…. Don't shake hands with anyone anymore. (White disease, p. 34).
A contagious disease from China, quarantine, testing, isolation, measures that restrict freedom...all of this can be found in the play The White Disease (1937), written by Karel Čapek. We are publishing it in the translation by Fran Albrecht.
In 1937, during the rise of Nazism, Karel Čapek wrote the play White diseaseThe Prague premiere was quickly followed by a Slovenian production (on May 22, 1937). The play was directed by Peter Malec at the Maribor National Theatre and translated by Jan Šedivý.
A new translation prepared by Fran Albreht was presented on the stage of the Ljubljana Drama Theatre at the end of 1937. Despite some concerns about the author's literary approaches, the critic France Koblar received the text and the staging positively and in his assessment thoroughly analyzed both aspects, literary and theatrical (Ljubljanska drama: Bela boleženje. In: Slovenec, 16. 12. 1937, no. 287, p. 7).
Ten days after the text was presented at the Ljubljana Drama Theatre, the film adaptation premiered in Prague. White diseases. The screenplay was written by Hugo Haas, who also directed the film and played the lead role, Doctor Galen. Due to its current anti-Nazi message, the drama quickly spread throughout Europe and the world. It was translated into Hebrew, among other languages, and the premiere in Tel Aviv was followed a day later by the annexation of the Sudetenland (late September 1938). Less than two months later, Čapek died.
The writer prophetically predicted the future in the drama RUR, written in 1920. In this game, humanity is destroyed by machines, which are first called robots, a pacifist text White disease brings a dark picture of human self-destruction: a militant state, the rise of fascism, intensive armament, the combination of science and politics, the helplessness of the individual and much more. Readers and viewers have understood the events in this dystopia in different ways at different times, but this year they focused their attention on Čapek's depiction of a pandemic caused by a virus from China, which sickens and kills the elderly. Today's reader shudders at words such as quarantine, isolation and Beijing leprosy, but is not indifferent to the appearance of a fanatical dictator, the depiction of defenders of the arms industry and the destructive rampage of a primitive mob.
When the young doctor Galen finds a cure for a disease, he naively refuses to hand it over for use, but in return wants assurances that the decision-makers will prevent war, which is an even greater evil than the disease. In this desire, he encounters an obstacle: in the drama, Čapek shows three figures who have power and levels this power from the least important to the most powerful decision-maker: from the director of the clinic to the large industrialist to the absolutist president of the country. The first to decide on or destroy lives is a representative of science or the medical profession. Court councilor Sigelius, who runs the prestigious Lilienthal Clinic, is the weakest and is depicted in the most one-dimensional way. The position he has achieved through family connections or nepotistic intrigues allows him to be extremely cruel to patients and staff - to everyone he has ranked lower than himself in his mind. The camp cap in a doctor's gown is servile and sweetly friendly only to "important" people. He doesn't care if patients die from Cheng's disease; he is only interested in pursuing the interests of those in power:
Dv. Svetnik: This is the amen of my scientific reputation…I know all too well what a disgrace this is. But I would rather suffer defeat here than allow…your utopian blackmail, Galen! I would rather the whole world perish from leprosy than suffer here…just for a brief moment…your pacifist plague!
Dr. Galen: Look, you shouldn't say that... You shouldn't say that as a doctor!
Dv. Svetnik: I am not only a doctor, sir. I, thank God, also serve my country. (p. 25)
Dr. Sigelius serves his country by inventing various measures and decrees. He does not fight the disease with the medicine that is practically in front of his nose, but with force and by mistreating people:
Dv. Svetnik: In short, in the shortest days an order will be issued that will order the compulsory isolation of the so-called lepers. This is my work, Mr. Baron. The Marshal himself promised me that he would take up this matter. – This is the greatest success that has been achieved so far in the world against Cheng's disease.
Baron Krüg: Yes, that's true... a wonderful success. But what kind of insulation do you mean?
Dv. Svetnik: Camps, Mr. Baron. Every patient, every one on whom a white spot appears, will be sent to a security camp...
Baron Krüg: Aha. And there they will leave him to die little by little.
Dv. Svetnik: Yes, but under medical supervision. Cheng's disease is a plague that is transmitted from sick people to healthy people. We must protect ourselves against this – the rest of us, Mr. Baron. Any sentimentality would be nothing short of a crime here. Anyone who tries to escape from the camp will be shot. Every citizen over the age of forty will have to undergo a medical examination every month. In this way, we will suppress Cheng's disease by force... (pp. 33-34)
Both by using decision-makers and by introducing a "normal" family, Čapek effectively shows the "sociological" dimensions of the pandemic. Tectonic shifts are taking place in society, the white disease is mowing, and individuals - according to Voltaire - are cultivating their own garden. Each new situation brings new challenges. The father understands the fatal illness as an opportunity that he managed to seize:
Father: Accounting Manager at Krug – Who would have thought when I started at Krug thirty years ago – that I would one day rise to accounting manager! It’s a big career, Mom; it’s true, I’ve worked hard enough, I’ve earned a fair wage. – You should know that five colleagues worked hard for this position and they all died, you see. And all because of this white disease. One would almost say – nothing, it just occurred to me – If you add to that the fact that our daughter is getting married too – her fiancé has already got a job – And the boy enters the office as soon as he passes his exams – You know, Mom, I’ll tell you how I feel: Thank God for this leprosy!
Mom: Please! How can you say something like that!
Father: If it's true! Look, she helped us – and many other people too – one has to be grateful to fate, mother. If it weren't for this disease, I don't know, we wouldn't be as good as we are now. That's how it is. (p. 27)
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree:
Son: Well, what? With all the exams, a person couldn't squeeze in anywhere anyway. Maybe this will be a little better now.
Father: When he takes all the fifty-year-olds to hell, what?
Son: That's right. If only this could last a little longer. (p. 17)
Dr. Galen is unsuccessful in his demand for world peace and fails to obtain assurances from politicians and their countries that they will establish permanent peace and disarm. As his demands fall on deaf ears, he only heals the poor, while the rich continue to die of a deadly disease.
The next person from whom, after a clash with the head of the clinic, Dr. Galen experiences an unreasonable refusal is Baron Krüg. The large-scale industrialist has extraordinary power in his hands, based on social influence and wealth. He also has a kind of ethical compass and wants to do what is right, but he cannot overcome his character. Unconditional obedience to his superior is a higher value for him than his ethos or acting for the good of humanity. Such obedience, which is necessary for the functioning of the military structure, was only a few years after its creation. White diseases also invoked by the defendants at the Nuremberg trials.
When the marshal finally comes to his senses in the face of death and wants to change the course of events that are leading to disaster, it is the crowd that destroys itself. A violent, formless, bloodthirsty mass, in which the individual drowns in anonymity, acts without hesitation or thought. The mob kills self-sacrificing people who want to work for the good of their fellow man. What's more, it also deliberately destroys their work, which would bring people happiness. If we think about how many times humanity has paved its way to suffering with violence, the outcome is quite realistic. Positive initiative is ultimately stifled: primitivism, war chaos and violence win.
Katarina Kocijančič
