Profile of Karel Capek on Famous Like Me

Karel Čapek (pronounced KARel CHAP-ek (♫); IPA: ['tʃapek]) (January 9, 1890 - December 25, 1938) was one of the most important Czech writers of the 20th century. He introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1920. The true inventor of the term robot was Karel's brother Josef Čapek.

Čapek was born in Malé Svatoňovice, then Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic.

Life and work

Karel ÄŒapek wrote with intelligence and humor on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known not only for interesting and exact descriptions of reality, but also for his excellent work with the Czech language. He is perhaps best known as a science fiction author, who wrote long before science fiction became established as a separate genre. He can be counted as one of the founders of classical non-hardcore European science fiction, which focuses on possible future (or alternative) social and human evolution on Earth, rather than technically advanced stories of space travel. However, it is best to class him with Aldous Huxley and George Orwell as a mainstream literary figure who used science-fiction motifs.

Many of his works discuss ethical and other aspects of the revolutionary inventions and processes that were already expected in the first half of 20th century. These included mass production, atomic weapons, and post-human intelligent beings such as robots or intelligent salamanders.

In this, ÄŒapek was also expressing fear of upcoming social disasters, dictatorship, violence, and unlimited power of corporations, and trying to find some hope for human beings. ÄŒapek's literary heirs include Ray Bradbury, Salman Rushdie, and possibly Brian Aldiss and Dan Simmons.

His other books and plays include detective stories, novels, fairy tales and theatre plays, and even a book on gardening. The most important works try to resolve the problem of epistemology, or "What is knowledge?": The Tales from Two Pockets, and first of all the trilogy of novels Hordubal, Meteor and An Ordinary Life.

Later, in the 1930s, Čapek's work focused on the threat of brutal Nazi and fascist (but also communist) dictatorships. His most productive years corresponded with the existence of the first republic of Czechoslovakia (1918-1938). He wrote Talks with T.G. Masaryk, a Czech patriot and first President of Czechoslovakia and a regular guest at Čapek's Friday garden parties for Czech patriots. This extraordinary relationship between the great author and the great political leader is perhaps unique, and is known to have been an inspiration to Václav Havel.

Karel ÄŒapek died in the December preceding the outbreak of World War II and was interred in the Vysehrad cemetery in Prague. Soon after it became clear that the Western allies had refused to help defend Czechoslovakia against Hitler, he refused to eat or leave his country and died of double pneumonia. The Gestapo had ranked him as "public enemy number 2" in Czechoslovakia. His brother Josef ÄŒapek, a painter and also a writer, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

After the war, ÄŒapek's work was only reluctantly accepted by the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia, since during his life he had refused to believe in a communist utopia as a viable alternative to the threat of Nazi domination.

Etymology of Robot

Etymological note: Robota is a Czech cognate of the German word Arbeit ("work"), from the Indo-European root *orbh-. It is usually translated as "serf" or "forced labor" and was the name used for the so-called "labor rent" which existed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1848. From this word Karel ÄŒapek's brother Josef (both brothers used to work together) created the word robot, a working or serving machine.

On the science fiction cartoon show Futurama, a planet inhabited entirely by robots was named "ÄŒapek 9", as a reference to Karel ÄŒapek's coining of the term "robot".

An outline of ÄŒapek's works

Works which can be considered early science fiction:

• R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
• The Makropulos Affair
• The Absolute at Large
• Krakatit
• War with the Newts (dystopian satire)

Anti-Nazi plays from the 1930s:

• The Mother
• The White Disease (earlier translated as Power and Glory)

Some other works:

• Stories from a Pocket and Stories from Another Pocket - a common name for a cycle of short detective stories (5-10 pages long) that shared common attitude and chacacters.
• How it is Made - satiric novels on the life of theatre, newspaper and film studio.
• The Gardener's Year (1929) is exactly what it says, a year-round guide to gardening, charmingly written, with illustrations by his brother Josef ÄŒapek.
• Pictures from the Insects' Life, also known as Insect Play, with Josef ÄŒapek, a satire in which insects stand in for various human characteristics: the flighty, vain butterfly, the obsequious, self serving dung beetle.
• Apocryphal Stories (Kniha apokryfů), short stories about literary and historical characters, such as Hamlet, a struggling playwright, Pontius Pilate, Don Juan, Alexander arguing with his teacher Aristotle, and Sarah and Abraham attempting to name ten good people so Sodom can be saved: "What do you have against Namuel? He's stupid but he's pious."
• Nine Fairy Tales: And One More Thrown in for Good Measure
• Dashenka, or the Life of a Puppy (Dášeňka)

Selected bibliography

• The Absolute at Large, 1922 (in Czech), June 1975, Garland Publishing ISBN 0-824-01403-0
• Apocryphal Tales, 1945 (in Czech), May 1997, Catbird Press Paperback ISBN 0-945-77434-6, Translated by Norma Comrada
• An Atomic Phantasy: Krakatit or simply Krakatit, 1924 (in Czech)
• Nine Fairy Tales: And One More Thrown in for Good Measure, October 1996, Northwestern Univ Press Paperback Reissue Edition, ISBN 0-810-11464-X. Illustrated by Josef Capek, Translated by Dagmar Herrmann
• R.U.R, March 1970, Pocket Books ISBN 0-671-46605-4
• Tales from Two Pockets
• Short story collection, Mystery (nsf) Translated by Norma Comrada June 194, Catbird Press Paperback ISBN 0-945-77425-7
• Talks With T.G. Masaryk Non-fiction. Biography of Masaryk, founder of Czechoslovakia.
• Three Novels: Hordubal, Meteor, An Ordinary Lifes NSF? Translated by M. and R. Weatherall
• Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Capek Reader. Collection of stories, plays and columns. Edited by Peter Kussi, Catbird Press ISBN 0-945-77407-9
• War With the Newts 1936 (in Czech), May 1967, Berkley Medallion Edition Paperback. Translated by M. & R. Weatherall, March 1990, Catbird Press paperback, ISBN 0-945-77410-9, October 1996, Northwestern University Press paperback ISBN 0-810-11468-2

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