Jára Cimrman

Jára Cimrman, an alleged "auto-bust" showing the bearers "haggard features". Theatrical property of Divadlo Járy Cimrmana.

Jára Cimrman or Jára da Cimrman (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjaːra da ˈtsɪmr̩man]) is a Czech fictional character created by Jiří Šebánek, Ladislav Smoljak and Zdeněk Svěrák. He is presented as one of the greatest Czech playwrights, poets, composers, teachers, travellers, philosophers, inventors, detectives, mathematicians and sportsmen of the 19th and early 20th century. Playing the game on his real existence is part of his characterization.

Cimrman made its first appearance on a regular radio programme Nealkoholická vinárna U Pavouka ("The Spider Non-Alcoholic Wine Bar") on December 23, 1966. Although the character was originally meant to be just a caricature of the Czech people, history, and culture, he became an immensely popular character of modern Czech folklore, and an artificial national hero.

Cimrman is a major character or the putative author of a great number of books, plays, and films. The Jára Cimrman Theatre in Žižkov is one of Prague's most frequented theatrical houses.

Fictional biography

The huge popularity of the Jára Cimrman character has resulted in the compilation of a fairly detailed fictional biography by his admirers.

The precise dates of his birth and death have not been agreed upon. He is said to have been born in Vienna sometime between 1869 and 1874 to an Austrian mother actress Marlen Jelinek (Jelínek is a surname of a Czech origin which, however, frequently appears in Austria, the word itself means a "small/young stag" in Czech) and a Czech father tailor Leopold Cimrman (Cimrman is a German surname Zimmermann written using the Czech orthography, which is an obvious allusion to the fact that many ethnic Czechs have German surnames, the word itself means "carpenter" in German). Jára Cimrman considered himself Czech, which can be understood from his note in his diary saying: "I would like to see my native country — Böhmen" (Böhmen being the German name for Bohemia, Čechy in Czech). He was last seen in Liptákov, in the Jizera Mountains of North Bohemia, in 1914.

Cimrman had little recognition during his lifetime. He himself stated in a poem ("Ážmilid"): "From some I have met with ridicule and from others I have mostly also met with ridicule" ("U jedněch setkával jsem se s výsměchem a u druhých většinou také s výsměchem"). Mankind only became acquainted with his genius following the discovery of a chest with his belongings by Dr. Evžen Hedvábný (pseudonym of jazz musician Karel Velebný) in Liptákov) on February 26, 1966.

Czechs, their mentality and their hero

Cimrman's Mound located near the train station of Kaproun. The plaster cast on the left side shows the place where Jára Cimrman was expelled from transport.

For many Czechs, Jára Cimrman is not only one of many ordinary funny characters. His status in Czech culture is much deeper and complex than it may seem at the first sight, especially for a foreigner. In the view of Czechs, the whole history of the Czech nation represents a struggle with expansive attempts of bigger nations who have always tried to dominate the Central European region and who have considered it their "sphere of interest".

No matter in which situation, Cimrman is always depicted as a determined fighter against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, despite the fact that his very name and origin themselves reflect the ethnically mixed nature of the Czech (and Austrian) population. This symbolizes not only a silent resistance of the Czech people against the Soviet occupation but against any form of oppression which have often taken place in the Czech lands.

Over centuries of military occupations and autocracies, the Czechs developed a mentality which allowed them to resist even the toughest opponents, not by force which they usually lacked, but rather by using their brain and tactics. Reinhard Heydrich (who usually called Czechs "The Laughing beasts"), when instructing heads of his Prague’s gestapo, warned them that unlike the Poles or the Yugoslavs who are rigid and stubborn and who can be therefore broken by sufficient force, “Czechs are servile and flexible as sticks which first bend down and then whip back when least expected.”

One of the most used, cited, remembered and very well understood phrases in the Czech Republic is associated with Cimrman and we can find its origin in the movie Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping. Cimrman, as a teacher in the local school, gave this advice to a group of children standing in front of a pound (fence for cattle), wondering how to get over it. “Children, in your life you will have to face obstacles. Tyrš says: “Jump, climb, but never ever bend down” but I say: “You may bend down too, but then you must straighten up again!”

The self-image of bending down and then straightening up characterizes a wide-spread Czechs' view of the last two centuries of the Czech history.

Relationships with other nations

When considering relationships with other nations, there is a broad consensus in the Czech society that the Czechs give and don’t get anything back in return and that although they are at least as talented, intelligent and innovative as other nations, they are always those who end up with empty hands. Other nations just use their ideas and take advantages of Czechs every time they have the opportunity.

We can for example learn from one of the Cimrmanologic lectures that Cimrman was, mainly due to bad luck and Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy, unable to attend the Olympic Games in 1908. But he could at least sell special shoes he invented for this purpose (running shoes „koniášky“) in London and as a result “the Czech craftsmanship helped sportsmen of other nations to succeed again”.

This can be considered as a reference to the fact that during Austro-Hungarian, Nazi and Soviet occupation, Czech factories have produced goods for other nations, in many cases free of charge. The former Soviet Union was also delivered huge amounts of uranium from Czechoslovakia, again free of charge.

In the movie Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping, Cimrman gives advices to a number of artists, inventors and scientists from other nations, who thus become famous thanks to Cimrman. This concerns, among others, Gustave Eiffel, Guglielmo Marconi, Johann Strauss or Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. This may be an reference to one of the traits of the Czechs' self-stereotype, namely, that although they are very intelligent and talented, Czechs are often too naive and do not know how to sell themselves.

It is often futile, but Czechs never give up

In the Czech history, there were moments when in spite of dozens of years of hard work and efforts to achieve freedom and prosperity, or in general to create a better world for all, the Czech nation eventually ended up ruined, depleted and its members deeply disappointed and on their knees, but not for long.

This is mainly a case of church reformation initiated by Jan Hus and than followed by Martin Luther which ended in 1620 by Battle of White Mountain which was a culmination of almost total destruction of the Czech nation, the case of struggle for independence of Czechoslovakia in 1918 which ended up by Nazi occupation sped up by Munich Betrayal and than by Communist Occupation by Soviet Union which started in 1948.

In other words, there is a strong feeling in the Czech society that almost everything Czechs created or did in the past was ruined by occupants, betrayals, agreements concluded “about us, without us” or by bad luck and that it was therefore absolutely futile. There is a general feeling than we (Czechs) have to start over and over again.

This feeling of futility is nicely demonstrated by a scene (again) in the movie Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping in which Cimrman tries to patent several inventions but he is always told that someone else who had the same idea and got it patented “has just left the office”. The only invention he was able to patent was bikini. But he never stops trying.

Contributions

According to his biographers, Jára Cimrman made extensive contributions to mankind, in all areas. He proposed the Panama Canal to the U.S. government, including a libretto for an opera of the same name. He reformed the school system in Galicia. With Count Zeppelin he constructed the first rigid airship using Swedish steel and Czech wicker (the wicker being for the cabin). He was deported from Germany as an anarchist, and his personal documents carried a note that he was "a source of unrest." This led the Swiss company Omega to offer him a job to improve the balance wheel for their Piccolo line of ladies' watches. (N.B. the Czech and German words for a watch's balance wheel ("nepokoj", "Unruhe") mean "unrest.") While in Switzerland, he introduced (and practised for some time) the profession of obstetrician, under the difficult Alpine conditions. He conducted investigations about the life of Arctic tribes who eat their fellows; and once, while running away from a furious tribe, he missed the North Pole by a mere seven meters.

In Paraguay he supposedly created the first puppet-show. In Vienna he established a school of criminology, music and ballet. He corresponded with G.B. Shaw for many years, but unfortunately the dogged Irishman never replied. He invented yoghurt. He generously helped many great scientists: On his own back he carried 45 tubs of pitchblende to the basement of Mr. and Mrs. Curie, he assisted Prof. Burian with his first plastic surgery, he reworked the electrical contact on Edison's first lightbulb, and he found an underlease for Mr. Eiffel. He is the creator of the philosophy of Externism. Because of his enthusiasm for natural sciences, he discovered the monopole (as opposed to the then well known dipole), but this discovery fell into oblivion until it was confusedly revived by 20th century economists. He is also known for having advised Mendeleev, having seen the first draft, that the Periodic Table should be rotated to its current orientation.

Another one of his great inventions is also the internet itself,^{[citation needed]} although without widespread usage of computers, he had to rely on telephones. His internet basically consisted of an old circus tent where he had a telephone aparate and various pensioned highschool teachers, who answered all kinds of question people had. Also the well known WWW prefix originated here. One of the teachers' name was Weber and since he stuttered, he also introduced himself as "W-W-W.Weber."

Pedagogue

Most of the pedagogical work of Jára Cimrman is presented in the theatre play Vyšetřování ztráty třídní knihy ("Investigation of the Loss of a Class Book", 1967).

Cimrman became a teacher in a small village known as Struk, as a punishment by court, when it was revealed he could read and write as well.

He also, in accordance with his ideology of "Futurism", prepared his students as a teacher for the future practical usage of phones, which were being installed in Austria at that time and planted such a euphoria, that when the first phone apparatus was installed, many of his former students began throwing a whole fortune into the phones, calling random numbers and many of them went home from the post office as complete beggars.

He also revolutionized his small town schooling methods with dividing the lectured subjects into clearly marked "Forget-me-not" and "Not-forget-me-not" materials. The former was one-tenth of all the learning material and was meant to be remembered, while the latter made up nine-tenths of the given subject and was intended from the start to be forgotten.

As a teacher, he also put his pupils under stress to improve information retention for a particularly important part of the subject — he either snapped his whip hard on the ground or took off his wig ("úlek oslněním" — "fright by daze"). This apparently successful method bears his name to this day as the famous "Cimrman's Fixation by Shock".

When students misbehaved, he did not punish them but punished himself instead — his theory was that pupils certainly must love their teacher and therefore would feel remorse if he should suffer. When his students put water into his ink-bottle instead of ink, he did not leave his house for a week. His students had no school then and so had enough free time to feel sorry for him. Alternately he would refuse to have a cigarette after lunch and commented on it thus: "Today, after lunch, I will not smoke a cigar ("viržínko"). Don't cry, it's your own fault."

Playwright

Jára Cimrman is claimed to have authored numerous plays, many of which are said to have been lost. These plays include Posel světla (English "Herald of Light"), featuring his own comic vision of the future world where people are all good to each other and so a person may, ironically, act as a complete heartless monster without any remorse.

Another play presented as a work of Cimrman is Záskok ("The Stand-in"), which portrays actors of a fictional amateur theatre, performing a play that is messed up by a famous and reportedly brilliant, yet in reality dumb person who cannot forget to say other people's lines and lines from other plays and who cannot even remember the name of his own character.

Cimrman never received great fame as a playwright in his lifetime, often because of his innovatory practices, such as changing the length of the play in several successive performances or presenting new ideas. He is stated to have sent many of his plays to Ladislav Stroupežnický (a famous Czech playwright) under his name and two pseudonyms, forming such a bundle of rejected works that Stroupežnický recalls they "cost him 60 working days". He also encouraged Cimrman not to write to him and if possible "not to write at all". After Cimrman replied on a familiar note, because they both studied at the same school, Stroupežnický never recovered.

One of the plays, also said to be lost, which was a subject of their correspondence, was Čechové na Řípu (English: "Czechs on Říp"), a fictional account of an old Bohemian legend, which is here said to feature not only the legendary Forefather Czech, but also other characters as Forefather German, Forefather Jew and, in dialogue only, Forefather Gipsy, by which Cimrman wanted to honour all major nationalities living in Bohemia. The play was later re-done and its name changed to Čechové na řípu ("Czechs for Turnip", changing just uppercase "Ř" into lower case "ř"), in order to motivate people to work at a sugar refinery in Klánovice.

Another man, whom Cimrman is said to have surprised with his works was Jacob Durman, director of the Royal Chamber Theatre in Haag, who, after reading his play Prázdniny s kanibalem Dufkem ("Vacation with cannibal Dufek") is said not to "come out of astonishment." Cimrman replied: "Dear Mr. Durman, the theatre is here mainly so that the spectator shall be astonished. I am sending you five more plays."

Many of Cimrman's unsuccessful plays are reported to be performed by his infamous theatrical group Lipany. Cimrman's theatre still possesses the original properties from the play Akt (English: "The Nude"), through which the author himself left the stage. A common way to escape angry or unsatisfied audience was the even more infamous scene Vichr z hor ("Drift From the Mountains"), allowing the actors to escape swiftly.

Cimrmanologists admit that Cimrman has failed to obtain any recognition in this field (as well as in any other) because his methods were far too ahead of his time. This is also in strong contrast with the fact how brilliantly he helped Anton Chekhov with his play (advising him that two sisters are not enough).

Physical appearance

The physical and facial appearance of Jára Cimrman past his childhood years is a great mystery, as (we are told) there exist no photos of his person. In some of many lectures on Jára Cimrman it was declared that from the few details known (a "T" as a remnant of him hitting his head repeatedly against a fence) a few hundred possible silhouettes were created.

Cimrmanology

The Cimrman's character was invented for a regular radio programme Nealkoholická vinárna U Pavouka ("The Spider Non-Alcoholic Wine Bar") in 1966. As the authors later reminisced about it, the mystification with presenting a new discovery of a forgotten Czech genius was successful. Some listeners considered it humorous, some asked a punishment for those who tried to deceive people, and others (at least in the beginning) believed. In 1967 Jiří Šebánek together with Miloň Čepelka, Ladislav Smoljak and Zdeněk Svěrák founded the Jára Cimrman Theatre. The first play was called Akt ("The Nude"). Jiří Šebánek later left the theatre and in 1980 founded Salon Cimrman.

People from the Jára Cimrman Theatre and Salon Cimrman call themselves Cimrmanologists and pretend to be enthusiastic scholars who explore and analyse the Cimrman's life and work. Their findings have been presented to the lay public in a variety of ways. Lectures on Jára Cimrman followed by a dramatization inspired on the scholars' discoveries have been very popular in the Jára Cimrman Theatre, while Salon Cimrman focuses just on lectures.

In 1983 Ladislav Smoljak directed the film Jára Cimrman ležící, spící ("Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping") and in 1984 Ladislav Smoljak and Zdeněk Svěrák made a detective film comedy Rozpuštěný a vypuštěný ("Dissolved and Drained"), based on the theatre play Vražda v salónním coupé ("Murder in a Chair Carriage"), the putative author of which was Jára Cimrman.

Cimrmanologists also wrote several books on Jára Cimrman:

• J. Šebánek, L. Smoljak, Z. Svěrák, K. Velebný: Jára da Cimrman (1970)
• J. Klusák, J. Šebánek, L. Smoljak, Z. Svěrák, K. Velebný: Cimrman v říši hudby ("Cimrman in the Music Domain", 1971)
• J. Šebánek: Já, Jára Cimrman ("I, Jára Cimrman", 1991)

A museum on Jára Cimrman's inventions was opened in the basement of the Petřín Lookout Tower in Prague in 2002.

Greatest Czech contest

In early 2005, the Czech Television started a contest to choose The Greatest Czech (inspired by the British show 100 Greatest Britons). The obvious candidates included pop singers, Czech kings and national heroes. Surprisingly, on January 15 it seemed that most of the votes (by SMS, the Internet or mail) had gone to Jára Cimrman. However, the Czech Television decided to disqualify Cimrman, saying that only real people were eligible for the contest — a decision that was strongly criticized by the public. An on-line petition was started to try to keep Cimrman eligible. The popular support for Cimrman caused the Czech Television to create a special category for fictional characters to recognize Cimrman's popularity,^[1] and Czech Television did a documentary about Cimrman as well; however, they did not include him in the main contest.

See also

• The Good Soldier Švejk
• 7796 Járacimrman
• Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping

References

1. ^ http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/25/news/hero.php

External links

Czech

• Žižkovské divadlo Járy Cimrmana (The Cimrman Theatre).
• Unofficial pages of the Jára Cimrman Theatre
• Lidové noviny newspaper article about Jára Cimrman winning the competition so far.
• Czech Press Agency news that Jára Cimrman will be disqualified although he is leading the scores.
• Britské listy article criticizing Czech Television.
• Announcement by Czech Television of a special award for Jára Cimrman.
• Cimrmanův zpravodaj (The Cimrman Bulletin).

English

• Feeling Short of Real Heroes, Thus Fond of a Fake One: New York Times 17 May 2005; somewhat differently edited in International Herald Tribune 16 May as Prague's greatest hero is really a blank Czech
• article on the contest in Prague Post
• The first Czech on the moon, Haaretz 9 June 2005
• Kafka Meets Monty Python, Time 2002
• Czechs' hero? The people's choice is a joke, IHT March 2005
• A nationally syndicated column released after the vote with a biography.
• The Jara Cimrman theater - several plays and excerpts translated into English
• The website for Petrin Tower, the location of the Cimrman Museum