A project to translate “Norbert Fabián Čapek’s “To the Sunny Shore: A Guide to Living Joyfully” (“K slunnému brehu: Prúvodce do radostného Zivota”)

Norbert Fabián Čapek (1870-1942) — A moment of reflection in the woods

Update 15th December 2024: The complete translation can now be read at this link.

In 2000 I had just graduated from Oxford University, completed my training for the ministry of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, and taken up my position as minister of the Cambridge Unitarian Church, where I still am today.

As part of my studies I had read Richard Henry’s recently published book, “Norbert Fabián Čapek: A Spiritual Journey” (Skinner House Books, Boston, 1999), and I was hugely impressed. So when, only a year later, I took part in an International Theological Symposium of Unitarians and Universalists at my old college, I was thrilled to meet and talk with, albeit briefly, one of the Czech representatives, Jaroslava Dittrichová. Those conversations and her conference talk were truly inspiring, and what she said has remained with me since then, continuing to influence my own unfolding spiritual journey.  

Čapek “tryptych” in the middle, in front of the cross

Then, in 2006, I was invited to speak at a conference held in Cambridge on the subject of “The Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity.” My contribution was about “The Religious Society of Czech Unitarians (RSCU) and the construction of Czech National Identity” (published in, Lucia Faltin, Melanie J. Wright eds, The Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity, London : Continuum, p. 143-155). My correspondence with the Czech Unitarian, Ivana Fiserová, during this time was invaluable, not least of all because then, as now, so few Czech Unitarian texts have been translated into English. Still, I did the best I could with the resources available to me, and it was an experience that only served to deepen my respect and interest in the Czech Unitarian tradition in general, and Čapek in particular. Indeed, since then a small triptych of photographs in a silver frame has graced my windowsill. It shows Norbert Čapek on the left, his wife, Mája, on the right and, in the middle, the first symbol of the Czech(oslovak) Unitarians, namely two free-standing sunflowers turning towards the sun, with the letters, SB underneath (standing for Svobodné Bratrství (Free Fellowship/Brotherhood) [see the photo at the top of this paragraph, just click on it to enlarge].

Anyway, I kept telling myself that someone, surely, would one day translate into English the book Čapek thought was his most important, “K slunnému brehu: Prúvodce do radostného Zivota” (To the Sunny Shore: A Guide to Living Joyfully). But, alas, it’s never happened.

In the intervening years, although I have never lost my interest in Čapek and the Čzech Unitarians, my explorations of the liberal/free-religious tradition took me east and particularly to Japan. As many readers of this blog will know, I’ve spent the last two years working to translate into English the surviving essays of the great Japanese Yuniterian (sic), educator and advocate of a creative, inquiring, free and liberative religion/spirituality (jiyū shūkyō), Imaoka Sin’ichirō. As with Čapek, no one had ever got round to (or had developed the interest in) translating Imaoka-sensei’s work. However, with the astonishing development of Large Language Models like ChatGPT and DeepL, given that I also had a number of Japanese friends whom I could consult, had access to online Japanese dictionaries, and knew the secondary literature published in English, I was finally able to get a first, heavy-lifted translation out into the world. It’s been a truly exciting and thrilling journey . . . but more of that elsewhere on this blog!  

And then, on November 5th 2024, Donald Trump was elected US President for a second term. This, remember, is a man who John Kelly (the retired Marine general who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff between 2017 and 2019) has described as fitting “into the general definition of fascist” and “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

Hearing this awful news on the radio whilst sitting at the breakfast table in my kitchen on the dark and dreary morning following, I could feel my mood plummet. How was I to respond to this appropriately?

And then, suddenly, I remembered reading, years before, an English summary made by Petr Dolák Samojský of the 1939 edition of Čapek’s book, “K slunnému brehu: Prúvodce do radostného Zivota” (To the Sunny Shore: A Guide to Living Joyfully). This is how, without being able to read Czech, I knew Čapek’s book was about “the conscious creating of a mood,” and that it was his attempt to offer, “an explanation of the principles of human life from a psychological point of view, practical directions for how to deal with daily problems, and how to improve readers’ lives in general, particularly from a religious perspective.” As most of you will know, by 1939 Hitler and the Nazis had already begun to annexe Czechoslovakia, and consequently, the book was consciously being offered to people who were facing the immanent (if not, by then, actual) threat of fascism. As I sat in internal and external gloom on the 6th November, I wondered . . . might not Čapek’s book say something helpful to me about how to respond correctly and creatively to this new threat of fascism in my own time? Might it not also speak usefully to my many dear North American friends involved in liberal/free-religion in the age of Trump?

So, I checked online to see if someone had yet translated Čapek’s book. No, came the swift, disappointing answer . . .

And then it occcured to me, if I could get hold of a PDF of the Čzech edition, with the help of ChatGPT and DeepL, it was now possible to produce a good, heavy-lifted, first draft of the book myself. Amazingly, wonderfully, PDFs of the whole book can be found here!

And so, this morning, I have been able to begin the translation work and my plan is to publish the introduction and each of the 21 chapters as I finish them. Just to give you an initial heads-up of what is to come, here are the chapter headings as found in Petr Dolák Samojský’s summary.

Introduction
1. About the Appropriate Attitude
2. Secret Intelligence
3. Threshold of Consciousness
4. Analysis of a Human "I"
5. Hidden Desires and Interests
6. Symbols of Inner Struggles
7. The Art of Calming Down
8. Relaxation
9. The Impact of Breathing on Mood
10. Controlled Thinking
11. Power of Emotions
12. Controlling of Fear
13. Controlling of Pain
14. Joy to the Mind
15. Controlled Will
16. Mood and Relationship to People
17. A Mood and Fatigue
18. Colors and Mood
19. To See Beauty
20. A Mood of Abundance
21. The Path of Imagination

As Čapek tells us in the introduction, his book was “on moods,” and it was intended to be “a form of mental nourishment – a way to create, savour, and internalise thoughts on mood, giving us strength.” As already noted, such a form of nourishment was clearly needed by the Czechoslovakian people in 1939 and, as he says in his preface to the third edition:

“I worked on this [3rd] edition during a particularly difficult time for the Czech nation. May it be a remedy for many and balm for the wounds of the heart! May it be sunshine that brightens and lightens the lives of many! May it serve the Czech people, as this was its sole intention!”

Naturally, if you are a Czech/English reader/speaker, as each chapter appears, please feel free to post in the comments any suggested corrections, clarifications etc.. I’d genuinely welcome any help in finally getting a good and accurate English language version of this important liberal/free-religious text out into the world.

Update 15th December 2024: The complete translation can now be read at this link.