The word robot first appeared in Čapek 's play called R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) from 1921, in which the author deals with the topic of technical development and describes artificial workers as robots.

Interestingly, the word robot was not invented by the writer Karel Čapek himself, but by his brother and renowned Czech painter Josef Čapek.

The word robot has become over the time popular all over the world and today it is probably the world's most widespread word of Czech origin. The basis for this word is the Czech word "robota", which expresses hard manual work.

Čapek 's drama R.U.R. premiered at the National Theater in Prague exactly 100 years ago, on January 25, 1921, and was gradually translated into a number of other languages. The Slovenian translation and premiere in Ljubljana came soon, and in 1922 the drama was staged at the Slovenian National Theater in Ljubljana.

Celebrating this year's round anniversary of the introduction of this play and the origin of the word robot, the Czech writer, publicist, journalist and English translator Jaroslav Veis prepared an article explaining the history of this important Czech literary piece of work. The text by J. Veis entitled "The most famous Czech robot celebrates its hundredth birthday" is attached below.

Last year, 40 years passed since the first industrial robot was put into operation in Slovenia, and on this occasion, the exhibition  “ROBOT.SI; The origins of industrial robotics in Slovenia" was opened at the Technical Museum in the Slovenian town of Bistra and can be seen until 30th May 2021. In addition to the history of Slovenian robotics, the exhibition also explains the Czech roots of the word robot, so the part of the exhibition is dedicated to Karel Čapek and his work. You can find more information about this event in our article here.