A picaresque series of tales about an ordinary man's successful quest to survive, and a funny but unrelentingly savage assault on the very idea of bureaucratic officialdom as a human enterprise conferring benefits on those who live under its control, and on the various justifications bureaucracies offer for their own existence.

The collection of short stories entitled Behind the Lines: Bulguma and Other Stories draws on Hašek’s experience from revolutionary Russia. In a manner similar to that employed in his caricatures of the pre-war monarchy, he satirically captures events of the Bolshevik revolution from the perspective of a Red commissar in a combination of grotesque humor and sarcasm. Historical events serve merely as part of the historical mystification. Hašek presents them as he perceived them as a man and participant in historical events. He depicts them primarily as simple and human, pushing his critical view into the background. On the border of a comic exaggeration and a realistic depiction, an amusing story about a forgotten Tartar town of Bugulma unfolds featuring the Soviet commander of the Tver Revolutionary Regiment, drunk Yerokhimov, and Comrade Gašek, the Commanding Officer of Bugulma. Employing humor and exaggeration, Hašek demonstrates the zealotry of the revolutionary period as well as the stupidity and simple human insecurity of authoritarians. The collection of short stories, Behind the Lines, also includes other sketches by Hašek, written at the same time.

Indirect Translations and Non-Translation: The (Fateful) Adventures of Czech Literature in 20th-century Portugal, a pioneering study of the destiny of Czech and Slovak literature in 20th-century Portugal, is a gripping read for anyone seeking to look into intercultural exchanges in Europe beyond the so-called dominant or central cultures. Concentrating on relations between two medium-sized lingua- and socio-cultures via translation, this book discusses and thoroughly investigates indirect translations and the resulting phenomenon of indirect reception, the role of paratexts in evading censorship, surprising non-translation, and by extension, the impact of political ideology on the translation of literature. In drawing on the work of Jiří Levý and Anton Popovič, two outstanding Czechoslovak translation theorists, this book opens up new avenues of research, both theoretically and methodologically. As a whole, the author paints a much broader picture than might be expected. Scholars in areas as diverse as translation studies, comparative literature, reception studies, Czech literature and Portuguese culture will find inspiration in this book. By researching translation in two would-be totalitarian regimes, this monograph ultimately contributes to a better understanding of the international book exchanges in the 20th century between two non-dominant, or semi-peripheral, European cultures.

Translates the iconoclastic Czech's classic satire depicting the adventures of a soldier during the First World War

Places and Forms of Encounter in Jewish Literatures. Transfer, Mediality and Situativity brings together contributions on Jewish literatures with methodologies and theories discussed in Comparative and World Literature Studies. The contributions highlight dynamic literary processes in various historical and cultural contexts.

Włodzimierz Borodziej and Maciej Górny set out to salvage the historical memory of the experience of war in the lands between Riga and Skopje, beginning with the two Balkan conflicts of 1912–1913 and ending with the death of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1916. The First World War in the East and South-East of Europe was fought by people from a multitude of different nationalities, most of them dressed in the uniforms of three imperial armies: Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian. In this first volume of Forgotten Wars, the authors chart the origins and outbreak of the First World War, the early battles, and the war's impact on ordinary soldiers and civilians through to the end of the Romanian campaign in December 1916, by which point the Central Powers controlled all of the Balkans except for the Peloponnese. Combining military and social history, the authors make extensive use of eyewitness accounts to describe the traumatic experience that established a region stretching between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas.