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Czech Republic – Czechoslovakia
100 Years – Birth of Karel Čapek
1990 Silver 100 Korun 30mm (13.00 grams) 0.500 Silver (0.209 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 137
ČESKOSLOVENSKÁ SOCIALISTICKÁ REPUBLIKA 100 KČS , Czechoslovak Socialist Coat-of-Arms.
KAREL ČAPEK 1890 1990, Karel Čapk facing left.
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 Karel Čapek (9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel War with the Newts (1936) and play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots, 1920), which introduced the word robot. He also wrote many politically charged works dealing with the social turmoil of his time. Influenced by American pragmatic liberalism, he campaigned in favor of free expression and strongly opposed the rise of both fascism and communism in Europe.
Though nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, Čapek never received it. However, several awards commemorate his name, such as the Karel Čapek Prize, awarded every other year by the Czech PEN Club for literary work that contributes to reinforcing or maintaining democratic and humanist values in society. He also played a key role in establishing the Czechoslovak PEN Club as a part of International PEN. 
Čapek died on the brink of World War II as the result of a lifelong medical condition, but his legacy as a literary figure became well established after the war.
Selected worksPlays
 1920 – The Outlaw (Loupežník)- 1920 – R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) or meaning (Intelligent Universal Robots), (Rossumovi univerzální roboti) – play with one of the first examples of artificial intelligence human-like beings in art and literature.
- 1921 – Pictures from the Insects’ Life (Ze života hmyzu), also known as The Insect Play or The Life of the Insects, with Josef Čapek, a satire in which insects stand in for various human characteristics: the flighty, vain butterfly, the obsequious, self-serving dung beetle.
- 1922 – The Makropulos Affair (Věc Makropulos) – play about human immortality, not really from a science-fiction point of view. Leoš Janáček’s opera is based on that.
- 1927 – Adam the Creator (Adam stvořitel) – The titular hero tries to destroy the world and replace it with a better one. It was adapted into an animated short by Japanese director Mahiro Maeda in 2015.
- 1937 – The White Disease (Bílá nemoc) – earlier translated as (Power and Glory). About the conflict between a pacifist doctor and the fascistic Marshal. This was the answer to coming Nazi era in the air, just before the start of WWII.
- 1938 – The Mother (Matka)
Novels
- 1922 – The Absolute at Large (Továrna na absolutno) – novel which can be interpreted as a vision of consumer society.
- 1922 – Krakatit – novel, the plot of which includes a prediction of a nuclear-weapon-like explosive.
- 1933 – Hordubal – First part of the “Noetic Trilogy”.
- 1934 – Meteor (Povětroň) – Second part of the “Noetic Trilogy”.
- 1934 – An Ordinary Life (Obyčejný život) – Third part of the “Noetic Trilogy”.
- 1936 – War with the Newts (Válka s mloky) – satirical dystopian novel.
- 1939 – Life and Work of the Composer Foltýn (Život a dílo skladatele Foltýna) – unfinished, published posthumously
Travel books
- Letters from Italy (Italské listy, 1923)
- Letters from England (Anglické listy, 1924)
- Letters from Spain (Výlet do Španěl, 1930)
- Letters from Holland (Obrázky z Holandska, 1932)
- Travels in the North (Cesta na Sever, 1936)
Other works
- Stories from a Pocket and Stories from Another Pocket, (Povídky z jedné a z druhé kapsy) – a common name for a cycle of short detective stories (5-10 pages long) that shared common attitude and characters, including The Last Judgement.
- How it is Made (Jak se co dělá) – satiric novels on the life of theater, newspaper and movie studio.
- The Gardener’s Year (Zahradníkův rok, 1929) is exactly what it says it is: a year-round guide to gardening, charmingly written, with illustrations by his brother Josef Čapek.
- Apocryphal Tales (Kniha apokryfů, 1932, 2nd edition 1945) – short stories about literary and historical characters, such as Hamlet, a struggling playwright, Pontius Pilate, Don Juan, Alexander arguing with his teacher Aristotle, and Sarah and Abraham attempting to name ten good people so Sodom can be saved: “What do you have against Namuel? He’s stupid but he’s pious.”
- Nine Fairy Tales: And One More Thrown in for Good Measure (Devatero Pohádek a ještě jedna od Josefa Čapka jako přívažek, 1932) – a collection of fairy tales, aimed at children.
- Dashenka, or the Life of a Puppy (Dášeňka čili Život štěněte, 1933)
- The Shirts (short story)
 The Czech Republic also known by its short-form name, Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres (30,450 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental climate and oceanic climate. It is a unitary parliamentary republic, with 10.6 million inhabitants; its capital and largest city is Prague, with 1.3 million residents. Other major cities are Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc and Pilsen. The Czech Republic is a member of the European Union (EU), NATO, the OECD, the United Nations, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.
It is a developed country with an advanced, high income export-oriented social market economy based in services, manufacturing and innovation. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development. The Czech Republic is a welfare state with a “continental” European social model, a universal health care system, tuition-free university education and is ranked 14th in the Human Capital Index. It ranks as the 6th safest or most peaceful country and is one of the most non-religious countries in the world, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance.
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Coat_of_arms_of_the_Czech_Republic.svg/85px-Coat_of_arms_of_the_Czech_Republic.svg.png" align="left" the="" czech="" republic="" includes="" historical="" territories="" of="" bohemia,="" moravia,="" and="" silesia.="" state="" was="" formed="" in="" late="" 9th="" century="" as="" duchy="" bohemia="" under="" great="" moravian="" empire.="" after="" fall="" empire="" 907,="" centre="" power="" transferred="" from="" moravia="" to="" přemyslid="" dynasty.="" 1002,="" formally="" recognized="" an="" imperial="" holy="" roman="" along="" with="" kingdom="" germany,="" burgundy,="" italy,="" numerous="" other="" territories,="" becoming="" 1198="" reaching="" its="" greatest="" territorial="" extent="" 14th="" century.="" beside="" itself,="" king="" ruled="" lands="" bohemian="" crown,="" holding="" a="" vote="" election="" emperor;="" prague="" seat="" periods="" between="" 17th="" hussite="" wars="" 15th="" driven="" by="" protestant="" reformation,="" faced="" economic="" embargoes="" defeated="" five="" consecutive="" crusades="" proclaimed="" leaders="" catholic="" church.=""
 Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Protestant Bohemian Revolt (1618-20) against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years’ War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, eradicated Protestantism and reimposed Catholicism, and also adopted a policy of gradual Germanization. This contributed to the anti-Habsburg sentiment. A long history of resentment of the Catholic Church followed and still continues. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Kingdom became part of the German Confederation 1815-1866 as part of Austrian Empire (1804 to 1867) and the Czech language experienced a revival as a consequence of widespread romantic nationalism. In the 19th century, the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and were subsequently the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, which was formed in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I.
Czechoslovakia remained the only democracy in this part of Europe in the interwar period. However, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, while the Slovak region became the Slovak Republic; Czechoslovakia was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. Most of the three millions of the German-speaking minority were expelled following the war. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections and after the 1948 coup d’état, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence. In 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed and market economy was reintroduced. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004.
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Bohuslav Jan Martinů (December 8, 1890 – August 28, 1959) was a Czech composer of modern classical music. He wrote 6 symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. He became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and briefly studied under Czech composer and violinist Josef Suk. After leaving Czechoslovakia in 1923 for Paris, Martinů deliberately withdrew from the Romantic style in which he had been trained. During the 1920s he experimented with modern French stylistic developments, exemplified by his orchestral works Half-time and La Bagarre. He also adopted jazz idioms, for instance in his Kitchen Revue (Kuchyňská revue).
