Čapek's R.U.R. and the Word Robot

JAN 01 1921 · 12:00

Photograph from the original 1921 staging of Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti at the National Theatre, the play that introduced the word robot to the world. Place: National Theatre (Národní divadlo), Národní třída Figures: Karel Čapek, playwright · Josef Čapek, painter and brother (coiner) · Vojta Novák, director · Bedřich Karen, the first Domin Karel Čapek, 31, has drafted a play about an island factory that manufactures artificial humans, sells them as labor across the world, watches them rebel, and witnesses the extinction of the species that built them. He has a problem with the noun. He tries laboři, from Latin, and finds it wooden. He asks his brother Josef, painter and Cubist, at work in the next room. Josef, brush in hand, mutters roboti, from robota: the old Slavic word for the forced corvée labor a serf owed his lord. Karel writes it down. It is among the most successful neologisms of the twentieth century. The play, Rossumovi univerzální roboti, is published in November 1920. Hradec Králové stages a provincial premiere on January 2, 1921. The National Theatre in Prague follows on January 25, directed by Vojta Novák with sets by Bedřich Feuerstein.