On the action against vagabonds in selected works by Hašek, Uher and Olbracht

Anyone who had not her or his permanent residence and wandered the world unemployed, “not being able to prove her or his incomes to live on”, could be prosecuted for vagrancy according to the Vagabundengesetz issued in 1873. A convicted person was sentenced from 8 days to 3 months imprisonment and stayed under police supervision for next 3 years, if needed. According to the original statistics, an enormous number of people were sued for vagrancy due to the increase in unemployment as a result of the economic recession and vague definition of a vagabond. The short story “Spravedlnost v Bavořích” (1909) by Jaroslav Hašek provides an illustrative depiction of a sentenced person. Not only Hašek’s prose before the First World War but also stories by other Czech authors show the motifs of the action against vagabonds that significantly determines the literary image of these characters as seen and understood by readers. If we compare the Hašek’s short story with both “Kapitoly o lidech kočovných” by Josef Uher and “O zlých samotářích” by Ivan Olbracht, we may classify the vagabond as a grotesque character or, on the other hand, as a melancholic character that is driven by a strong desire to rove about called the wanderlust rather than a usual physical activity.