Jára Cimrman

Jára Cimrman, an alleged "auto-bust" showing the bearer's "worn-out features". Theatrical property of Divadlo Járy Cimrmana.

Jára Cimrman (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjaːra ˈtsɪmr̩man]) is a Czech fictional character of a universal genius. Created by Jiří Šebánek, Ladislav Smoljak and Zdeněk Svěrák, the fictional personality (universal genius, inventor, sportsman, criminalist, poet, writer and philosopher), Jára Cimrman won the voting for The Greatest Czech in 2005 (only the fact that Cimrman is fictional prevented him from actually winning). He is presented as one of the greatest Czech playwrights, poets, composers, teachers, travellers, philosophers, inventors, detectives, mathematicians, amateur obstectricians and sportsmen of the 19th and early 20th century. Playing the game on his real existence is part of his characterization.

Cimrman made his first appearance on a regular radio programme Nealkoholická vinárna U Pavouka ("The Non-Alcoholic Wine Bar chez Spider") on 23 December 1966. Although the character was originally meant to be just a modest caricature of the Czech people, history, and culture, he became an immensely popular protagonist of modern Czech folklore, and an ersatz national hero. Cimrman is both the major character and the putative author of a great number of books, plays, and films. Žižkovské divadlo Járy Cimrmana (Jára Cimrman Theatre in Žižkov) is one of Prague's most frequented theatre houses.

Early life

The precise dates of his birth and death have not been to this day agreed upon. Because Franz Huschkov, the registrar of the 4th Vienna Parish, was making most of his entries in a state of inebriation, it cannot be said with any degree of certainty whether Jára Cimrman was born to Marlén and Leopold Cimrman on a freezing February night in 1857, 1864, or 1876. We therefore assume that he was born in 1880, which would make the year 2000 the 120th anniversary of the master’s birth.

As we cast our eyes across the tremendous number of masterworks created by this spiritual titan, we can not but wonder, “Whence did the Cimrman’s genius come from?” Cimrman’s inventiveness and creativity are partially explained by the fact that he did not pass through the stage of puberty at all, which, as is well known, deflects the creative energy to undesirable directions. Until Cimrman reached the age of 15, his parents were hiding the fact that he was a boy so that he could wear the clothing of his older sister Luisa. However, when his malicious classmates at the girl school revealed that he was not a girl, Cimrman had already passed through the puberty since, as we know, girls mature faster than boys.

Contributions

According to his biographers, Jára Cimrman made extensive contributions to all of mankind in many areas. He proposed the Panama Canal to the U.S. government, while composing 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, his personal documents carrying a note that he was "a source of unrest." This led the Swiss company Omega to offer him a job to improve the unrest - 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), under the difficult Alpine conditions, the profession of obstetrician. He conducted investigations into the life of Arctic cannibalistic (who eat their fellows) tribes; and once, while running away from the furious tribe, he missed the North Pole by a mere seven meters, thus almost becoming the first human reaching the North Pole.

In Paraguay he supposedly created the first puppet-show. In Vienna he established the school of criminology, music and ballet. He corresponded with G.B. Shaw for many years, but unfortunately the dogged Irishman never replied him. He invented yogurt. He generously helped many great scientists: He carried on his own back the 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 light bulb, and he found an sublet 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 obscurity until it was bewilderingly revived by 20th century economists. He is also known for having advised Mendeleev, after seeing the first draft, that the Periodic Table should be rotated to its current orientation. It is said that when Graham Bell invented his telephone, he found 3 missed calls from Jára Cimrman upon making his first connection.

Another one of his great inventions was also the internet itself, although without the widespread use of computers. Due to the technologies available at the time he had to rely on telephones. His internet basically consisted of an old circus tent where the maestro arranged the telephone apparatus for various pensioned high school teachers to answer all kinds of questions people asked. The well known WWW prefix as well originated here. One of the teachers' name was Weber and since he stuttered, he introduced himself as "W-W-W.Weber." His achievements in this field go even further, thanks to Mr. Šustr, who was responsible for answering biologically themed questions. Šustr answered every one by operating with field mice (African elephant's weight was equivalent to 30,000 mice, a weasel was 1.5 times faster than a mouse etc.). This is the first recorded use of mouse as a peripheral in computer technology.

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 teacher in a small Galician village known as Struk (Teat), as a punishment by court, when it was revealed he could both read and write.

He also, being practitioner of his "Futurism" ideology, prepared his students for the future practical use of phones, which were being slowly installed throughout the empire at that time. He created in them such a euphoria, that when the first phone apparathae arrived, many of his current and former students began throwing whole fortunes into the phones, calling random numbers; many of them went home from the telephone booths as complete beggars.

He also revolutionized his small town schooling methods. Knowing that the cohort is bound to forget at least a part of the lecture, his system was based on dividing the lectured subjects into clearly marked "Forget-me-not" and "Not-forget-me-not" sections. The former was one-tenth of all the learning volume and was meant to be remembered, while the latter made up the nine-tenths of the given subject and was intended from the start to be forgotten.

As a teacher, he was putting his pupils under controlled exposure to stress in order to improve information retention of the germane parts of the curriculum —he either snapped his whip hard against the floor or removed 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 would not leave his house for a week. His students having had no school then had enough free time to feel sorry for him. Alternately he would refuse to have his cigarette after lunch and stating: "Today, after lunch, I will not smoke my cigar ("viržínko"). Don't cry, it's your 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 Beet", 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. 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).

Cimrman's special acting methods

Vichr z hor

Vichr z hor (Gale from the mountains) was used on stage when the audience displayed a certain degree of hostility towards actors. It was a way of leaving the stage quickly with minimal to no damage to actors or scene. When the actors, or Cimrman himself sensed danger, two members of the ensemble started making seemingly irrelevant comments that there's a wind picking up on stage. Calling it Gale from the mountains, they kept making remarks on the fierce strength of the wind, which was by that point, ripping and carrying objects away (the remaining personnel carried the scene pieces on a carriage standing by). When all that remained on scene were the two actors, the lights went off. This was a signal for the duo to announce, that a storm has arrived and whoever in the audience moves will be struck down by lightning. This was further supported by the carriage leaving the theatre area, further simulating thunder. After making sure no-one will move, the duo went to their prepared bicycles and began chasing the carriage.

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 15 January 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 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, 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

External links

Czech

• Žižkovské divadlo Járy Cimrmana (The 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.
• Announcement by Czech Television of a special award for Jára Cimrman.

English

• article on the contest in Prague Post
• The first Czech on the moon, Haaretz 9 June 2005
• Kafka Meets Monty Python, Time 2002