(T. V.)
Karel Čapek
(1890 - 1938)
He was a Czech writer of the early 20th century. He
had
multiple
roles
throughout
his
career,
including
playwright, dramatist, essayist, publisher, literary reviewer,
photographer and art critic. He is best known for his science
fiction including his novel War with the Newts and the
play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which introduced
the word robot. He also wrote many politically charged works
dealing with the social turmoil of his time. Largely influenced by American pragmatic
liberalism, he campaigned in favor of free expression and utterly despised the rise of
both fascism and communism in Europe.
Čapek also expressed fear of social disasters, dictatorship, violence, human stupidity, the
unlimited power of corporations, and greed.
Capek tried to find hope, and the way out. Nazi agents came to the Čapek family house in
Prague to arrest him. Upon discovering that he had already been dead for some time, they
arrested and interrogated his wife Olga Schneipflugová, Czech actress.
Čapek was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, but he never won.
However, several awards are named after him, such as the Karel Čapek Prize, which is awarded
every other year by Czech PEN Club for literary work that contributes to reinforcing or maintaining
democratic and humanist values in the society. He was also a key figure in the creation of the
Czechoslovak PEN Club as a part of the International PEN. He died on the brink of World War II as a
result of lifelong medical condition, but his legacy as a literary figure has been well established
after the war.
Karel Čapek introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot,
which first appeared in his play R.U.R. in 1920. The word robot comes from the word robota. The
word robota means literally "serf labor", and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech. It
also means "work", "labor" in Slovak, archaic Czech, and many other Slavic. It derives from the
reconstructed Proto-Slavic word *robota, meaning "(slave) work."
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