While Kopecký was not the only Czech puppeteer, he became the most known one during the second half of the 19th century when his son Václav Kopecký published his plays in print, and due to a fictional picture of Kopecký by Mikoláš Aleš.
At his time the puppet theatre was, for many in the Czech lands, the only contact with theatrical culture, with ideas of enlightenment and of the Czech National Revival.