The Prague Post http://www.aaaradiotaxi.cz/index.php?xSET=lang&xLANG=2
July 7th, 2008
Real Estate Prague Prague Rentals Prague Apartments Prague Art & Antiques

Who is Jara Cimrman?

Anarchist yogurt inventor could be 'greatest' Czech

By Matt Reynolds
Jan. 27, 2005


Cimrman is the creation of actors and playwrights Zdenek Sverak and Ladislav Smoljak, who wrote 12 plays and three films involving the "greatest" Czech inventor, explorer, musician, architect and artist of all time.

According to them, Cimrman was born to an Austrian mother and Czech father in Vienna in either 1857, 1864, 1867, or 1894 — the exact date is uncertain, since the doctor recording the birth was drunk, and the records were smudged.

Sverak and Smoljak attribute Cimrman's genius to his parents, who raised Cimrman as a girl, so they could dress him in his sister's hand-me-downs. The theory is based on two assumptions -- that puberty scatters a boy's mental energy, and that girls get through it sooner. By the time classmates revealed to the 15-year-old Cimrman that he was male, he had already completed puberty as a girl, and could therefore concentrate like no other boy in his class.

Cimrman is credited unofficially with hundreds of inventions. He is also known for getting to the patent office five minutes too late to register them.

Among his accomplishments:

• Convincing Chekhov to rewrite the book, The Three Sisters. When Cimrman heard the working title, The Two Sisters, he said, "Isn't that too few?"

• Proposing the Panama Canal to the Americans, along with an opera libretto of the same name

• Coming within seven meters of the North Pole. A starving tribe of Native Americans chased him away at the last second

• Inventing yogurt

• Inventing the CD ("Cimrman's Disk")

• Carrying on a one-way correspondence with George Bernard Shaw

• Founding puppet theater in Paraguay

Zizkovske Divadlo Jary Cimrmana, Stitneho 5, in Prague 3, puts on Cimrman plays. Call 222 780 396 or go to www.zizkovskedivadlo-jc.cz for details.
All plays are in Czech.

— Matt Reynolds

Related Articles
Show looks for 'greatest Czech'
But fictional character tops polls in TV popularity contest






Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.