Translation of: R.U.R.

Release date is 2026-05-03

Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

"W U R" by Karel Čapek is a science-fiction play written in the early 20th century. It examines the rise of mass-produced artificial workers and the upheavals they trigger, focusing on factory chief Harry Domin, his fellow directors at Werstands Universal Robots, and the idealistic visitor Helene Glory. The play probes progress, labor, and what separates humans from soulless efficiency.

The opening of the play sets us in W.U.R.’s central office, where Domin oversees a vast robot industry as Helene Glory arrives to inspect the factory and plead for the humane treatment and “freedom” of robots. Domin explains the origin of synthetic life and how the younger Werstand engineered simplified, soulless laborers, outlining an assembly-line process that treats bodies like parts and minds like software. Helene meets robots Sulla and Marius, witnessing their precise usefulness and emotional blankness, then confronts Domin’s team—Fabry, Gall, Hallemeier, Busman, and Alquist—who counter her appeals with arguments about efficiency and a future without human toil. A private, impulsive proposal binds Helene to Domin; the first act then jumps ten years on, as gifts arrive, a warship named Ultimus looms in the harbor, and reports filter in of robot-led violence and a shocking collapse in human births. Nana, Helene’s pious nurse, condemns the blasphemy of making people by machine, while Alquist voices dread of “progress” and prays for reversal. Helene confronts Radius, an enhanced robot who declares hatred of humans and a will to rule, and Dr. Gall reveals experiments giving robots pain and heightened sensitivity but not love. Troubled by “barren blossoms” in nature and in mankind, Helene contemplates a drastic act as she orders a fire to be lit. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Prag: "Orbis", Druck-, Verlags- und Zeitungs-A.-G., 1921