Launch Poster of the R.U.R. book (Embassy of the Czech Republic)
R.U.R, a play involving a factory that builds artificial people who would become servants to humans, had its inaugural staging at the Czech National Theatre on January 25, 1921, and has since been translated and performed in more than 30 countries.
While Čapek was credited to be the first person to have used the term, it was his brother Josef, a cubist painter, who had come up with the term which came from the Slavic word ‘Robota’ that means “serfdom” or “forced labor” and perfectly encompasses the play.