The author tries to capture how the western, which originally existed as the American form of historical and, actually, realistic novel, took root in the countries where the tradition of winning the Wild West and patriotic tendencies were more or less absent or they were depicted by using different genres and techniques. He contemplates whether the western in its essence exists until now or it is just in the position of a romanticizing and fossilized genre. Alongside the conscious exotism of the western, the genre – from the historical point of view, especially in the territory of Czechoslovakia - is able to function in its transformed meaning as a trigger for the tramp movement (and thus can also be seen as one of many roots of the Leftist Avant-garde), as well as a moral and social solution. Idealizing the „American“ element, which dates back to the 1930s, was also a moving force for liberal and free thinking, which in its black-and-white distinction often helped to overcome oppression and totalitarianism. The stereotypical battle between good and evil complemented by freedom simply works in any totalitarian society better – although with hindsight. He admits it was partly just a precursor of the Ideology of Consumerism. Since the second half of the 20th century the western imagery has moved from the literary form mainly to film adaptations and recently it has reached a stage when the western has de facto lost its opponent as well as its essence and the motivation for existence. Its current form undergoing a worldwide transformation from Romanticism preferably to Realistic-Naturalistic depictions then naturally has to seek its own purpose as well as the users, who often incline to other sources of pleasure in Pop Culture.
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This article is concerned with hitherto neglected endeavours to create a graphic-novel version of Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War (1921). The harmonious joining of Hašek’s novel with Josef Lada’s illustrations has led to a large number of imitators and followers, but also authors parodying this ‘cult’. Studying these comics also offers much to those interested in the reception of Hašek’s novel. The first part of the article focuses on the history of the illustrations to Švejk (apart from Lada, for example, there are illustrations by Karel Stroff, Petr Urban, and, outside Bohemia, Georg Grosz). The second part of the article is a de- tailed analysis of the graphic-novel versions. It recalls not only Lada’s comics-like conception of Švejk in the daily České slovo, but also, indeed mainly, the foreign comic-book adaptations (for example, Serbian, Polish, Hungarian, and Slovene). Though the foreign adaptations for comics are not burdened with the Lada tradition, they reflect far more strikingly the fixed visualization of the Švejk of Karel Steklý’s film adaptation of 1956–57.
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