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🙂 Greetings to regular and new readers! The article “Karel Čapek: biography, creativity, interesting facts” is about the life of a Czech writer, prose writer and playwright.
The work of Karel Čapek is a significant and complex phenomenon in Czech and world literature of the XNUMXth century. Entering the literary field in the era of cultural crisis, the writer went to the art of great life truth through overcoming the ideological barriers of that time.
At first glance, contradictions in his worldview, artistic method, and creative evolution seem paradoxical. Subsequently, when the results of his literary path were summed up, they started talking about Chapek as a humanist and democrat, an active fighter against fascism and war, a master of critical realism.
His name can be compared with the greatest writers of the last century.
Biography of Karela Chapeka
Chapek’s life is not rich in external events. He was born on January 9, 1890 in the family of a mine and district doctor, in the small town of Malye Svatonevitsy in the north-east of the Czech Republic.
At the turn of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, this picturesque corner, whose nature inspired the classics of Czech literature Bozena Nemcova and Aloiz Irasek to create the most poetic works, turned into an industrial land, shrouded in a veil of soot and smoke.
Young years
In his father’s reception room, in the surrounding mines and farms, at the gates of factories, every worker seemed to the future writer to be consumptive. Karel first learned to see the “double face” of life and man. Already in these childhood and youthful impressions one should look for the sources of his work.
Czapek received his higher education at the Prague, Berlin and Sorbonne universities. In 1915 he defended his doctoral dissertation in aesthetics. Freed from military service (all his life he stoically endured a grave disease of the spine), Karel dreams of working in a library.
But he has to become a home teacher for Count Lažański. His story “In the Castle” (1919) testifies to the hatred for the aristocratic environment the young writer was imbued with here. And also the image of the brilliant owners of Balttin in the novel “Krakatit”.
Since 1917, Chapek has been a professional journalist, a member of the editorial board of the Narodni Listsy newspaper. Then, from 1921 until the last days, one of the editors and employees of the newspaper “Lidovs noviny”.
The beginning of the literary path
At the beginning of his literary and social career, Čapek is on the left flank of Czech literature. He is supported in polemical battles by the greatest poet-revolutionary Stanislav Kostka Neumann.
On the pages of the satirical magazine “Koprshivy” he is published together with Yaroslav Gashek, Ivan Olbrakht, Franya Shramek. During these years, Chapek was a supporter of “a radical initiative in the expedient reworking of the world” (although he very vaguely represents its concrete forms) and a promoter of the rapprochement of art with life.
This does not prevent him from getting carried away with the latest “isms” of Paris, Berlin and London. His first masterpieces were created in collaboration with his older brother Josef Czapek.
They reflected the contradictory ideological and artistic position of young writers. Witty parody of decadent literary movements and harsh satire on society coexisted with aesthetic mannerisms and melancholic skepticism.
Becoming a writer
In subsequent years (1917-1921) Chapek wrote the cheerful, poetic comedy The Robber (1919), glorifying the rebellion of youth against the philistine world outlook and morality. He publishes collections of short stories “The Crucifixion” (1917) and “Painful Tales” (1921).
The leitmotif of these short stories is the assertion of the unknowability of the world and its fatal hostility to man. The basis for such a pessimistic philosophical generalization was the writer’s disappointment in the very foundations of the world order.
Austrian rule had just collapsed, the country began its history as an independent state. But Chapek looked to the future with anxious reflections. They permeate his works of the early 20s. These are the plays “RUR” (1920), “From the Life of Insects” (1922, co-authored with Josef Czapek).
In each of these works, the author claims that any attempts to change the world are unjustified and futile. From the position of the so-called little man, a petty businessman, Chapek appeals to universal reconciliation and advocates with the preaching of small deeds.
This leads, in the end, to the fact that stagnation sets in in his work. Czapek is moving away from significant social problems. He limits the range of his creativity to nature, art, and the phenomena of everyday life of a person. During these years (1924 – 1932), Czapek’s work evoked well-deserved criticism from Czechoslovak writers.
New stage
Having witnessed how the fascist governments of Germany, Italy and Japan unleash aggression in Europe, Abyssinia and China, Chapek acutely feels the danger hanging over his homeland.
Czechoslovakia, due to its geographical position and the presence of a strong pro-Hitler Sudeten-German party inside the country, inevitably had to become one of the first victims of fascism.
And the writer realizes that he can effectively defend the independence of his country only in the ranks of the united anti-fascist Popular Front. At the same time, he frees himself from many of his illusions in his views on democracy. He understands that the emergence of Nazism is directly related to the interests of big business.
Chapek is looking more and more closely at a new type of democracy. A new stage begins in the writer’s creative biography.
Karel Čapek: books
In the fall of 1935, a new novel by Karel Čapek “War with the Salamanders” was published from issue to issue on the pages of the newspaper “Lidove noviny”. Soon the novel, like the play about the uprising of robots – “RUR” – gains worldwide fame.
War with the Salamanders is a book not only about the past, but also about the present. It is especially relevant now, when the question of ridding mankind of the Damocles sword of war has been put on the agenda of history. Czapek’s appeal to prevent “tiger teeth” and “snake venom” from threatening the lives of peoples again.
The novel “War with the Salamanders” is closely related to the play “RUR” in its concept. The plot of both works is based on a guess about what would happen if a creature, equal in intelligence to a person, appeared in the world. Whether it’s a biochemically created robot or a giant salamander.
Most of the well-known plays and novels of the writer are built on this “if only”. And the author’s conclusion in all the listed works is this: any sharp deviation from the existing world order is fraught with innumerable disasters for mankind. The most reasonable thing for him is to come to terms with what is.
Shortly before his death, the writer joins the society of friends of the USSR. The Czechoslovak section of the International Association of Writers in Defense of Culture headed by him becomes a nationwide organization.
The novel “War with the Salamanders”, the plays “White Disease” (1937) and “Mother” (1938), the story “The First Rescue” (1937), were an unequivocal answer to questions about the author’s ideological affiliation.
The “War with the Salamanders” reflects Czapek’s certain doubts and hesitations. It does not depict the Soviet Union, the Popular Front, the struggle for peace, not because the author did not see or did not take into account these new factors of world history. His book is, first of all, satire and its goal is the death sentence of an agonizing civilization.
It is impossible not to mention the famous fantastic play “Means of Macropulus” (1922). This play still remains in the repertoires of theaters in many countries of the world. The thought of human immortality.
Interesting Facts
Karel was married to a Czech actress and writer Olga Scheinpflugova. They have known each other since 1920. They got married in 1935.
Karel Chapek with his wife Olga Shainpflugova (1902-1968)
Unfortunately, this marriage was short-lived. In December 1938, Karel died of pneumonia received in the flood control work. The classic of Czech literature of the XX century. lived only 48 years. His brother, Josef, died in a German concentration camp in April 1945.
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