Karel Čapek (/ˈtʃɑːpɛk/;[2]Czech:[ˈkarɛlˈtʃapɛk]ⓘ; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright, critic and journalist. He has become best known for hisscience fiction, including his novelWar with the Newts (1936) and playR.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920), which introduced the wordrobot.[1][3] He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time. Influenced by American pragmatic liberalism,[4] he campaigned in favor of free expression and strongly opposed the rise of bothfascism andcommunism in Europe.[5][6]
Though nominated for theNobel Prize in Literature seven times,[7] Čapek never received it. However, several awards commemorate his name,[8][9] such as the Karel Čapek Prize, awarded every other year by the Czech PEN Club for literary work that contributes to reinforcing or maintaining democratic and humanist values in society.[10] He also played a key role in establishing the Czechoslovak PEN Club as a part ofInternational PEN.[11]
Čapek died on the brink ofWorld War II as the result of a lifelong medical condition.[12]His legacy as a literary figure became well established after the war.[5]
Karel Čapek was born in 1890 in the village ofMalé Svatoňovice in theBohemian mountains. However, six months after his birth, the Čapek family moved to their own house inÚpice.[13] Karel Čapek's father, Antonín Čapek, worked as a doctor at the local textile factory.[14] Antonín was a very active person; apart from his work as a doctor, he also co-funded the local museum and was a member of the town council.[15]
Despite opposing his father'smaterialist andpositivist views, Karel Čapek loved and admired his father, later calling him "a good example... of the generation ofnational awakeners".[16] Karel's mother, Božena Čapková, was a homemaker.[14] Unlike her husband, she did not like life in the country, and she suffered from long-term depression.[15] Despite that, she assiduously collected and recorded local folklore, such as legends, songs and stories.[17] Karel was the youngest of three siblings. He would maintain an especially close relationship with his brotherJosef, a highly successful painter, living and working with him throughout his adult life.[18] His sister, Helena, was a talented pianist who later become a writer and published several memoirs about Karel and Josef.[19]
After finishing elementary school in Úpice, Karel moved with his grandmother toHradec Králové, where he started attending high school. Two years later the school expelled him for taking part in an illegal students' club.[14] Čapek later described the club as a "very non-murderous anarchist society".[20]
After this incident he moved toBrno with his sister and attempted to finish high school there, but two years later he moved again, toPrague, where he finished high school at the Academic Grammar School in 1909.[14][21] During his teenage years Čapek became enamored with the visual arts, especiallyCubism, which influenced his later writing.[22]
Exempted from military service due to the spinal problems that would haunt him his whole life, Čapek observed World War I from Prague. His political views were strongly affected by the war, and as a budding journalist he began to write on topics likenationalism,totalitarianism andconsumerism.[26] Through social circles, the young author developed close relationships with many of the political leaders of the nascent Czechoslovak state, includingTomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Czechoslovak patriot and the firstPresident of Czechoslovakia, and his sonJan Masaryk,[27][28] who would later become minister of foreign affairs. T. G. Masaryk was a regular guest at Čapek's "Friday Men"garden parties for leading Czech intellectuals. Čapek was also a member of Masaryk'sHrad political network.[29] Their frequent conversations on various topics later served as the basis for Čapek's bookTalks with T. G. Masaryk.[30]
Tomb of Karel Čapek and Olga Scheinpflugová at Vyšehrad cemetery
Čapek began his writing career as a journalist. With his brother Josef, he worked as an editor for the Czech paperNárodní listy(The National Newspaper) from October 1917 to April 1921.[31] Upon leaving, he and Josef joined the staff ofLidové noviny(The People's Paper) in April 1921.[32]
Čapek's early attempts at fiction were short stories and plays for the most part written with his brotherJosef.[33][34] His first international success wasR.U.R., a dystopian work about a bad day at a factory populated withsentientandroids. The play was translated into English in 1922, and was being performed in the UK and America by 1923. Throughout the 1920s, Čapek worked in many writing genres, producing both fiction and non-fiction, but worked primarily as a journalist.
In the 1930s, Čapek's work focused on the threat of brutalnational socialist and fascist dictatorships; by the mid-1930s, Čapek had become "an outspoken anti-fascist".[26] He also became a member ofInternational PEN Club. He established, and was the first president of the Czechoslovak PEN Club.[11]
In 1935, he married actressOlga Scheinpflugová, after a long acquaintance.[14][35] In 1938, it became clear that the Western allies, namelyFrance and theUnited Kingdom, would fail to fulfil the pre-war treaty agreements, and theyrefused to defend Czechoslovakia againstNazi Germany. Although offered the chance to go to exile in England, Čapek refused to leave his country – even though the NaziGestapo had named him "public enemy number two".[36] While repairing flood damage to his family's summer house inStará Huť, he contracted a common cold.[31] As he had suffered all his life fromspondyloarthritis and was also a heavy smoker, Karel Čapek died ofpneumonia, on 25 December 1938.[34]
Surprisingly, the Gestapo was not aware of his death. Several months later, just after theGerman invasion of Czechoslovakia, Nazi agents came to the Čapek family house in Prague to arrest him.[12] Upon discovering that he had already been dead for some time, they arrested and interrogated his wife Olga. She was later released and lived until 1968; she died onstage of a heart attack while performing one of her husband's plays.[37] His brother Josef was arrested in September and eventually died in theBergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945.[38] Karel Čapek and his wife are buried at theVyšehrad Cemetery in Prague. The inscription on the tombstone reads: "Here Josef Čapek, painter and poet, would have been buried. Grave far away."[36]
Karel Čapek wrote on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known for their precise description of reality.[39] Čapek is renowned for his work with theCzech language.[40][41]
He is known as ascience-fiction author who wrote before science fiction became widely recognized as a separate genre. Many of his works also discuss ethical aspects of industrial inventions and processes already anticipated in the first half of the 20th century. These includemass production,nuclear weapons and intelligent artificial beings such as robots or androids. His most productive years were duringthe First Republic of Czechoslovakia (1918–1938).[citation needed]
Čapek also expressed fear of social disasters, dictatorship, violence, human stupidity, the unlimited power of corporations, and greed. He tried to find hope, and a way out.From the 1930s onward his work became increasinglyanti-fascist,anti-militarist, and critical of what he saw as "irrationalism".[42]
Ivan Klíma, in his biography of Čapek, notes his influence on modern Czech literature, as well as on the development of Czech as a written language. Čapek, along with contemporaries likeJaroslav Hašek (1883-1923), spawned part of the early 20th-century revival in written Czech thanks to their decision to use the vernacular. Klíma writes, "It is thanks to Čapek that the written Czech language grew closer to the language people actually spoke".[18] Čapek was also a translator, and his translations from French poetry inspired a new generation of Czech poets.[18]
His most important works attempt to resolve problems ofepistemology, to answer the question: "What is knowledge?" Examples includeTales from Two Pockets, and the first book of the trilogy of novelsHordubal,Meteor, andAn Ordinary Life. He also co-wrote (with his brother Josef) the libretto forZdeněk Folprecht's operaLásky hra osudná in 1922.[44]
After World War II, Čapek's work was only reluctantly accepted by the communist government of Czechoslovakia (in office 1948–1989), because during his life he had refused to accept communism as a viable alternative. He was the first in a series of influential non-Marxist intellectuals who wrote a newspaper essay in a series called "Why I am not a Communist".[45]
In 2009 (70 years after his death), a book was published containing extensive correspondence by Karel Čapek, in which the writer discussespacifism and hisconscientious objection to military service with lawyer Jindřich Groag fromBrno. Until then, only a portion of these letters were known.[46]
I read Karel Čapek for the first time when I was a college student long ago in the Thirties. There was no writer like him ... prophetic assurance mixed with surrealistic humour and hard-edged social satire: a unique combination...he is a joy to read.[47]
Karel Čapek introduced and made popular the frequently used international wordrobot, which first appeared in his playR.U.R. in 1920. While it is frequently thought that he was the originator of the word, he wrote a short letter in reference to an article in theOxford English Dictionaryetymology in which he named his brother, painter and writerJosef Čapek, as its actual inventor.[48][49]
In an article in the Czech journalLidové noviny in 1933, he also explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatureslaboři (from Latinlabor, work). However, he did not like the word, seeing it as too artificial, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggestedroboti (robots in English).[50]
The wordrobot comes from the wordrobota. The word robota means literally "corvée", "serf labor", and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech. It also means "work", "labor" in colloquialSlovak, archaic Czech, and many other Slavic languages (e.g.,Bulgarian,Russian,Serbian,Polish,Macedonian,Ukrainian, etc.). It derives from the reconstructedProto-Slavic word*orbota, meaning "work, hard work, obligatory work for the king, or a short form used for plowing".
1920 –R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), (Rossumovi univerzální roboti) – play with one of the first examples of artificial intelligence human-like beings in art and literature.
1921 –Pictures from the Insects' Life (Ze života hmyzu), also known asThe Insect Play orThe Life of the Insects, with Josef Čapek, a satire in which insects stand in for various human characteristics: the flighty, vainbutterfly, the obsequious, self-servingdung beetle.
1922 –The Makropulos Affair (Věc Makropulos) – play about human immortality, not really from a science-fiction point of view.Leoš Janáček's opera is based on that.
1927 –Adam the Creator (Adam stvořitel), with Josef Čapek – The titular hero tries to destroy the world and replace it with a better one.[42] It was adapted intoan animated short by Japanese directorMahiro Maeda in 2015.
1937 –The White Disease (Bílá nemoc) – earlier translated as (Power and Glory). About the conflict between a pacifist doctor and the fascistic Marshal. This was the answer to coming Nazi era in the air, just before the start of WWII.[42]
1937 –The First Rescue Party (První parta) – novel based on the experiences of members of a rescue squad at the site of a mining accident. Became the basis fora film in 1959.
Stories from a Pocket andStories from Another Pocket, (Povídky z jedné a z druhé kapsy) – a common name for a cycle of short detective stories (5–10 pages long) that shared common attitude and characters, including The Last Judgement.
How it is Made (Jak se co dělá) – satiric novels on the life of theater, newspaper and movie studio.
The Gardener's Year (Zahradníkův rok, 1929) is exactly what it says it is: a year-round guide to gardening, charmingly written, with illustrations by his brother Josef Čapek.[58]
Apocryphal Tales (Kniha apokryfů, 1932, 2nd edition 1945)[59] – short stories about literary and historical characters, such asHamlet, a struggling playwright,Pontius Pilate,Don Juan,Alexander arguing with his teacherAristotle, andSarah andAbraham attempting to name ten good people soSodom can be saved.'
The Punishment of Prometheus (1932)
Times Aren't What They Were (1931)
As in the Good Old Days (1926)
Thersites (1931)
Agathon, or Concerning Wisdom (1920)
Alexander the Great (1937)
The Death of Archimedes (1938)
The Roman Legions (1928)
The Ten Righteous (1931)
Pseudo Lot, or Concerning Patriotism (1923)
Christmas Eve (1930)
Martha and Mary (1932)
Lazarus (1932)
The Fives Loaves (1937)
Benchanan (1934)
The Crucifixion (1927)
Pilate's Evening (1934)
Pilate's Creed (1920)
The Emperor Diocletian (1932)
Attila (1932)
The Idol Breakers (1936)
Brother Francis (1932)
Ophir (1932)
Goneril (1933)
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1934)
Don Juan's Confession (1932)
Romeo and Juliet (1932)
Master Hynek Rab of Kufstejn (1933)
Napoleon (1933)
Nine Fairy Tales: And One More Thrown in for Good Measure (Devatero Pohádek a ještě jedna od Josefa Čapka jako přívažek, 1932) – a collection offairy tales, aimed at children.
Dashenka, or the Life of a Puppy (Dášeňka čili Život štěněte, 1933)[60]
The Absolute at Large, 1922 (in Czech), 1927,The Macmillan Company, New York, translator uncredited. Also published 1975, Garland PublishingISBN0824014030,
An Atomic Phantasy: Krakatit or simplyKrakatit, 1924 (in Czech)
Believe in People : the essential Karel Čapek : previously untranslated journalism and letters 2010. Faber and Faber,ISBN978-0571231621. Selected and translated with an introduction by Šárka Tobrmanová-Kühnová; preface byJohn Carey.
The Cheat. Allen and Unwin, 1941.
Cross Roads, 2002, Catbird Press,ISBN0945774559 cloth;ISBN0945774540 trade paperback. Translation by Norma Comrada of "Boží muka" (1917) and "Trapné povídky" (1921).
I Had a Dog and a Cat. Allen & Unwin, 1940.
Nine Fairy Tales: And One More Thrown in for Good Measure, 1996, Northwestern Univ Press Paperback Reissue Edition,ISBN081011464X. Illustrated by Josef Capek, Translated by Dagmar Herrmann
^Hanley, Seán (2008).The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and Right-Wing. Routledge. p. 169.ISBN978-0415341356.Archived from the original on 21 August 2023. Retrieved28 July 2018.The philosopher Vaclav Belohradsky, one of the few Czech intellectuals supportive of the 'civic' right during the early 1990s, [...] viewed Klaus's thinking as a return to the American-influenced pragmatic liberalism of the Czech essayist and writer Karel Capek [...].
^"Czech PEN Club awards Karel Čapek Prize to Petr Šabach". Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. 19 January 2016.Archived from the original on 15 August 2016. Retrieved20 July 2016.The prize is awarded every other year for prosaic, dramatic or essayistic work by a Czech author which comprehensibly contributes to reinforcing or maintaining democratic and humanist values in society.
^abDerek Sayer,The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History. Princeton University Press, 2000ISBN069105052X, (pp. 22–23).
^abcKlíma, Ivan (2001).Karel Čapek: Life and Work. New Haven, CT: Catbird Press. pp. 191–199.ISBN978-0945774532.
^"Helena Čapková" (in Czech). Město Hronov.Archived from the original on 25 October 2020. Retrieved28 July 2016.
^Čapek, Karel; Čapek, Josef (1982). "Předmluva autobiografická".Ze společné tvorby: Krakonošova zahrada, Zářivé hlubiny a jiné prózy, Lásky hra osudná, Ze života hmyzu, Adam stvořitel (in Czech). Československý spisovatel. p. 13.
^"Karel Čapek" (in Czech). Osobnosti.cz.Archived from the original on 27 October 2020. Retrieved20 July 2016.
^Sarka Tobrmanova-Kuhnova, "Introduction," to Karel Čapek, "Believe in People: the essential Karel Čapek."London, Faber and Faber 2010, 2010,ISBN978-0571231621 (pp. xxiv–xxv).
^"Josef Čapek" (in Czech). aktualne.cz. 9 June 2014.Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved18 July 2016.
^abNick Carey (12 January 2000)."Karel Čapek". Český rozhlas.Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved20 July 2016.
Šulcová, Marie. Čapci, Ladění pro dvě struny, Poločas nadějí, Brána věčnosti. Praha: Melantrich 1993– 98
Šulcová, Marie. Prodloužený čas Josefa Čapka. Praha: Paseka 2000
Harkins, William Edward. Karel Čapek. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
Gabriel, Jiří, ed. Slovník Českých Filozofů. V Brne: Masarykova univerzita, 1998, 79–82 (in Czech).
Swirski, Peter. "Chapter 4 Karel Čapek and the Politics of Memory"From LowBrow to Nobrow. Montreal, London: McGill–Queen's University Press, 2005.
Milner, Andrew. "Chapter 6 From Rossums Universal Robots to Buffy the Vampire Slayer"Literature, Culture and Society. London, New York: Routledge, 2005.
Karel Čapek: An Essay by Alexander Matuška, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1964. Translation from the Slovak by Cathryn Alan ofČlověk proti zkáze: Pokus o Karla Čapka.
Karel Čapek by William E. Harkins, Columbia University Press, 1962.
Karel Čapek: In Pursuit of Truth, Tolerance and Trust by Bohuslava R. Bradbrook, Sussex Academic Press, 1998,ISBN1898723850.
Karel Čapek: Life and Work by Ivan Klíma, Catbird Press, 2002,ISBN0945774532. Translation from the Czech by Norma Comrada ofVelký věk chce mít též velké mordy: Život a dílo Karla Čapka.
