Famous Czech novelist and playwright. 1890 65438+ 10 was born in Orwitze, Vatoni, mares, northern Bohemia. His father was a village doctor. Capec studied philosophy in Prague, Berlin and Paris, and received his doctorate. Since 19 17, he has lived in Prague, worked as an editor and reporter of various newspapers, and went to many European countries in the 1920s and 1930s, and published many vivid and interesting travel notes. 1935, she married the famous actress Cece Frogova and died three years later.
Capec's creation is humanitarian and influenced by western relativism and pragmatism philosophy at that time. Before World War II, he was a good friend of Czech President masaryk and was called "official writer" because of his talk and biography. With the development of the social situation in Europe and the coming to power of German fascists, Capec's democratic stance was further strengthened. He actively participated in the anti-fascist struggle, led the activities of the Czech branch of the International Writers' Association for the Protection of Culture, and strongly supported the anti-fascist war of the Spanish people until his death.
From 1907, Capec and his brother Joseph Capec co-wrote some short stories and essays. His early works can be roughly divided into two categories. One is to criticize social ugliness, such as 192 1 and his brother's play Insect Life, which satirizes various social vices with different insect images such as butterflies, ants and dung beetles. The other is a scientific fantasy drama that expresses his black utopia thought, which is expressionist. In the latter kind of works, the author pessimistically believes that the great development of science and technology will lead to a power of alienation, which will pose a great threat to mankind and even destroy it; This kind of works shows the author's anxiety about some abnormal phenomena in the development of human civilization and his thinking about the weakness of human reason. Universal robot published in 1920 (also translated as Russell Universal Robot) is the most famous one of this kind of works, and the word "robot" (English robot, which evolved from Czech "labor" and "drudgery") made by Capec in the script is widely absorbed and used in European languages. Works of the same theme include Science Fiction Patent Factory (1922), Rhapsody of the Atom (1924, also known as Explosives) and World War I (1936). In Rhapsody of the Atom, a scientist invented atomic explosives, which were used by the rulers to destroy mankind in the war, which violated his original intention of benefiting mankind. Once the tame salamander in the novel "The Salamander of War" gains humanity and wisdom, it becomes a destroyer, and profoundly reveals that the capitalist system is the breeding ground of fascism by symbolic means, showing the author's humanitarian thought and anti-fascist democratic stance.
In the early 1930s, Capec completed the trilogy of Hoduba (1933), Meteor (1934) and Ordinary Life (1934), which showed the author's philosophical thinking on life and existence. In the late 1930s, with the rampant fascist forces in Germany, Capec realized that the Czech nation was in crisis, and his thoughts and creations had also undergone great changes. He turned from a philosophical discussion of life to a realistic struggle, and completed four masterpieces, The Giant Fish Chaos (1936) and The First Rescue Team (1937). The first rescue team praised the miners' spirit of unity and struggle. The theme of Chaos of the Giant Fish is similar to that of Global Robot. For the benefit and enjoyment, human beings breed giant fish in large quantities as productive forces, arm giant fish, and make giant fish the opposite of human beings, so that people are required to serve them. On the one hand, Capec used this symbol to express his concern about the development of science, on the other hand, it also has certain significance of the times: the capitalist's support for fascism will endanger mankind itself, just like the giant fish armed with human beings. "White Disease" shows the author's anti-war peace thought, and "Mother" writes that when the motherland is in danger, the mother encourages her son to bravely kill the enemy in the anti-fascist battle. Except the First Rescue Team, which uses realistic techniques, the other three works all have obvious illusory symbolic colors.
Capec's works do not take reflecting the truth of life as the highest pursuit. Although they have outstanding imagination and symbolic color, they are not trapped in the closed personal world of "art for art's sake", but keep close contact with real life. He often criticizes the social malpractice and the abnormal development of capitalist mechanical civilization through strange and vivid symbolic images, showing the author's inner thinking and some eternal qualities of human beings, and showing his concern for human destiny. Capec pursues an unrealistic artistic value orientation in his creation and is regarded as one of the representative writers of expressionist literature.