explain why that area of the world has not historically been
receptive to libertarian ideas.
To a Czech whose political sympathies were anti-authori-
tarian and individualistic, the hereditary aristocracy, the Aus-
tro-Hungarian monarchy, and even the Catholic Church must
have seemed too imposing and entrenched to ever accommo-
date themselves to incremental reform. The empire’s history of
half-hearted liberalization, invariably followed by conserva-
tive backlash and retrenchment, is a case in point. And if clas-
sical liberalism could not find a home among the urbanized,
anti-clerical, and commercially inclined Czechs, what hope
did it have in less hospitable Eastern European environs? The
ideological appeal of burn-it-all-to-the-ground anarchism can
be at least partly attributed to the role of hereditary privilege
in the region’s troubled history. Western-style liberal reform
just didn’t seem an adequate solution to the severity of Eastern
Europe’s traditional authoritarianism.
In an American context, Hašek might have become a writer
like H.L. Mencken, whose own libertarian outlook seemed
inspired by the same streak of misanthropic individualism
(“every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his
hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats”). But
misanthropes, malcontents, and individualists in the United
States have been fortunate in their circumstances. Libertarian
ideas about freedom and opportunity are simply more plausible
in a society without an entrenched (and highly visible) feudal
elite whose political influence and economic privileges stymie
dynamism and social mobility.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire and its troubled successor,
Czechoslovakia, have vanished, but the spirit of Švejk lives on in
Central and Eastern Europe. So too does a general suspicion of
free markets. The Czech Republic’s post-1989 shift from a cen-
trally planned economy may have been guided by admirers of
Margaret Thatcher, but the outcome was tainted by the old aris-
tocracy’s communist-era successors, who leveraged their privi-
leged status to profit handsomely during the transition period.
And the Czech Republic is one of the region’s success stories.
Further to the east, in Romania, the entire economy is
rumored to be dominated by former officers of the Securitate,
the communist-era secret police force. As in Hašek’s era, cir-
cumstances have conspired to limit the appeal of free markets.
But if libertarianism is in bad odor, a certain puckish anti-
authoritarian feeling persists throughout the region. This is the
everyman ideology of Švejk, whose political principles never
extend further than annoying his superiors or finding his next
meal, but who nonetheless embodies a certain bone-deep skepti-
cism of grand schemes, martial fervor, and officious bureaucrats.
Squint closely enough, and you can see this anti-authoritar-
ian streak in recent Czech history, from 1968’s Prague Spring
uprising to the rock ’n’ roll underground of dissidents and intel-
lectuals who helped usher their country out of the communist
era. This spirit has even entered the Czech language, where
“Švejking” (Švejkovina) has become shorthand for enduring
(and occasionally subverting) the military bureaucracy.
Eastern Europe may never be hospitable terrain for liber-
tarianism, but the continued resonance of Hašek’s book is a
hopeful indicator that, despite war, revolutionary upheaval,
and generations of repression, a broad skepticism of authority
in all its guises endures throughout the region. And one needn’t
be steeped in the history or culture of Eastern Europe to enjoy
Švejk’s escapades. Anyone who has dealt with officious bureau-
crats, incompetent superiors, and tiresome rules will chuckle
knowingly at the good soldier’s misadventures, even as they
see the absurd hell that militarized authoritarianism makes of
human life.WILL COLLINS is a high school teacher in Eger, H ungar y.REASON 61