Karel Capek´s Museum
The Monument is located in the historical area near village Stara Hut, where iron ore was processed in the 19th century. After World War I Vaclav Palivec (the relative of Karel Capek) obtained the property from the Colloredo-Mansfelds - owners of the Dobris Castle. In 1935 Vaclav Palivec gave the use of the Empire house as a wedding present to Karel Capek and his wife Olga Scheinpflug. During the next three years the writer enjoyed making improvements to the house and garden. Many literary Works, (e.g. Travels to North, Power and Glory, The First Rescue Party, The Mother, The Cheat) were written at "Strz" (at the "Ravine"), as he named his summer seat. "Strz" became also a place of meeting for a number of great politicians and personalities of Czech culture, especially in the summer of 1938.
A new exhibition, which opened in 1997, has been dedicated to the personality and literary work of Karel Capek and his wife, an actress and writer, Olga Scheinpflugova. You can find here an evidnce of Capek’s first worldwide success with play R.U.R., an evidence of his many travels and also of his antifascist attitude. Since 1998 a separate exhibition has been devoted to Ferdinand Peroutka, a journalist, writer and the founder of the Czechoslovak Branch of the Radio Free Europe, in the attic room of the house.
There is also a beautiful garden where Capek used to work when he wanted to relax. In summer the garden is used as a setting for an open – air theatre. The Karel Capek’s Memorial hold many special programs and exhibitions during the year (see „Aktuality“, „Pozvanky“).
Openning hours:
April - October: Every day (except Mondays) 9.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m.
November - March: Mondays - Fridays 9.00 a.m. - 4.00 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays are available for groups after booking.
It is about 50 minutes to drive from Prague to SW.
It is a 4 hour round trip.

The word ROBOT was first used in Karel Capek's play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots). The word robot was invented by Capek's brother Josef. It is derived from the Czech noun robota - labour, so a robot is somebody or something the excercises labour. This word has become worldwide known and is still used today very frequently.
Karel Capek was the third person on Gestapo's list of people that were to be arrested after the annexation of whole of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Karel Capek was informed about this but he decided not to leave for London but to stay in Prague with the rest of the nation. The Gestapo never got him because Karel Capek died on December 25, 1938, Three months before the invasion. His older brother Josef, also viewed as a very dangerous individual was arrested by the Gestapo on September 1, 1939 and died in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in April 1945.
Karel Capek almost received the Nobel Prize for literature but in the end didn't receive it because Sweden didn't view it as favorable to award it to an anti facist at the advent of WWII of fear from Hitler's reaction.
Arthur Miller on Karel Capek: "There was no writer like him. . . prophetic assurance mixed with surrealistic humour and hard-edged social satire: a unique combination"
Capek's obituary in Newsweek (January 2, 1939) said of R.U.R.: "Although he believed it the least interesting of all his works, it brought him greatest fame."

Karel Capek
Karel Capek wrote with intelligence and humor on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known not only for interesting and exact descriptions of reality, but also for his excellent work with the Czech language. He is perhaps best known as a science fiction author, who wrote long before science fiction became established as a separate genre. He can be counted as one of the founders of classical non-hardcore European science fiction, which focuses on possible future (or alternative) social and human evolution on Earth, rather than technically advanced stories of space travel. However, it is best to class him with Aldous Huxley and George Orwell as a mainstream literary figure who used science-fiction motifs.
Many of his works discuss ethical and other aspects of the revolutionary inventions and processes that were already expected in the first half of 20th century. These included mass production, atomic weapons, and post-human intelligent beings such as robots or intelligent salamanders.
In this, Capek was also expressing fear of upcoming social disasters, dictatorship, violence, and unlimited power of corporations, and trying to find some hope for human beings. Čapek's literary heirs include Ray Bradbury, Salman Rushdie, Brian Aldiss and Dan Simmons.
His other books and plays include detective stories, novels, fairy tales and theatre plays, and even a book on gardening. The most important works try to resolve the problem of epistemology, or "What is knowledge?": The Tales from Two Pockets, and first of all the trilogy of novels Hordubal, Meteor and An Ordinary Life.
Later, in the 1930s, Capek's work focused on the threat of brutal Nazi and fascist dictatorships. His most productive years corresponded with the existence of the first republic of Czechoslovakia (1918-1938). He wrote Talks with T.G. Masaryk, a Czech patriot and first President of Czechoslovakia and a regular guest at Capek's Friday garden parties for Czech patriots. This extraordinary relationship between the great author and the great political leader is perhaps unique, and is known to have been an inspiration to Václav Havel. He also became a member of International PEN.
Karel Capek died in the December preceding the outbreak of World War II and was interred in the Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague. Soon after it became clear that the Western allies had refused to help defend Czechoslovakia against Hitler, he refused to eat or leave his country and died of double pneumonia. The Gestapo had ranked him as "public enemy number 2" in Czechoslovakia. His brother Josef Capek, a painter and also a writer, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
After the war, Capek's work was only reluctantly accepted by the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia, since during his life he had refused to believe in a communist utopia as a viable alternative to the threat of Nazi domination.


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