Марафонский бег

This book includes stories and humoresques from different years, as well as the novel "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik during the World War" (abridged).

The first part of the stories recreates the environment in which the writer spent his childhood. Gashek, with humor and a condescending grin, reveals the characters of the children and their overflowing energy and, like a judge, opposes the teachers, denouncing them as tyrants who suppress the personality of the child. In satirical stories, Hasek denounces the Austrian military ("Trunz's Cap"), the top of bourgeois society with its fake charity ("Soup for poor children"), deceitful morality ("Disaster at the Mine", "Above Lake Balaton").

During the First World War, Hasek was a prisoner of war in Russia and stayed there for five years, fighting in the ranks of the Red Army. This period is reflected in the feuilletons “From the Diary of a Ufa Bourgeois”, “The Diary of Priest Malyuta”, etc.