Josef Čapek


Josef Čapek was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word "robot", which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.

Life

Čapek was born in Hronov, Bohemia in 1887. First a painter of the Cubist school, he later developed his own playful, minimalist style. He collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories; on his own, he wrote the utopian play Land of Many Names and several novels, as well as critical essays in which he argued for the art of the unconscious, of children, and of 'savages'. He was named by his brother as the true inventor of the term robot. As a cartoonist, he worked for Lidové noviny, a newspaper based in Prague.
His illustrated stories Povídání o Pejskovi a Kočičce are considered classics of Czech children's literature.

Death

Due to his critical attitude towards national socialism and Adolf Hitler, he was arrested after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He wrote Poems from a Concentration Camp in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945. In June 1945 Rudolf Margolius, accompanied by Čapek's wife Jarmila Čapková, went to Bergen-Belsen to search for him. His remains were never found. In 1948, the court officially set 30 April 1947 as the date that he could not survive.

Selected literary works

Lelio, 1917;Ze života hmyzu, 1921 – with Karel Čapek;Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce, 1929;Stín kapradiny, 1930, novel;Kulhavý poutník, essays, 1936;Land of Many Names;Básně z koncentračního tabora, published posthumously 1946;Adam Stvořitel – with Karel Čapek;Dášeňka, čili život štěněte – with Karel Čapek, illustrated by Josef.

Literature

  • Ivan Margolius, "The Robot of Prague", Newsletter, The Friends of Czech Heritage no. 17, Autumn 2017, pp. 3–6. https://czechfriends.net/images/RobotsMargoliusJul2017.pdf
  • Marie Šulcová. Čapci, Ladění pro dvě struny, Poločas nadějí, Brána věčnosti, Praha: Melantrich 1993-1998
  • Marie Šulcová. Prodloužený čas Josefa Čapka, Praha: Paseka 2000