The White Plague

"The White Disease (Czech: Bílá nemoc) is a play written by Czech novelist Karel Čapek in 1937. Written at a time of increasing threat from Nazi Germany to Czechoslovakia, it portrays a human response to a tense, prewar situation in an unnamed country that greatly resembles Germany with one extra addition: an uncurable white disease, a form of leprosy, is selectively killing off people older than 45. It was adapted as the film Skeleton on Horseback by Hugo Haas. "

"A disease called White disease is spreading in the country and elsewhere in Europe. It kills its victims usually within a span of a year. People all over the place are totally terrified. However, the government, led by a dictator Marshal, is busy preparing for a war of conquest and does not really care. They figure that the youth are not susceptible, and the youth are the traditional mainstay of the regime in any event. If the adults are going to die, too bad for them."


"In their introduction, translators Peter Majer and Cathy Porter write: ‘The White Plague (1937) [is] a savage and anguished satire against fascist dictatorship. The action is set in an unnamed country and under its dictator, the Marshal, the population is poised for the final war which will conquer the world. Science, medicine and production are ruled by fiat, and dissent is ruthlessly suppressed. But people are dying by the thousand from a mysterious epidemic for which nobody knows the cure. The disease slays soldiers, rulers and workers alike, depleting the labour force and jeopardising production . . . A humanist by nature, Čapek struggled to understand the psychology of his time, joining the front line of journalists and intellectuals fighting for democracy and against the infamous Munich pact . . . But he was already being attacked by Czech and German fascists at public meetings and in the press, and The White Plague made him more enemies.'
The White Plague was first performed and published in Czech in 1937, the year before Čapek’s death at the age of 48."
Read less