to Spain and hoped that his condition would improve. He looked forward to spring. Even if he was aware that there would be no more spring for him.
Irena Dousková, born in 1964, writes about the last months, weeks and days in the life of Jaroslav Hašek in her great novel Bärentanz, which was published in Czech in 2014. Dousková notes that it is mainly men who love Hašek, including those who his “Schwejk” helped to survive in the military. Dousková fell in love with Hašek when she was a little girl. Since then she has read it over and over again. And always new.
In her novel, which takes place entirely in Lipnice, the author portrays Hašek as a difficult yet sensitive character. As a deeply melancholic person who never loses his sense of humor until the end. As an old clumsy and sick bear who can still dance a little and always has a joke or anecdote ready for his friends. “If you think about Hašek,” says Dousková, “you quickly end up with all the stereotypes that are still circulating today. One immediately imagines a beer buddy who is permanently drunk. Yes, he drank a lot, but Hašek was highly intelligent, very gifted and educated, and I think he was also a very sensitive person. Otherwise he could not have written what he wrote.”
