Slovak Literature in English Translation

On the Road to Freedom is a unique memoir of the First World War, chronicling not desperate charges or trench warfare, but the daily life of Austrian prisoners of war taken into Russian captivity at the very outset of the conflict, from eyewitness accounts of the Soviet Revolution in Kyiv and Saint Petersburg to the heroic and bloody route cut by the Czechoslovak Legions through Red Army forces as the former POWs make their way across Siberia to Vladivostok and the long steamboat journey home, where they will aid in establishing the newly independent Republic of Czechoslovakia. Besides their value as literary texts, Janko Jesenský’s wartime writings in verse and prose are a welcome addition to the English library of early twentieth century history. They provide a fresh, Slovak perspective on the “Great War,” the Russian Revolution, the establishment of the Czechoslovak state, and the situation of the smaller Central European nations on the chessboard of politics dominated by great powers.