Tankový prapor – Škvorecký Josef (2018)

Student Danny became a private in the Smiřice regiment, and like every Czech in uniform, he inevitably approached the godfather of all soldiers in the world, Josef Švejk." – Jiří Voskovec. The tank battalion of Josef Škvorecký is characterized by a humor that can heal. Are dark forces circling around us? Let's open the novel – and immerse ourselves in the liberating essence of comic absurdity, whose considerable advantage is that it has already happened and that it happened to someone else, the autobiographical Danny Smiřický, whom we know from The Cowards, now a tank commander, who is winding down the last six months of the war with the Seventh Tank Battalion. The irresistible humor and masterful dialogues provoke loud laughter, but there is also the awareness that something much more vague and unclear, the future, life... awaits beyond the barracks gates... who can say? The dullness out there is masked more cunningly than under an officer's cap. "A person knows nothing until they start to lose it. Only when it's almost all over. That stupid law of life. Too late for everything. Late! ... and outside the window, golden bullets flew out and hit burning targets..." – Josef Škvorecký