25.12.1938
Karel Capek
Karel Capek
Czech Writer
Playwright
One of the most famous Czech writers of the 20th century, prose writer and playwright, science fiction writer.
Author of famous plays, short stories, essays, feuilletons, fairy tales, essays and travel notes
Karel Capek was born on January 9, 1890 in the village of Malé Svatonevice, Czech Republic. He grew up in the family of doctor Antonin Capek. He became the third and last child in the family. It was a resort town, which also had a developed mining industry. Here Karel's father worked as a doctor at resorts and mountain mines. His mother Bozena Čapkova collected Slovak folklore. Capek's older brother, Josef, is an artist and writer. Chapkova's older sister is a writer and memoirist.
In July of the same year, the family moved to the city of Upice, where Antonin Capek opened his own practice. Upice was a rapidly expanding town of artisans. The Chapeks lived surrounded by shoemakers, blacksmiths and masons, and often visited Karel's grandparents, who were farmers. Childhood memories were reflected in Capek’s work: he often depicted ordinary, ordinary people in his works.
In 1907 he entered the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University in Prague. He spent more than a year in Paris, attending lectures at the Sorbonne. In 1915 he received a bachelor's degree, defending a dissertation in Prague on the topic “Objective method in aesthetics as applied to the fine arts.” His first literary experiments date back to his studies - first in poetry, then in prose. In 1912, Karel and his brother Josef published their first book of short stories, “The Krakonosz Garden.”
During the First World War, Karel Capek worked as a teacher in the house of Count Lazansky, then as a journalist in the newspapers Narodni listy and Lidove noviny. Karel Čapek gained all-Czech fame for his masterful translation in 1919 of Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem “The Zone” - a kind of manifesto of a new generation of poets.
In 1920 he completed his first play, The Robber, and offered it to the National Theatre. The play was accepted and was performed on stage for several years. In the same year, the premiere of the fantastic play “R. U.R.”, the characters of which Chapek made robots for the first time in world literature. The word “robot” he invented entered the lexicon of the century and became the international name for a mechanical man.
In 1921, Capek went on a trip to England, during which he met leading English writers H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw. Returning to Prague, Capek completed the plays “From the Life of Insects” and “The Makropoulos Remedy.” They were translated to foreign languages, the writer gained European fame. In 1922-1923, Capek made a long trip around Europe, visiting France and Italy. Returning to Prague, he published collections of essays, Italian Letters and English Letters.
In 1924, the novel “The Factory of the Absolute” was published, in which the writer, in the form of a utopia, spoke about the life of a militarized society. In his second novel, Krakatit, Capek reflected on the consequences of excessive militarization. In the early thirties, Capek released a trilogy consisting of the novels Gordubal, Meteor and Ordinary life" The writer continued to travel around Europe, bringing material for new essays from each trip. In the genre of humorous travel diaries, “Postcards from Holland” and “Journey to the North” were published.
After the release of the novel “War with the Newts,” Karel Capek became the most widely read Czech writer in the world. The success of the book was explained by the fact that, in the genre of fiction, Chapek spoke about the danger that wars, nationalism and an irresponsible attitude towards the ecology of the planet pose to people. Following the “War with the Newts”, the writer created plays with anti-war themes - “White Disease” and “Mother”.
In addition to plays and novels, Capek owns the cycles of ironic detective stories “Stories from One Pocket” and “Stories from Another Pocket,” a collection of humorously reimagined biblical and literary plots“Apocrypha,” cycles of comic miniatures “The Year of the Gardener,” “Dasha” and “How It’s Done.”
Capek became the biographer of the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk, who was his personal friend and long-term interlocutor, in the books “Conversations with TGM” and “Silence with TGM.” The writer was a convinced anti-fascist. In 1935, he took part in the International Anti-Fascist Congress of Writers in Paris.
Capek was the founder and first chairman of the Czechoslovak Pen Club, a member of the League of Nations Committee on Literature and Art. In 1935, he was nominated for the post of president of the International Pen Club by H.G. Wells, its then president, but declined the post due to illness.
Karel Capek died on December 25, 1938 in Prague. He was buried in the memorial cemetery in Visegrad.
... read more >(January 9, 1890, Male Svatonevice, Austria-Hungary - December 25, 1938, Prague, Czechoslovakia)
en.wikipedia.org
Biography
Author of the famous plays “The Makropoulos Remedy” (Vec Makropulos, 1922), “Mother” (Matka, 1938), “R.U.R.” (Rossumovi Univerzalni Roboti, 1920), novels “Factory of the Absolute” (Tovarna na absolutno, 1922), “Krakatit” (Krakatit, 1922), “Hordubal” (Hordubal, 1933), “Meteor” (Povetron, 1934), “ Ordinary life"(Obycejny zivot, 1934; the last three form the so-called "philosophical trilogy"), "The War with the Newts" (Valka s mloky, 1936), "The First Rescue" (Prvni parta, 1937), "The Life and Work of the Composer Foltyn "(Zivot a dilo skladatele Foltyna, 1939, unfinished), as well as many stories, essays, feuilletons, fairy tales, essays and travel notes. Translator of modern French poetry (Apollinaire and others).
Karel Capek was born on January 9, 1890 in Male Svatonovice near Trutnov, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic), in the family of a factory doctor, Antonin Capek. He studied at the gymnasium in Hradec Kralove, then in Prague, in 1915 he received a doctorate in philosophy from Charles University, and also studied philosophy at universities in Berlin and Paris. Due to health reasons, he was not drafted into the army and for a short time worked as a tutor in the family of Count Lazansky. In the fall of 1917 he began working as a journalist and critic in the newspaper Narodni listy (National Newspaper), from 1921 until his death he worked as a journalist and cultural and political editor in the newspaper Lidove noviny (People's Newspaper). In 1921-1923 he was a playwright at the Prague Theater in Vinohrady (Divadlo na Vinohradech). The writer and actress of the same theater, Olga Scheinpflugova, was his acquaintance and close friend from 1920 (they got married in 1935).
He was actively involved in literature since 1916 (the collection of short stories “Shining Depths”, written in collaboration with his brother Joseph). Very different in character prose works demonstrate a brilliant mastery of the art of realistic description, subtle humor and the gift of artistic foresight (a typical example is the dystopia “Factory of the Absolute”, “Krakatit” and “War with the Newts”). During his lifetime, he received wide recognition both in Czechoslovakia and abroad: he was a nominee for the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature, the founder and first chairman of the Czechoslovak Pen Club (1925-1933), and a member of the League of Nations Committee on Literature and the Arts ( since 1931); in 1935 he was nominated for the post of president of the International Pen Club by G. Wells, its then president (refused the post due to illness). In addition to literature and journalism, he gained fame as an amateur photographer (his book of photographs “Dasha, or the Life of a Puppy” was the most published in interwar Czechoslovakia).
Capek, a staunch anti-fascist whose poor health was undermined by the events of 1938 (the Munich Agreement), died of double pneumonia on December 25, 1938, contracted as a result of flood relief work shortly before the complete German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
Before this, he found himself virtually in complete political and personal isolation after he refused to leave the country following the resignation and emigration of its then-president Edvard Benes. He was buried in the memorial cemetery in Visegrad. His archive was hidden by his widow, Olga Scheinpflugova, in the garden of the Strz estate in the village of Stara Gut (near the town of Dobříš, 35 km south of Prague), where the writer spent the last three years of his life, and was discovered after the war. Works of Capek, who was a personal friend and long-term interlocutor of T. G. Masaryk, promoted many of his ideas (the books “Conversations with TGM” and “Silence with TGM”) and did not show much sympathy for socialism (the famous article “Why I am not a communist” ), in communist Czechoslovakia at first it was banned, but from the 1950s-1960s it began to be actively published and studied again.
Karel Capek and his brother and co-author the artist Josef (who died of typhus in the German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen) are the inventors of the word "robot". Karel introduced the plays "R.U.R." humanoid mechanisms and called them “laboratories”, from the Latin word labor (“work”). But the author did not like this name, and, after consulting with his artist brother, who designed the scenery of the play, he decided to name these mechanisms with a Slovak word that has the same meaning (in Czech “work” is prace, and robota means “hard labor”, “hard work”). work", "corvee").
Bibliography
Dramaturgy:
* RUR
* White disease
* Makropoulos remedy
*Mother
Prose:
* War with the salamanders
* Absolute Factory
* Ordinary life
* Krakatite
* Gordubal
* Meteor
* First rescue
* Life and work of the composer Foltyn
* many stories ("Stories from one pocket", "Stories from another pocket", the cycle - "The Year of the Gardener", etc.), essays, feuilletons, fairy tales, essays and travel notes.
Karel Capek. Twelve Techniques of Literary Polemics or a Guide to Newspaper Discussions
Published by: K. Chapek, Collected Works in 5 volumes,
M., GIHL, 1958, volume 2, p. 19
The classic of world literature Karel Capek (1890-1938) had a penchant for exact knowledge. His father was a doctor. Karel himself studied at the universities of Berlin, Paris and Prague and defended his dissertation on the modern philosophical movement associated with natural sciences, - pragmatism.
His passion for exact sciences left a noticeable mark in his artistic works. Even in the humorous classification of literary polemic techniques, there is hidden serious literary content, which makes this work of K. Capek relevant today. From the author’s humorous reasoning, a philosophical conclusion follows that with the help of formulaic methods of polemics, a parallel world is created, from which there is no way out to reality and in which the reader runs wild intellectually and morally.
An example of this is the evolution of journalism that flashed before our eyes during perestroika. At its very beginning, the so-called “democrats,” flirting with public opinion, still simulated the appearance of polemics with the help of three or four techniques described by Karel Capek. Most of all, they loved to resort to substitution, constructing ideological effigies that had nothing in common with the opponent, and attributing only negative properties to him. Now, when the “democrats” have control of radio and television, most newspapers and magazines, they most often limit themselves to one technique - sticking labels on the patriotic opposition that is formidable to them in the form of short name sentences: “red-browns”, “communofascists”, “national patriots”, “anti-Semites” and so on.
Such labels are given to Russians from the outside. However, in lately Many former “democrats” have divorced - now “patriots” who are introducing this polemical technique among the Russian people. Only the labels are different. If a Russian person is talented and works fruitfully, they begin to whisper behind his back that he is a “graphomaniac.” This word is especially loved by those who themselves cannot connect two words. If a stab in the back with the nickname “graphomaniac” does not work and the Russian writer grows and creates more and more perfect works, then the term “mediocrity” is introduced in relation to him. If this does not help the spiteful critics and a talented Russian does not give up, then he is “sentenced to capital punishment” - rumors spread that he is a “Mason” or “Jewish Mason”.
This stuffy parallel world of a pseudo-patriot is inhabited, in which three types of people do not do business, but wash the bones of “graphomaniacs”, “mediocrities” and “Jew-Masons”. Some are provocateurs, “agents of influence” of the “democrats”. They are digging a hole in a parallel world for others: artificially narrowing the scope of reasoning of “ordinary people,” they are trying to turn them into biorobots controlled by primitive signals.
Others are narrow-minded people who do not want to work and think differently. Wanting to annoy those who work, they get deeper and deeper into the quagmire of squabbles and gossip.
Still others are inexperienced readers who take everything at face value.
It was these people who Karel Capek wanted to open their eyes so that they could find a way out of the labyrinths of parallel worlds that the sharks of polemical techniques impose on public opinion.
Anatoly VASILENKO (Magazine “Young Guard” No. 8, 1995, pp. 224-228.)
This short guide is not intended for participants in the debate, but for readers, so that they can at least roughly orient themselves in the methods of polemical struggle. I’m talking about techniques, but not about rules, because in newspaper polemics, unlike all other types of wrestling - fights, duels, fights, massacres, fights, matches, tournaments and general competitions in male strength, there are no rules - at least at least with us. In classical wrestling, for example, it is not allowed for opponents to swear during the competition. In boxing, you can't throw a punch through the air and then claim your opponent is knocked out. During a bayonet attack, it is not customary for soldiers of both sides to slander each other - journalists in the rear do this for them.
But all this and even much more are completely normal phenomena in verbal polemics, and it would be difficult to find anything that an expert in magazine disputes would recognize as an illegal technique, ignorance of the battle, rough play, deception or an ignoble trick. Therefore, there is no way to list and describe all the methods of polemical struggle; The twelve techniques that I will give are only the most common ones found in every, even the most unassuming battle in the press. Those who wish can supplement them with a dozen others.
1. Despicere (look down - lat.), or first reception. It consists in the fact that the participant in the dispute must make the enemy feel his intellectual and moral superiority, in other words, make it clear that the enemy is a limited person, weak-minded, graphomaniac, talker, a complete zero, an exaggerated figure, an epigone, an illiterate swindler, a bast shoe, a chaff, a scumbag and generally a subject unworthy of being talked to. Such an a priori premise then gives you the right to that lordly, arrogantly instructive and self-confident tone that is inseparable from the concept of “discussion”. Polemicizing, condemning someone, disagreeing and at the same time maintaining a certain respect for the enemy - all this is not part of national traditions.
2. Second reception, or Termini (terminology - lat.). This technique involves the use of special polemical expressions. If you, for example, write that Mr. X, in your opinion, is wrong in something, then Mr. X will answer that you “treacherously attacked him.” If you think that, unfortunately, there is a lack of logic in something, then your opponent will write that you are “crying” over it or “shedding tears.” Similarly, they say “spits” instead of “protests”, “slanders” instead of “celebrates”, “throws mud” instead of “criticizes”, and so on. Even if you are an unusually quiet and harmless person, like a lamb, with the help of such expressions you will be clearly depicted as an irritable, extravagant, irresponsible and somewhat abnormal person. This, by the way, will naturally explain why your respected opponent attacks you with such fervor: he is simply defending himself from your treacherous attacks, abuse and abuse.
3. The third technique is known as Caput canis (here: to attribute bad qualities - lat.). The art consists of using only such expressions that can create only a negative opinion about the beaten opponent. If you are cautious, you may be called cowardly; you are witty - they will say that you pretend to be witty; you are prone to simple and specific arguments - you can declare that you are mediocre and trivial; you have a penchant for abstract arguments - it is advantageous to present you as an abstruse scholastic, and so on. For a clever polemicist, there are simply no properties, points of view and states of mind, on which it would be impossible to stick a label, with its very name exposing the amazing emptiness, stupidity and insignificance of the persecuted enemy.
4. Non habet (here: to state the absence - lat.), or the fourth technique. If you are a serious scientist, you can easily be defeated by the third trick, by claiming that you are slow-witted, a garrulous moralist, an abstract theorist, or something like that. But you can also be destroyed by resorting to the Non habet technique. We can say that you lack subtle wit, spontaneity of feelings and intuitive imagination. If you turn out to be a spontaneous person with subtle intuition, you can be struck by the assertion that you lack firm principles, depth of conviction and moral responsibility in general. If you are rational, then you are good for nothing, because you are devoid of deep feelings; if you have them, then you are just a rag, because you lack higher rational principles. Your true qualities do not matter - you need to find what is not given to you and trample you into the dirt, moving on from it.
5. The fifth technique is called Negare (here: deny the presence - lat.) It consists of a simple denial of everything that is yours, everything that is inherent in you. If you, for example, pundit, then you can ignore this fact and say that you are a superficial talker, a windbag and an amateur. If for ten years you have stubbornly insisted that (let’s say) you believe in the devil’s grandmother or Edison, then in the eleventh year you can be declared in a polemic that you have never risen to the level of positive belief in the existence of the devil’s grandmother or Thomas Alva Edison. And this will do, because the uninitiated reader knows nothing about you, and the initiated one experiences a feeling of schadenfreude from the knowledge that you are denying the obvious.
6. Imago (here: substitution - lat.) - sixth technique. It consists in the fact that the reader is given some unimaginable stuffed animal that has nothing in common with the real enemy, after which this fictional enemy is destroyed. For example, thoughts are refuted that never occurred to the enemy and which he, naturally, never expressed; they show him that he is a fool and deeply mistaken, citing examples of truly stupid and erroneous theses, which, however, do not belong to him.
7. Pugna (beating - lat.) - a technique related to the previous one. It is based on assigning a false name to an opponent or the concept he defends, and then the entire controversy is directed against this arbitrary term. This technique is most often used in so-called principled polemics. The enemy is accused of some obscene “ism” and then this “ism” is dealt with.
8. Ulises (Ulysses (Odysseus) - symbol of cunning - lat.) - the eighth technique. The main thing in it is to deviate to the side and speak not to the essence of the issue. Thanks to this, the debate is advantageously enlivened, weak positions are masked and the whole dispute takes on an endless character. This is also called "wearing down your opponent."
9. Testimonia (testimony - lat.). This technique is based on the fact that sometimes it is convenient to use a reference to authority (any kind), for example, to state - “Pantagruel also spoke” or “as Treitschke proved.” With a certain amount of reading, you can find a quote for every case that will kill your opponent on the spot.
10. Quousque... (until... - lat.) The technique is similar to the previous one and differs only in the absence of a direct reference to authority. They simply say: “This has long been rejected,” or “This stage has already been passed,” or “Any child knows,” and so on. Against what is thus refuted no new arguments need be given. The reader believes, and the opponent is forced to defend “what has long been refuted” - a rather thankless task.
11. Impossibile (here: not allowed - lat.). Don't allow your opponent to be right about anything. Once we recognize even a grain of intelligence and truth in him, the entire debate is lost. If another phrase cannot be refuted, there is always still the possibility of saying: “Mr. X undertakes to teach me...”, or “Mr. The blind hen found the grain and is now cackling that...” In a word, there’s always something to be found, isn’t there?
12. Jubilare (to triumph - lat.). This is one of the most important techniques, and it consists in the fact that you should always leave the battlefield looking like a winner. A sophisticated polemicist is never defeated. The loser is always his opponent, whom they managed to “convince” and who is “finished.” This is what distinguishes polemics from any other sport. The wrestler on the mat honestly admits himself defeated; but, it seems, not a single polemic has ever ended with the words: “Your hand, you convinced me.” There are many other techniques, but spare me the description of them; let literary scholars collect them in the field of our journalism.
Karel Capek. Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Capek Karel (9.1.1890, Male Svatonevice, - 25.12.1938, Prague), Czech writer. Graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague (1915). Published since 1907. Most early stories 1908-13 (included in the collections "Krakonose Garden", 1918; "Shining Depths", 1916) written together with her brother J. Capek.
The tragic events of the First World War of 1914-18 determined Ch.’s intense search for the criterion of truth, his reflections on philosophical problems and the desire to discover the source of the contradictions of life: collections of stories “The Crucifixion” (1917), “Tormenting Stories” (1921), close to expressionism . However, these searches coincided with the influence on the writer of the philosophy of pragmatism and relativism, the ideas of the “multiplicity” of truths (“everyone is right in his own way”). Not accepting the revolutionary struggle, Ch. leaned toward moral and ethical humanism. Many of his works, including the lyrical comedy “The Robber” (1920), are structured as a comparison of several “truths”; Ch. thinks, as it were, simultaneously in several options, while maintaining, however, his ethical ideal.
Ch.'s world fame was brought to him by his socio-fictional works (the drama "R. . R.", 1920, about the uprising of robots; the word "robot" was invented by Ch.; "The Makropoulos Means", 1922; the novels "Factory of the Absolute", 1922, and "Krakatit", 1924). Science fiction assumptions about a discovery or invention that can quickly change the living conditions of mankind serve to construct a kind of thought socio-philosophical experiment, the creation of artificial circumstances in which certain things appear with particular clarity. philosophical problems and trends modern life. This means that criticism of inhumanity, militarism, and the church takes place, but the spontaneous nature of bourgeois socio-economic processes is absolutized by Ch. as a feature of the development of humanity in general. Ch.'s dramas and novels have the character of ironic and satirical utopias - warnings about the catastrophic potential contained in the social and international conflict of modern life, and about the danger of dehumanizing tendencies. Along with the realistic tendency in Ch., the predetermination of philosophical theses is sometimes reflected.
In the early 20s. Ch. creates travel essays “Letters from Italy” (1923) and “Letters from England” (1924), etc., distinguished by realistic specificity of figurative characteristics and lyrical humor.
In the 2nd half of the 20s - early 30s. Ch. becomes close to T. G. Masaryk; With the strengthening of bourgeois-democratic illusions in the writer’s mind, crisis phenomena are growing in his work (the Chapek brothers’ play “Adam the Creator”, 1927). Ch. temporarily withdraws from major social and political problems and conflicts; writes mainly humorous works of small genres (collections “Stories from One Pocket”, “Stories from Another Pocket”, both - 1929). The book "Apocrypha" (1932) is a philosophical and humorous rethinking of well-known biblical stories.
The aggravation of social contradictions and the “animal doctrine” of fascism exposed to Ch. the inconsistency of the thesis “everyone is right in his own way.” The philosophical overcoming of relativism was reflected in the trilogy “Gordubal” (1933), “Meteor”, “Ordinary Life” (both 1934). Faced with the threat of a new military danger, Ch. comes to active anti-fascist actions and criticizes the ruling circles of Czechoslovakia: he openly expresses sympathy for the USSR. The pinnacle of Ch.'s work is the novel "The War with the Newts" (1936), in which his traditional protest against the dehumanization of human relations results in a satire on the life of bourgeois society, militarism, racial theory and the politics of fascism. The novel combines the features of a mystified science fiction genre, a zoological parable, a social utopia, a political pamphlet and is full of parody forms. The anti-fascist and anti-war orientation and the search for the ideal of a “whole person” capable of fighting determined the content of the drama “White Disease” (1937), the story “The First Rescue” (1937), and Ch.’s last play “Mother” (1938).
Ch.'s experiences in connection with the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the persecution to which he was subjected by fascist and pro-fascist elements during the period of the “second republic” aggravated the writer’s illness, hastening his death. Ch.'s work had a significant influence on the development of modern social science fiction and was a significant contribution to the world classical literature. There are two Czech museums in Czechoslovakia: the country house-museum "On the Straight" and memorial museum in the writer's homeland.
Works: Spisy br. Capku, sv. -51, Praha, 1928-49; Dilo br. Capku, sv. 1-26, Praha, 1954-71; ybor z dila. Capka, sv. 1-10, Praha, 1972-74: in Russian. lane - Collection op. (Foreword by B.L. Suchkova), vol. 1-7, M., 1974-1977; Op. (Foreword by S.V. Nikolsky), vol. 1-5, M., 1958-59; Izbr., M., 1950; About art, L., 1969.
Lit.: Shevchuk V. ., Karel Capek. Anti-fascist works, Kiev, 1958: Malevich O., Karel Chapek. Critical-biographical essay, M., 1968; Nikolsky S.V., Roman K. Chapek “War with Newts”, M., 1968; his, Karel Chapek - science fiction writer and satirist, M., 1973; Bernstein I. A., K. Chapek. Creative path, M., 1969; Volkov A. R., Dramaturgy of K. Chapek, Lviv, 1972; Suchkov B., Karel Capek. Experience of modern reading, "Znamya", 1974, No. 6-7; Mukarovsky J., Kapitoly z ceske poetiky, sv. 2, Praha, 1948, s. 325-400; Harkins. E., Karel Capek, . .-L., 1962; Janaszek-Jwanickova ., Karol Capek czyli dramat humanisty, Warsz., 1962; Matuska A., Clovek proti zkaze. Pckus about Karla Capka, Prague, 1963.
S. V. Nikolsky.
Josef and Karel Capek. Senior and junior. Depths of the human soul
part one. "Senior and junior. Creative brotherhood."
The family of rural doctor Antonin Capek had three children. The elders are Elena (1886), Josef (1887) and the youngest is Karel (1890).
A family lived in the small town of Gronov, in the north-east of the Czech Republic.
The history of the family in which the Chapek brothers grew up goes deep into the depths of the people. The father comes from a peasant family, the mother is the daughter of a miller. The picturesque region in the foothills of the Giant Mountains, where the children of Antonin Capek and his wife Bozena spent their childhood, has left a noticeable mark on the history of Czech culture.
The creative and everyday life of the brothers was so close that they were almost indistinguishable, often mistaken for twins, although Josef was three years older than Karel and at first played the first violin in their well-coordinated duet. The difference in temperament and character was evident. Josef, lively and restless, was the ringleader in all games and amusements. But at school, where he felt the unkindness and prejudice of adults, Josef was bored, “the boy who wanted to be an organ grinder, a fireman, a captain, a traveler, studied poorly and everyone decided that there was no point in it won’t work out. Therefore, he was sent to the factory. He forged iron staples, did calculations, assembled machines, wove endless fabrics for towels and fabrics...” (So we read in the autobiographical preface to the book of the Capek brothers “The Garden of Krakonos” (1918).
Having graduated from a two-year textile school at the insistence of his parents, Joseph was forced to stand behind a loom to gain practical experience. Having threatened his parents with suicide, he achieved his goal - he passionately dreamed of becoming an artist - he was sent to study at the Prague Art Institute -industrial school(1904), and in 1907. The whole family moves to Prague.
Here I want to touch specifically on the peculiarities of the relationship between the two brothers, their unusually fruitful creative and spiritual union.
It has been this way since childhood that little Ichek tried to follow his brother in everything, even copying his hobbies. Josef was painting, and Karel picked up the brushes. Sometimes they would sit right on the street to practice painting, hanging a sign: “Don’t stare!” Following his older brother, who in the third grade of elementary school decided to write a novel, the younger brother also began writing. Already in early childhood The difference in the characters and temperaments of the brothers affected them, but their spiritual and emotional connection was always strong.
Having grown up, both flatly refused to follow in their father’s footsteps and choose the noble profession of medicine. Then Antonin Capek allocated half of his fortune to his sons so that they could live as they see fit. Without thinking twice, in the fall of 1910 the brothers went to study abroad. Josef - to Paris to meet modern painting, Karel - to Berlin, to listen to lectures at the university .. The younger one did not have enough separation for long, and already in the spring of 1911 he came to Joseph in Paris. Together they rummaged through the scatterings of books on the book trays of second-hand booksellers, perched on the embankments of the Seine, observing the life of bohemia in the taverns of Montmartre and the Latin Quarter, running around museums. In the summer they go to Marseille, from where Joseph makes a foray into Spain (Barcelona, Zaragoza, Madrid, Toledo, Segovia).
Subsequently, literary scholars struggled a lot with the question of what each of the brothers brought to their joint works.. According to contemporaries (J Fucik, correspondence of the brothers), Josef Capek was the author of the idea for a number of works by the brothers, written together (the play “Love’s Fatal Game”, the story " Shining Depths" and even the comedy "The Robber", which he completed in 1919 and presented to the public only under his name Karel Capek. (O. Malevich." Josef Capek - prose writer and poet.)
A comparison of Josef Capek's early story "The Temptation of Brother Tranquillius" (1909) with the common story of the Capek brothers "The Return of the Soothsayer Hermotim" confirms the influence of his brother's ideas on their joint work (O. Malevich. Josef Capek - prose writer and poet).
The works of the younger of the two brothers, Karel, are well known throughout the world.
However, many literary scholars are of the opinion that it was Joseph who was able to describe with exceptional skill the most hidden depths of the human soul.
The brothers' first joint experience was the play "Love's Fatal Game" (Lasky hra osudna -1911), then the collections of stories "Krakonosova Garden" (Krakonosova zahrada -1918) and "Shining Depths" (Zarive hlubiny -1916). Next, the brothers work independently and publish their own works.
After publishing their first independent works, they again joined forces and created the plays “From the Life of Insects” (Ze zivota hmyzu -1922) and “Adam the Creator” (Adam Stvoritel -1927).
According to researchers, in the comedy "Adam the Creator" (1927), the idea belongs entirely to Joseph.
In the play "From the Life of Insects" (1922), the general concept and design of the first and third acts belongs to Josef Capek.
Josef illustrates the books of his brother Karel (“Italian Letters”, “About the Closest Things”), makes covers for them and here achieves an almost poster-like laconicism.
He illustrates both his own book “Stories about a Dog and a Cat” and Karel Capek’s book “Fairy Tales”.
In the 1920s, the youngest of the brothers, Karel Capek, gained worldwide recognition through his plays.
Drama "R.U.R." (1920) passed through theatrical stage many European countries, giving rise to a lot of followers and imitators. In Russia, for example, Alexey Tolstoy created the play “Riot of the Machines” based on it. It is interesting that it was this work by Karel Capek that enriched the international lexicon with a new word - “robot.” And the word itself was invented and given to his younger brother by Josef Capek.
part two. "The shining depths of the human soul."
Affection for a brother, tender love and unspeakable sadness
I will cite here in full this confessional prose, in which, perhaps, the lightness, clarity, tenderness and childishness, the selflessness of Josef Capek’s personality are especially clearly visible...
These lines dedicated to my brother shook me to the core.
Perhaps this ability to love tenderly and in a fatherly way, to sympathize, to give and not to take, to pity and respect, to be a friend and a brother, was the whole secret of that brilliant creative union that the Chapek brothers showed to world literature.
"Today is a week like..." (from the book "About Myself") (translation by Oleg Malevich. In the collection "Inscribed on the Clouds")
Today is a week since I saw him - unconscious, in agony - descending into the kingdom of shadows; a significant and famous writer has passed away; everything testifies to this: the sadness of many people, messages and obituaries in newspapers, grandiose funerals - but I will lose sibling, with whom I was inseparable, whose growth and development I observed, starting from the first baby steps.
Today is a week.. today is a year... three years.. ten years... thirty... today is almost fifty years.. How much sadness there is in the fact that helpless, powerless in love and anxiety, we cannot comprehend death! The one who in his death merges with the cosmos goes too far from us, spiritually limited beings.
“Keep an eye on Karel,” my mother used to tell us, my older sister and older brother, “Karel is fragile, weak, the youngest, he was the favorite, the darling of the family; “Sunday child,” my mother called him, because in everything, starting from the first school years, he was accompanied by special happiness, special success and luck.
A crowded funeral of the famous writer took place, but now I am burying my brother alone, sometimes unable to see anything from tears. My brother is a famous writer, everyone talks about it. But I think about our childhood games. About those thousands of small joys, from which something most essential in life is woven; about her lovely, lush luxury, which only the prosperity and love of her native nest can give. About how we grew up side by side, lived together and understood each other.
Karel, neither great deeds, nor glory, this cold sun, in the bright radiance of which black shadows creeping behind any light appear so clearly, nor the whirlwind of life, which sometimes carried you so far that you no longer heard our calls, will prompt you to return back; Nor will those little things, insignificant to everyone else, from which the warm, heartfelt fabric of our brotherly life was born. You left an illustrious, widely recognized legacy and became frozen, as if renouncing everything, will not induce you to return. How can I make you smile at the memories of our funny childhood pranks, if they bring tears to my eyes?
I, foolishly, remember our fraternal jargon, speaking in which we achieved such exceptional agreement.
He grew from the family womb, from our shared existence; from the jokes of grandparents' parents; from quotes, abbreviations and typos found in the books we read as boys, quotes used in the most absurd ways and in the most inappropriate cases; our synthetic words come to mind, composed of two, simultaneously expressing both the subject itself and its funny and bitter underside; awkward puns in which we tried to outdo ourselves; the fireworks of witticisms and dadaistic nonsense that we raved about - all that sparkling, violent acrobatics of the spirit that we, to our mutual joy, bestowed on each other, and those rude and cynical jokes that helped to disguise the overly sensitive and ardent brotherly sympathy. I remember the most brotherly thing in our brotherhood: our smiles, our joys, our brotherly happiness. Today I alone bury you; I don’t think about the glory that you deserve, or about the hatred that you don’t deserve, or about any of the things that a grateful and ungrateful nation has surrounded you with beyond all measure; I think only about you, about my brother Karel, about the charm of our brotherhood, about the heartfelt jargon of two brothers who have lived so closely together. We will no longer be “two old men eating a watermelon,” as we dubbed ourselves, having found this image in Gogol’s story , we boys liked it so much that when we sat down together at the table, we certainly remembered it. There is no longer a watermelon in the world that we two old men could eat. Never again will we sing “Grolier, Grolier”, never again will we sing our “Sliochd, Sliochd dan nan roon” - a seal song from the legend of the ancient Gaels, so formidable and powerful that whoever heard it immediately died. And once in Paris, when in the twilight of the passing day after a dinner we had cooked with our own hands, we suddenly felt sad for our native Czech Republic, we began to sing old grandmother’s and folk songs. We decided that Karel would sing tenor, I would sing bass; Such a combination, we said, no one would certainly survive such two-voices; That's why we called our singing "Sliochd". Every time on such evenings it was our turn to sing our favorite song “Green Groves”.
Never again will we say (ah, the last time I heard it from you was on my deathbed): “Kooga!” - “Inde! Inde!" - "K"oga nanda!" (“Speak!” - “No! No!” - “Talk nonsense!”); We will never reproach each other again: “Oh, you ignoble Burda...”
I'm just remembering. Never again will we fight with pillows, slippers, soup spoons, a wooden pestle... us two boys... Never... Never!"
translation from Czech O.M. Malevich
January 9 marked the 120th anniversary of the birth of Karl Capek. Even those who have not read Capek know that it was Karel and his brother Josef who were the inventors of the word “robot”. And even those who have not read Capek are familiar with his widely replicated 12 rules of polemics, which will always remain relevant.
And the majority, of course, read Capek. Therefore, there is no point in introducing one of the most famous Czech writers of the twentieth century. Today we will talk about his work with the chairman of the Czech Society named after the Capek brothers, Josef Protiva.
“I have been actively studying the work of Karl and Josef Capek since 1980. What interests me most is his fiction “War of the Salamanders” and “Ordinary Life,” but his journalism is also very, very interesting.”
-Many experts claim that in his “War of the Newts” Capek not only predicted the war on terrorism, but also described it in almost detail. What do you say to this?
“I agree with this, because the War of the Salamanders is a novel that accurately describes a dictatorship, be it a fascist or a communist dictatorship. Or terrorism."
Capek's book "War of the Salamanders" was written in 1953. It was often called politically incorrect and an anti-fascist pamphlet. However, Chapek predicted a confrontation between the West and the Third World. His salamanders first learned to fish for pearls, then to use tools and weapons. Then they studied at universities and finally rebelled. Here are quotes from his book:
“I don’t know what we should be more afraid of - their human civilization or their insidious, cold, bestial cruelty. But when one is combined with the other, the result is something diabolical.”
"You crazy people, stop feeding the salamanders! Stop giving them work, refuse their services, break up with them, let them feed themselves!"
-It’s surprising that “The War with the Newts” was also published in the Soviet Union...
“It was published, but, of course, not completely. For example, it did not include a parody of the speech of the communist leader, which began with the words ““Comrade salamanders!” and ends with a call to the Newts to unite... Communist censorship could not allow this.”
-Since when has Chapek been published in Russia?
“Since the fifties, but not entirely. The complete collection of his works, including, for example, “Conversations with T.G. Masaryk" were published after the collapse of the communist system."
-In Russia, Chapek is widely read, known and loved. In what other countries is his work especially loved?
“Chapek is consistently published without interruption in two more countries - Germany and Japan. Russia is itself. I don't know what this has to do with it, but it's interesting to note that all three of these countries went through very harsh dictatorships. This is probably why Chapek is especially relevant there.”
-In the Czech Republic, the Capek brothers are perceived as a single whole. A summer cinema and several gymnasiums were named in honor of the brothers, and a monument was erected in Prague: on one side of the stone block the name of the older brother is written, and on the other - the younger one. In Russia, the name of Josef Capek is probably known only to art historians. Why do you think?
“Because the literary work of Josef Capek is quantitatively less than his brother... And then we know him better as one of the founders of Czech Cubism...”
-I know that even a comic book based on Capek “Krakatit” was published in the Czech Republic, what do you think of this? Will this help children arouse interest in his work in general?
“No, I personally have a negative attitude towards this. I think this will lower Capek's credibility in the eyes of the younger generation, because this comic does not comprehend the depth of his literary thoughts."
- Maybe, on the contrary, painted and colorful things will attract them to reading more serious things?
"May be. But I think the younger generation should read it first short stories, fairy tales, apocrypha and more..."
-Tell our listeners about the activities of the Chapek brothers society. What are you working on now?
“Our society has been functioning since 1947, and we, as a rule, organize lectures and literary programs. We support the installation of exhibitions. Now, for example, there is an exhibition dedicated to Karel Capek in Germany, it was just in Brussels, Geneva is being prepared, then Slovakia and Japan. In general, we are trying to introduce people to the lesser-known works of the Chapek brothers.”
- Who could you compare with Karel Capek in world literature in terms of scale and style?
"With George Bernard Shaw. Like Capek, he wrote journalism, dramatic plays, they even have some of the same plots.”
- I remember that Shaw refused the monetary part of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and Chapek did not refuse, but never received...
“Capek was nominated eight times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Unfortunately, on the Czech side, some people really did not want this, and Sweden did not want to anger Nazi Germany, and therefore this prize was never awarded to him.”
-In the Czech Republic, since 1994, there has been a prize named after Karl Capek, which was received by such figures as Günter Grass, Philipp Roth, Arnost Lustig, Ludvik Vaculik and Vaclav Havel. Which award winner is your favorite?
“They are all wonderful writers, but I think Ivan Klima, who has been engaged in his work for more than half a century, deserved the prize most of all. Klima received the award in 2009. He published his biography, also edited his selected works, and did this at a time when Capek was far from the most popular writer. What's interesting about this story is that Klima himself former communist. And thanks to Chapek and his journalism, he became a democrat, and this absolutely revolutionized his work and journalism.”
Karel Capek is an outstanding Czech writer, journalist, and translator. Born in the town of Male-Svatonevice in the foothills of the Giant Mountains, in the family of a rural doctor. He studied philosophy at the universities of Prague, Berlin, and Paris. He received his Doctor of Philosophy degree, defending his dissertation “Practicalism or the Philosophy of Practical Life” in 1915. From 1917 he worked as a reporter for the newspaper Narodni Listy, from 1921 until the end of his life in the newspaper Lidove Noviny. Capek constantly communicated with leading European intellectuals in 1925-1933. was the first chairman of the Czechoslovak Penclub. Translated the works of G. Apollinaire and G. K. Chesterton. He entered literature together with his brother, the artist Joseph, with joint collections of stories “Shining Depths and Other Prose” (1916), “Krkonoše Garden” (1918), written in the style of neoclassicism. The books “God's Punishment” (1917) and “Unpleasant Stories” (1921) are already the fruit of the writer’s independent creativity. Reader interest was aroused by humorous stories and a number of witty travel essays by Capek “Letters from Italy” (1923), “Letters from England” (1924), “Excursion to Spain” (1929), “Pictures of Holland” (1932), etc. From the beginning 1920s Capek acts as a playwright, working briefly at the theater in Vinohrady, where his plays “The Robber” and “From the Life of Insects” (1921) were staged. The drama “RrU.R.” brought the writer worldwide fame. (1920), in which the word "robot" was used for the first time. In social science fiction works written in the spirit of dystopia: the play “The Makropoulos Remedy” (1924), the novels “Factory of the Absolute” (1922), “Krakatit” (1924), the writer warned about the catastrophic danger of anti-humanistic tendencies in the development of civilization, even if they are connected with technical progress. The grotesque fantasy novel “The War with the Newts” (1936), the play “White Disease” (1937), and others present a satirical denunciation of militarism and fascist racial theories. The drama “Mother” (1938) is imbued with anxiety for the fate of the homeland in connection with the advancing fascism. Capek has always acted as a defender of democratic ideals and values from the point of view of a “little” person (story “Gordubal” 1933). On this basis, he developed friendly relations with the President of the Czech Republic T.G. Masaryk. He wrote memoirs about their conversations, “Conversations with T.G. Masaryk” (1928-1935). He died in Prague, on the eve of the tragic fall of Czechoslovakia, captured by the Nazis.
Materials used from the book: Russian-Slavic calendar for 2005. Compiled by: M.Yu. Dostal, V.D. Malyugin, I.V. Churkina. M., 2005.
CHAPEK (Capek) Karel (January 9, 1890, m. Malye Svatonevice, Czech Republic - December 25, 1938, Prague) - Czech writer, playwright, public figure and philosopher. In 1907 he entered the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University in Prague. He spent more than a year in Paris, attending lectures at the Sorbonne. In 1915 he received a bachelor's degree, defending a dissertation in Prague on the topic “The objective method in aesthetics as applied to the fine arts,” in which he tried to find a way out of the “crisis of aesthetics” by asserting the objectivity of the subject of aesthetic perception. Capek's work is an attempt to wrest the aesthetic as a subject of scientific knowledge from the sphere of influence of subjective irrational philosophy, without encroaching on its epistemological foundations. In general, his philosophical views underwent a turn from neo-Kantianism to Bergsonism (in which he primarily saw a protest against soulless civilization) and pragmatism. Capek's desire to philosophically substantiate the possibility of changing the world was also explained by his sympathy for relativism, which he considered “not only skepticism, but also a gratifying prospect.” In Capek's stories (collections "Crucifixion", 1917, "Tormenting Stories", 1917-18), the metaphysical problem of finding the meaning of life is intertwined with the crudely concrete realities of reality. The writer comes to the idea of a plurality of truths (“everyone is right in his own way”) as a path to universal reconciliation, but reality pushes him to recognize social determinism human feelings and actions - the optimistic philosophy of pragmatism retreats before real life. In the drama "R. U.R." (1920) Capek depicts the conflict between man and the machine he has constructed (“robot,” a concept coined by the writer), inevitably leading to the degeneration of people who have stopped working. The play “The Makropulos Remedy” (Vec Makropulos, 1922) is dedicated to the eternal struggle of life with death, the search for a recipe for immortality. At this time, defined by Capek as the period of “criticism of social values,” his attention was focused on the contradictions of technological progress (novels “The Factory of the Absolute” (Tovarna na absolution, 1922), “Krakatit” (1924)).
Rejecting struggle and violence, Chapek argues that any attempts to rebuild society will lead to even more tragic results. The contradiction between the feeling of the need for change and the fear of it permeates his entire work. The collections “Stories from One Pocket” and “Stories from Another Pocket” (1923) carry echoes of relativistic moral ideas. In the 1930s Capek tries to find support in reason, protecting it from the hegemony of the irrational, speaking out against the cult of the subconscious (novels “Gordubal” - Hordubal, 1932, “Meteor” - Povetron, 1934 and “Ordinary Life” - Obycejny zivot, 1934). The writer actively participates in philosophical discussions of those years: at congresses in Prague (1934), Nice (1936), Budapest (1937), meetings of the PEN Club in Paris (1937), defends the idea of universal philosophy and freedom of criticism, calls on people to unite against fascism. The novel-pamphlet “War with the Newts” (Valka z mloky, 1935) is the pinnacle of Capek’s work and a masterpiece of European anti-fascist literature.
Literature: Bernstein I. A. Karel Capek. Creative path. M., 1969; Nikolsky S. V. Karel Chapek - science fiction writer and satirist. M., 1973; Malevich O. M. Karel Chapek: a critical-biographical essay. M., 1989.
M. N. Arkhipova
New philosophical encyclopedia. In four volumes. / Institute of Philosophy RAS. Scientific ed. advice: V.S. Stepin, A.A. Guseinov, G.Yu. Semigin. M., Mysl, 2010, vol. IV, p. 341-342.
Karel Capek (9.1.1890, Male Svatonevice, - 25.12.1938, Prague), Czech writer. Graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague (1915). Published since 1907. Most of the early stories of 1908-1913 (included in the collections "The Krakonos Garden", 1918; "Shining Depths", 1916) were written together with his brother J. Capek.
The tragic events of the First World War of 1914-1918 determined Capek’s intense search for the criterion of truth, his reflections on philosophical problems and the desire to discover the source of the contradictions of life: the collections of stories “The Crucifixion” (1917), “Tormenting Stories” (1921), close to expressionism. However, these searches coincided with the influence on the writer of the philosophy of pragmatism and relativism, the ideas of the “multiplicity” of truths (“everyone is right in his own way”). Not accepting the revolutionary struggle, Chapek leaned toward moral and ethical humanism. Many of his works, including the lyrical comedy “The Robber” (1920), are structured as a comparison of several “truths”; Capek seems to think in several ways simultaneously, while maintaining his ethical ideal.
Chapek's social science fiction works brought him world fame (the drama "R.U.R.", 1920, about the uprising of robots; the word "robot" was coined by Chapek; "The Makropoulos Means", 1922; the novels "Factory of the Absolute", 1922, and "Krakatit", 1924) . Science-fiction assumptions about a discovery or invention that can quickly change the living conditions of mankind serve to construct a kind of mental socio-philosophical experiment, the creation of artificial circumstances in which certain philosophical problems and trends of modern life appear with particular clarity. This means that criticism of inhumanity, militarism, and the church takes place, but the spontaneous nature of bourgeois socio-economic processes is absolutized by Capek as a feature of the development of humanity in general. Capek's dramas and novels have the character of ironic and satirical utopias - warnings about the catastrophic potential contained in the social and international conflict of modern life, and about the danger of dehumanizing tendencies. Along with the realistic tendency in Čapek, the predetermination of philosophical theses is sometimes reflected.
In the early 1920s, Chapek created travel essays “Letters from Italy” (1923) and “Letters from England” (1924), etc., distinguished by realistic specificity of figurative characteristics and lyrical humor.
In the 2nd half of the 1920s - early 1930s, Capek became close to T.G. Masaryk; With the strengthening of bourgeois-democratic illusions in the writer’s mind, crisis phenomena are growing in his work (the Chapek brothers’ play “Adam the Creator”, 1927). Capek temporarily withdraws from major social and political problems and conflicts; writes mainly humorous works of small genres (collections “Stories from One Pocket”, “Stories from Another Pocket”, both - 1929). The book "Apocrypha" (1932) is a philosophical and humorous rethinking of well-known biblical stories.
The aggravation of social contradictions and the “animal doctrine” of fascism exposed to Chapek the inconsistency of the thesis “everyone is right in his own way.” The philosophical overcoming of relativism was reflected in the trilogy “Gordubal” (1933), “Meteor”, “Ordinary Life” (both 1934). Faced with the threat of a new military danger, Capek comes to active anti-fascist actions and criticism of the ruling circles of Czechoslovakia: he openly expresses sympathy for the USSR. The pinnacle of Capek's work is the novel "The War with the Newts" (1936), in which his traditional protest against the dehumanization of human relations results in a satire on the life of bourgeois society, militarism, racial theory and the politics of fascism. The novel combines the features of a mystified science fiction genre, a zoological parable, a social utopia, a political pamphlet and is full of parody forms. Anti-fascist and anti-war orientation and the search for the ideal of a “whole person” capable of fighting determined the content of the drama “White Disease” (1937), the story “First Rescue” (1937), and Capek’s last play “Mother” (1938).
Capek's experiences in connection with the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the persecution to which he was subjected by fascist and pro-fascist elements during the period of the “second republic” aggravated the writer’s illness, hastening his death. Capek's work had a significant influence on the development of modern social science fiction and was a significant contribution to world classical literature. There are two Capek museums in Czechoslovakia: the country house-museum “On the Guard” and the memorial museum in the writer’s homeland.
CHAPEK, Karel(Karel Capek - 01/09/1890, Maloe-Svatonevice - 12/25/1938, Prague) - Czech writer.
Born into the family of a rural doctor, he grew up in an atmosphere of high culture; literary activity Both his older brother Josef and older sister Helena dedicated themselves. Capek spent his childhood in the town of Upica, among the forested low Krakonosze Mountains. The future writer attended school in Hradec Kralovoy, Brno, then in Prague, where his parents moved in 1907. He studied at the Faculty of Philosophy (Philology) of the University of Prague, as well as in Germany and France.
Since 1904 he was published in periodicals. Having received the title of bachelor, for some time he was a librarian and tutor. In 1917 he became a journalist, until 1921 he worked at the National Newspaper (Narodni Listy), and then - until his death - at the People's News (Ludove noviny).
In the 20s pp. Capek, as a representative of the democratic center, was considered the official writer of the created Czechoslovak Republic. His political reputation was formed primarily due to his closeness to President T. G. Masaryk, whom Chapek was fond of. In the 30s pp. Chapek led the anti-fascist democratic opposition, incurring the fire of reactionary criticism, which reached its climax during the Munich events of 1938. The writer died on Christmas Day 1938 from pneumonia. His death acquired symbolic significance: simultaneously with the loss of independence, the Czech Republic lost a writer who personified this independence.
In general, Capek wrote only prose. Poetry interested him less: in 1946, several of his youthful poems were published in the collection “Excited Dances,” and individual rhymed fragments also appeared in the play “The Robber.” In addition, in 1919 Capek published his translations of G. Apollinaire, and in 1920 the anthology he compiled, “New French Poetry,” with a preface by V. Nezval, was published.
Capek sought his way into literature for several years; Creative collaboration with his brother helped him a lot. The first stories of the Capek brothers are marked by neoclassical tendencies (at that time this was the name for a laconic, aphoristic style with a minimum of decorative elements). The stories were published in periodicals and were subsequently compiled into the collection “Krakonosova Garden” (“Krakonosova zahrada”, 1918). These works largely arose from legends and Czech folklore. However, even in these stories the feeling of human defenselessness in complex world, about which the person himself has no right to complain. Two years earlier, in 1916, the collection “Shining Depths and Other Prose” (“Zafive hlubiny a jina pryza”), which included experimental (in a certain sense) works, was published.
In 1917, Capek published his first independent collection, “The Crucifixion” (“Bozi muka”), imbued with a pessimistic conviction in the unknowability of truth. Man in early workČapeka perceives his existence as unnecessary and without purpose. The most famous story from this book is “Traces”: a snow-covered field in which, before reaching a few meters from the road, the chain of traces is interrupted. Where is she from? What is this: a miracle or some kind of hoax? Capek does not provide an answer because, in his opinion, the truth is unattainable. Pessimism also dominates in Čapek's next collection, Tormenting Stories (1921).
Since the early 20s pp. Capek began writing for the theater. The comedy “The Robber” (“Loupeznik”, 1920) outwardly echoes the then popular vitalism, but rather exposes it than affirms it: the father tries to protect his daughter from love, and then a young man (robber) appears, and the daughter loses her peace. But soon the girl’s sister intervenes in the course of events, who once, having fallen in love, ran away from her parents’ house, and now returns with broken wings. Love and youth are powerless against life. After the successful premiere of “The Robber,” Chapek met the young aspiring actress Olga Shainpflugova. However, their wedding took place only through Steps.
Next was the play "R.U.R." (“R.U.R.”, “Roussum's Universal Robots”), its premiere took place in 1921. The play reflected Capek’s attitude to science and progress, which combined interest and concern for the fate of the world, where inventions gain unlimited power over man, and technical civilization leads to the death of culture. In Chapek's attitude to civilization, the influence of expressionism is noticeable. The plot of the play is the creation of an artificial man - a robot (this word is a neologism for Chapek). Works, which are produced in huge quantities at the Rossum factory, displace humans in all branches of production, and then they are used as soldiers. Finally, the works rebel and destroy humanity. However, the ending of the play has an optimistic tone: two robots - a boy and a girl, unlike other artificial people, turned out to be capable of deep feelings, and their love should save life on Earth.
In general, utopia is a genre characteristic of Capek. The play “The Elixir of Makropoulos” (1922), the novels “The Factory of the Absolute” (1922), “Krakatit” (1924), and the famous pamphlet novel “The War with the Newts” (1936) were created in this genre.
The main character of the play “The Elixir of Makropoulos” is the famous singer Emilia Marti, whose father, the physician of Rudolf II, tested on her an elixir that prolongs youth by 300 years. However, such long life turns out to be unbearable for Emilia, she decides not to use the elixir anymore. The moral of the play corresponds to the spirit of the famous Czech fairy tale: it is good that there is death in the world.
The event with which the novel “The Factory of the Absolute” begins is the invention of a special “carburetor”, which, by splitting carbon atoms, thus releases the “absolute”, that is, “divine” energy. Overproduction of “carburetors” leads to economic chaos, which, in turn, becomes the basis for a world war. Civilization is saved from destruction by an artillery lieutenant who destroys the “carburetors.” The novel presents events in a humorous way, ridiculing monopolies, religion and the church, “big” politics, and colonialism.
The novel “Krakatit” gained enormous fame in its time, and its popularity can be compared with the popularity of the play “R. V.G." The action of the novel is driven by the invention of an explosive that can destroy the entire world. This work also has a happy ending: the recipe for making krakatitu is destroyed along with its supplies. Inventor Prokop decides to continue to engage in activities that are less global, but safe for humanity.
The leading idea of all three works is that a person should not interfere with the natural course of life; not a single attempt at violence against nature, or attempts to change it, will lead to good. This line was continued by the play “Adam the Creator” (“Adam Stvofitel”, 1927), written together with I. Capek. With the help of the machine he created, the inventor destroys all of humanity except himself, and creates another world, even worse than the previous one. In collaboration with his brother, he created the play “From the Life of Insects” (“Ze zivota hmyzu”, 1921), the plot of which is the posthumous visions of a tramp, before whose eyes satirically colored allegorical figures appear - the futility of love (butterflies), dreams of wealth (khrushchi) , dreams of power (ants), transience of life. The idea of the play: a person is happy if he does not know about the vanity of his existence.
In addition to novels, short stories and dramas, Capek also wrote travelogues. In the 20s His “Italian Letters” (“Italskelisty”, 1923) and “English Letters” (“Anglikelisty”, 1924) were published. In contrast to the established Czech tradition of this genre, the center of Ch.’s notes is not a didactic motive, but travel observations and impressions, often original and always witty. The key to the popularity of “Letters” was Capek’s light, relaxed style of writing, developed over years of journalistic practice.
The brightness and freshness of impressions also characterize Capek’s journal articles, compiled in 1924 in a book called “known things” (“On neiblizsich vecech”), where the writer thinks about everyday objects that you hardly even notice in your current life (a box of matches, fire, snow), over their philosophical significance. The book “Criticism of Words” (“Kritika slov”, 1920) was written in a satirical sense, which is dedicated to the inconspicuousness and ordinariness of stereotyped words.
Capek's literary success was based not only on his philosophy and understanding of the world, which were in tune with many middle-class people (and above all the intelligentsia), but also on his outstanding skill as a storyteller. Political Views Capek affected his language and found himself in a desire to find as democratically as possible means of expression. His works are easy to read, do not tire, and retain a sincere tone and focus on the reader. Capek has a rare sense of the material world and a concrete image, avoiding literary rhetoric and cunning juggling with metaphors. His works are not characterized by a sudden change of tone, as well as monotony: the author's speech constantly alternates with dialogues and direct language. Capek is a recognized master of dialogue, which, among other things, ensured his works success on the stage. The lines of his characters combine the harmony and elegance of literary language with the liveliness and precision of Prague dialect, and the speech of each character has its own unique characteristics.
In the early 30s. In the literature of Czechoslovakia, a powerful anti-fascist camp was formed, which was joined by all humanist writers. The most prominent figure among them was Capek. Over the years of the economic crisis, the writer’s views have undergone significant changes: his pessimism paled, Capek also overcame some utopianism in his perception of the world.
Evidence of these changes were his two new books - “Stories from one pocket” and “Stories from the second pocket” (“Povidky z jedne Kapsy”, “Povidky z druhe Kapsy”, 1929), which included “crime” stories created explicitly based on the short stories by J. K. Chesterton. This is not a “cheap” detective story and generally not quite a detective story in the usual sense, because in these Capek stories the solving of the crime plays minor role, the main thing for the author is to look into the soul of a petty criminal and into the soul of an ordinary guard of the law. The riddle does not remain without a solution (for example, the op. “Traces”), it has a completely rational explanation. Metaphysical mystery is replaced by ordinary mystery.
In 1933 - 1934 Capek created a kind of trilogy, however, the novels “Hordubal” (“Hordu-bal”), “Meteor” (“Povetrofi”) and “Ordinary Life” (“Obycejny zivot”), which were included in it, are not united by common characters and place actions, but only from a single point of view. Once again raising the question of the definition of truth, Chapek comes to the conclusion about the pluralism of the human soul, the ambiguity inner world. For the writer, this meant the possibility of mutual understanding.
The hero of the first novel, Gordubal, returns from America, where he went to work. His wife built a house with the money he sent, in which she cheats on her husband with a farmhand. While Gordubal is experiencing betrayal, his wife and lover kill him. The process of investigating a crime reveals the complexity of understanding human behavior. The novel "Meteor" is, in fact, three different stories about the same person. An unknown man becomes a victim of a plane crash and dies in hospital. A nun, a clairvoyant and a poet, each in their own way, reconstruct the story of his life. “Ordinary Life” is a story about an official who, in his declining years, begins to write an autobiography and unexpectedly discovers two different people in himself - a careerist and a poet, a pragmatic pedant and a romantic.
Capek’s work acquired a clear anti-fascist direction in 1936, when his novel “The War with the Newts,” a utopian novel and at the same time a warning novel, was published. Capek shows how initially innocent salamanders become a terrible blunt force that mortally threatens humanity, culture, and civilization. In the novel, Capek makes extensive use of satire and parody. In search of a force capable of resisting destruction, Capek turns to an unusual social environment for him, describing in the novel “First Rescue” (“Prvniparta”, 1937) images of miners who showed extraordinary courage and humanity, saving people buried under the rubble.
The pinnacle of Capek's political creativity was his plays “White Disease” (“Bila nemoc”, 1937) and “To Have” (“Matka”, 1938). The main conflict of the first of them was the confrontation between the pro-fascist dictator, who dreams of world domination, and the humble doctor Galen, who invented a cure for a deadly white disease like the plague, which is wiping out the population of the country. The doctor is ready to cure the sick dictator if he abandons his militaristic plans. But Vladomozhets agreed to Galen’s demands too late: the doctor was trampled by a crowd of militants because he refused to shout “Glory to war!” With his play, Capek is trying to say that everyone can and should, even alone, oppose themselves to dictatorship, demagoguery, and an exalted crowd. The death of the doctor Galen sounds like a stern warning about the danger of the victory of inhumane sentiments, without the aura of martyrdom.
The play “Mother” should have a completely different, sublime finale. A woman who lost her husband and four sons is watching the last, youngest, who is also eager to fight. But, having learned that an enemy pilot shot small children from an airplane, she herself gives the rifle to her son. The plot might seem boring if not for the tone of the play, combining pathos and poetry, in which the principle of the unity of place and the monologues of the dead sons are organically intertwined.
Capek did not have time to complete his last novel, “The Life and Work of the Composer Foltyna” (“Zivot a dilo skladatele Foltyna”). At the center of the work is the problem of the artist’s conscience, which, as in the novel “Meteor,” is told by others. In this case, the opposite effect is achieved: this character, the character of a narcissistic amateur, is completely unambiguous.
In the 30s pp. Capek continued to publish his travel notes (“Travel to Spain” - “Vylet do Spanel”, “Dutch images” - “Obrazky z Holandska”, “Journey to the North” - “Cesta na sever”); as before, he was interested in the “ordinary” (“The Year of the Gardener” - “Zahradnikov rok”, “I Had a Cat and a Dog” - “Mel started psa a kocku”), published a collection of feuilleton stories about certain types of mass culture contemporary to him - “ How it’s done” (“Jak se so dela”).
In mid-November 1938, Capek fell ill with the flu, and subsequently doctors discovered inflammation of the kidneys and lungs. The writer died on December 25, 1938.
Chapek's works were translated into Ukrainian by Y. Lisnyak, S. Sakidon, V. Strutynsky, D. Andrukhiv, V. Shevchuk, K. Zabarilo and others. His plays “Mother” and “From the Life of Insects” were staged on the stages of Ukrainian theaters.
Czech writer, prose writer and playwright, translator, science fiction writer
Brief biography
Karel Capek(Czech Karel Čapek; January 9, 1890, Male Svatonevice, - December 25, 1938, Prague) - Czech writer, prose writer and playwright, translator, science fiction writer. A classic of Czech literature of the 20th century.
Author of the famous plays "The Makropoulos Remedy" ( Věc Makropulos, 1922), "Mother" ( Matka, 1938), "R.U.R." ( Rossumovi Univerzalni Roboti, 1920), novels “Factory of the Absolute” ( Továrna na absolutno, 1922), "Krakatit" ( Krakatit, 1922), "Gordubal" ( Hordubal, 1933), "Meteor" ( Povětroň, 1934), "Ordinary Life" ( Obyčejny život, 1934; the last three form the so-called. "philosophical trilogy"), "War with the Newts" ( Valka s mloky, 1936), "First Rescue" ( Prvni parta, 1937), “The Life and Work of the Composer Foltyn” ( Život a dílo skladatele Foltýna, 1939, unfinished), as well as many stories, essays, feuilletons, fairy tales, essays and travel notes. Translator of modern French poetry.
Karel Capek was born on January 9, 1890 in Male Svatonjovice near Trutnov, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic), in the family of doctor Antonin Capek (1855-1929); he became the third and last child in the family. It was a resort town, which also had a developed mining industry. Here Karel's father worked as a doctor at resorts and mountain mines. His mother Bozena Čapkova (1866-1924) collected Slovak folklore. Capek's older brother, Josef (1887-1945) - artist and writer. Chapkov's older sister, Gelena (1886-1961) - writer, memoirist.
In July of the same year, the family moved to the city of Upice, where Antonin Capek opened his own practice. Upice was a rapidly expanding artisan town; The Chapeks lived surrounded by shoemakers, blacksmiths and masons, and often visited Karel's grandparents, who were farmers. Childhood memories were reflected in Capek’s work: he often depicted ordinary, ordinary people in his works.
Capek began writing at the age of fourteen. His early works, such as “Simple Motives”, “Fairy Stories” were published in the local newspaper Weekly. In 1908-1913 he wrote in collaboration with his brother Joseph. Later, these stories were included in the collections “The Krakonosz Garden” (1918) and “Shining Depths” (1916). As a student he took an active part in the publication literary almanac (Almanac 1914). At the same time, Capek is interested in painting, especially cubism. His brother introduced him to many representatives of Czech modernism, Karel became imbued with their ideas and devoted a number of articles to modernism in painting.
He studied at the gymnasium in Hradec Králové (1901-1905), then moved to Brno to live with his sister, where he lived for two years. From here he moved to Prague, where he continued his studies. In 1915, he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Charles University, defending his dissertation on the topic “Objective method in aesthetics as applied to the fine arts.” He also studied philosophy at universities in Berlin and Paris.
Due to health reasons, he was not drafted into the army and for a short time worked as a tutor in the family of Count Lazansky. In the fall of 1917 he began working as a journalist and critic in a newspaper Narodni listy(“National Newspaper”), from 1921 until his death he worked as a journalist and cultural and political editor at the newspaper Lidove noviny("People's newspaper"). In 1921-1923 he was a playwright at the Prague Theater in Vinohrady ( Divadlo na Vinohradech). The writer and actress of the same theater, Olga Scheinpflugova, was his acquaintance and close friend from 1920 (they got married in 1935).
He was actively involved in literature since 1916 (the collection of short stories “Shining Depths”, written in collaboration with his brother Joseph). Prose works of very different nature demonstrate a brilliant mastery of the art of realistic description, subtle humor and the gift of artistic foresight (a typical example is the dystopia “Factory of the Absolute”, “Krakatit” and “War with the Newts”). During his lifetime, he received wide recognition both in Czechoslovakia and abroad: he was a nominee for the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature, the founder and first chairman of the Czechoslovak Pen Club (1925-1933), and a member of the League of Nations Committee on Literature and the Arts ( since 1931); in 1935 he was nominated for the post of president of the International Pen Club by G. Wells, its then president (refused the post due to illness). In addition to literature and journalism, he gained fame as an amateur photographer (his book of photographs “Dasha, or the Life of a Puppy” was the most published in interwar Czechoslovakia).
An envelope from the series “World Culture Figures” with a portrait of the writer. Russian Post, 2015, (DFA [ITC “Marka”] No. 267)
Capek, a staunch anti-fascist whose poor health was undermined by the events of 1938 (the Munich Agreement), died of double pneumonia on December 25, 1938, contracted as a result of flood relief work shortly before the complete German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
Before this, he found himself virtually in complete political and personal isolation after he refused to leave the country following the resignation and emigration of its then-president Edvard Benes. He was buried in the memorial cemetery in Visegrad. After his death, the Gestapo came for the writer. His archive was hidden by his widow, Olga Scheinpflugova, in the garden of the Strz estate in the village of Stara Gut (near the town of Dobříš, 35 km south of Prague), where the writer spent the last three years of his life, and was discovered after the war.
Creativity Capek, who was a personal friend and long-term interlocutor of T. G. Masaryk, promoted many of his ideas (the books “Conversations with T. G. Masaryk” and “Silence with T. G. Masaryk”) and did not show any particular sympathy for socialism ( the famous article “Why I am not a communist”) was banned in communist Czechoslovakia for the first time, but since the 1950-1960s it has again been actively published and studied.
Karl Capek's brother Josef (died of typhus in the German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen) is the inventor of the word "robot". Karel introduced the plays “R.U.R.” artificially created people and called them “laboratories”, from the Latin word labor (“work”). But the author did not like this name, and, after consulting with his artist brother, who designed the scenery of the play, he decided to call these artificial people a Slovak word that has the same meaning (in Czech “work” - práce, A robota means “hard labor”, “hard work”, “corvee”).
Unlike numerous science fiction writers who then used the word “robot” to designate humanoid inanimate mechanisms, Karel Capek used this word not to use machines, but to live people made of flesh and blood, only created in a special factory.
Music
- In the movie Loupežnik(1931, directed by Josef Kodiček, songs by composer Otakar Jeremias with lyrics by Karel Capek are heard.
- Based on Karel Capek's play “The Makropoulos Remedy,” Czech composer Leoš Janáček composed an opera of the same name, which premiered on December 18, 1926 at the National Theater in Brno.
- Composer Georgy Garanyan composed the music for the musical film “The Recipe for Her Youth” (dir. Evgeny Ginzburg, script Alexander Adabashyan) based on the play “The Makropoulos Remedy” by Karel Capek; The film premiered on October 10, 1983.
- Composer Vladimir Baskin composed the music for the musical “The Secret of Her Youth” (libretto and lyrics by Konstantin Rubinsky), based on the play of the same name, staged under the direction of director Susanna Tsiryuk on the stage of the Irkutsk Musical Theater named after N. M. Zagursky; The premiere took place on April 6, 2015.
