THE

LITERATURES
OF EUROPE
 LITERARY PIECE: GOD SEES THE TRUTH BUT WAITS

In the Russian town of Vladimir, Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov lives as a successful

merchant with his wife and young children. One summer, as Aksionov sets off for
Nizhy Fair to sell his goods, Aksionov's wife warns him not to go, for she has had a
nightmare in which he returned with grey hair. Aksionov laughs off her concern that
the nightmare was a premonition and interprets the dream as a sign of luck.
Halfway to the town, Aksionov encounters a fellow merchant, with whom he stops for
the night at an inn. The men have tea together and sleep in adjoining rooms. Aksionov
rises before dawn and sets off with his horses and coachman while the air is cool.
After twenty-five miles, he stops to feed his horses.

During this break, two soldiers and an official arrive and begin questioning
Aksionov about his relationship with the man he had tea with the night before. The
merchant was found dead with his throat slit. Since the two rooms were next to each
other, it seems only natural that Aksionov might know something. Aksionov trembles
in fear when the official searches his belongings and removes a knife streaked with
blood.

The men bind and arrest Aksionov. His wife visits him in jail and faints at the
sight of him dressed as a criminal. He says they must petition the czar, to which she
says she has already tried to no avail. She asks him if he committed the murder, and
Aksionov weeps. If even his wife suspects him, he thinks after she leaves, then only
God knows the truth and it is only to God that he should appeal.

He puts his faith in God and accepts his sentencing and ceremonial flogging.
He is sent to work in the Siberian mines. Over twenty-six years in Siberia, Aksionov
transforms into a pious old man. His hair turns white, his beard grows long, he walks
with difficulty, and he never laughs. He prays often and, among other prisoners, he
develops a reputation as a meek and fair man.

One day a newly arrived inmate named Makar Semyonich, who is about the
same age as Aksionov and from the same hometown, gives an account of what
brought him to Siberia. He was suspected of stealing a horse when in reality he had
only borrowed it. Nevertheless, he was convicted and imprisoned. The irony is that
he had gotten away with doing something much worse earlier in his life.
Aksionov suspects the man is responsible for framing him. He questions Semyonich,
who cryptically responds in a way that confirms Aksionov's suspicion. Aksionov
remembers everything he has lost and is plunged into misery; he longs for a way to
get revenge but resolves to stay away from the man or even look in his direction. After
two weeks, unable to sleep, Aksionov takes a walk near the prison to discover
Semyonich digging a tunnel under his sleeping shelf. Semyonich angrily offers
Aksionov escape and threatens to kill him should he tell the authorities about the
tunnel. Aksionov says Semyonich has already taken his life, and he shall do as God
directs him.

Soldiers discover the tunnel the next day. The governor arrives to question
prisoners, none of whom admit to knowing anything about the tunnel. After wrestling
with his desire for vengeance, Aksionov declines to say what he knows about
Semyonich's involvement, even if it means that he will be punished himself.

That night, Aksionov is about to nod off in his bunk when Semyonich sits down
beside him. Semyonich bends over and whispers a plea for forgiveness. He confesses
that it was he who killed the other merchant and stole his money; he then planted the
knife so that Aksionov would become the suspect. He falls to his knees and begs for
forgiveness, promising to confess to the crimes so that Aksionov will go free. The old
man replies that his life is already over and he has nowhere to go.

At the sight of Semyonich's tears, Aksionov weeps himself. Semyonich begs

again for forgiveness. Aksionov tells him that God will forgive him, and that perhaps
he himself is a hundred times worse. Having said this, Aksionov feels a lightness enter
his body. He no longer desires to go home or leave the prison; he wants only to die.

The story ends with Semyonich confessing to the governor. By the time the
officials arrange Aksionov's release, Aksionov has already died.

ELEMENTS OF GOD SEES THE TRUTH BUT WAITS

Characters of the Story

➢ Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov (dynamic character)
- A handsome merchant, fair-haired, curly-headed fellow, full of fun, and
fond of singing
- the protagonist of the story that was accused for the murder of a merchant
as well as robbery and has been imprisoned for almost 26 years
➢ Aksionov's Wife (dynamic character)
- The wife was the one who warned her husband not to go to Nizhy Fair, as
she has had a nightmare that could mean a terrible fate foe Aksionov.
➢ Makar Semyonich (dynamic character)
- The antagonist of the story that was the real killer of the merchant
➢ Governor (Static character)
- The one of the authority figures in the story
➢ Fellow Merchant (static character)
 - The one Aksionov meets on his way to Nizhy Fair and they had tea together
and stayed on the same Inn that was found dead with a slit throat
➢ District Police Inspectors or the Officials (Static character)
- The people whom investigated the crime and initiated the cross
questioning to Aksionov and arrested him.

Genre, Plot, Conflict and Point of View

The author of the fictional short story, Leo Tolstoy made use of a circular plot
in which the story flows with a linear development that merges with an interruption
to showcase events that happened in the past. It is evident in the aspect of the story
in which Aksionov, the main character had a flashback of the events with his family
before the incident of him being convicted occurred. The conflict or opposition of
forces in in the story can be classified as Person vs. Person, Person vs. Society, and
Person vs. Fate. The protagonist or the main character, Aksionov has a conflict with
the antagonist or the real murderer and thief which was Makar Semyonich that
concludes the Person vs. Person type of conflict. In terms of Person vs. Society conflict,
Aksionov experienced conflict with society in terms of the law because he was
accused and imprisoned for being suspected as the murderer of a fellow merchant.
Lastly, Person vs. Fate conflict accounts to the scene where the wife had a dream like
a premonition that something bad would happen to Aksionov it is somehow a strange
coincidence that the dream turned to reality when he was accused and imprisoned
for murder.
In the aspect of the point of view, the author made use of a third person
omniscient point of view in which the story was narrated from an all-knowing point
of view. It indicates that the story telling method exhibits the minds, thoughts, and
feelings of all the characters. It was evident in the part of the story wherein Aksionov’s
self-thoughts that was present in his mind was presented by the narration.
Elements
I. Exposition:

The story started with a young merchant named Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov who lives
in a town called Vladimir. He has a wife and children. One summer he decided to travel
to the Nizhy Fair but while saying his farewell to his wife and children his wife uttered
that she had a bad dream. The wife dreamed that Aksionov returned from the town,
and when he took off his cap the wife saw that his hair was quite grey which for the
wife means something bad is going to happen. But on the other hand, Aksionov
reassured his wife by telling her that the dream was a good sign. After saying his
farewell to his family, he began travelling and, on his way, he met a fellow merchant.
Aksionov and the fellow merchant decided to rest at the same inn for the night and
they had tea together and after the drink they slept in adjoining rooms. Aksionov
wishes to travel while the air is still cool so he decided to start travelling again at
dawn.
II. Complication:

After travelling for almost twenty-five miles, he decided to stop in order to feed
the horses. Suddenly a troika arrived that was driven by officials with two soldiers.
The official started asking Aksionov for his identity and where he came from.
Aksionov answered the officials and even asked them to have some tea with him but
the official started to ask more questions like "Where did you spend last night? Were
you alone, or with a fellow-merchant? Did you see the other merchant this morning?
Why did you leave the inn before dawn?" Aksionov wondered why he was being asked
of all these questions, but still he described all that had happened and answered the
questions. Aksionov asked the reason behind the questions and the official stated that
the merchant with whom you spent last night has been found with his throat cut.
Thus, Aksionov is suspected as the person who killed the other merchant that is why
the officials said that they must search his belongings.
III. Crisis:

The soldiers and the police-officer unstrapped Aksionov's luggage and searched
it. Suddenly the officer drew a knife out of a bag, crying, "Whose knife is this?" The
knife had a blood stain on it. Aksionov was frightened he tried to utter words but
because he was also surprised and shocked, he stammered in the fact that a blood-
stained knife was in his luggage. Aksionov swore he had not done it. But his voice was
broken, his face pale, and he trembled with fear as though he went guilty. Then the
trial came on: he was charged with murdering a merchant from Ryazan, and robbing
him of twenty thousand rubles. His wife together with their children visited him in
the jail, he told his wife to send a petition to the Czar to not let an innocent man like
him to be punished. The wife stated that she had already sent a petition but it was not
accepted. The wife started to doubt the innocence of her husband that made him feel
bad leading him to stop writing petitions, he gave up all hope, and only prayed to God.
He told to himself that "It seems that only God can know the truth; it is to Him alone
we must appeal, and from Him alone expect mercy." Aksionov was then transferred
to Siberia together with other convicts.

IV. Climax:

For twenty-six years lived as a convict in Siberia. His hair turned white as snow,
and his beard grew long, thin, and grey. As he grew older his faith in God became
stronger, he became more religious to the point the officials and the fellow-prisoner
liked and respected him a lot because of that they sometimes call him grandfather or
the saint. One day a new convict came to the prison named Makar Semyonich that was
also from the town of Vladimir. Makar suddenly uttered "Well, this is wonderful!
Really wonderful! But how old you've grown, Gran'dad!" With what Makar said,
Aksionov was surprised and became curious to when and where did Makar have seen
him to say that kind of statement. In addition, due to what Makar stated it gave
Aksionov an idea that maybe Makar has an idea on the identity of the real killer. But
to Aksionov’s surprise Makar responded and said:
 "It must have been him in whose bag the knife was found! If someone else hid the
knife there, 'He's not a thief till he's caught,' as the saying is. How could anyone put a
knife into your bag while it was under your head? It would surely have woken you up."
The words of Makar made Aksionov sure that the real killer of the merchant was
Makar. When Aksionov found out about the truth he felt angered to the point that no
matter how much he prayed he did not feel at peace and he could not sleep well. Since
Aksionov can’t sleep he decided to walk around at night and he caught Makar digging
up a hole to escape. Makar threatened to kill him if he would report him to the officials
but he only responded “you killed me long ago!” and it is up to him if he would speak
up about it or not as how God will direct him.
V. Denouement:

The next day the officials noticed the hole and the governor came to question the
convicts to speak up about the person who is responsible for that. Nobody wants to
speak up about it so the governor tried to ask Aksionov because he was known as an
honest man he said "tell me the truth: who has been digging under the wall?" and
Aksionov replied "I cannot say, your honor. It is not God's will that I should tell!” Since
no one revealed the truth to the governor the situation just ended that way and the
governor left. That night Makar went to Aksionov and asked for forgiveness due to
the guilt he felt that an innocent man was convicted due to his sins. Makar promised
to confess his since so Aksionov can be released and go home to his family. But
Aksionov stated that it was already too late nothing is left for him. Makar cried for
forgiveness and as Aksionov heard him weep he himself also cried and uttered "God
will forgive you!"
VI. Ending:

After hearing the confession and the cry for forgiveness from Makar, Aksionov’s
heart grew lighter and this was something or the feeling that he was waiting for a long
time. With everything that has happened Aksionov’s desire to go home and leave
prison left him all that he just wanted now was to for his last hour to come. Makar
Semyonich decided to confess his sins to clear the name of Aksionov and let him be
free from prison. But the order of Aksionov’s release was already too late because he
had already passed away.

Setting
• The town of Vladimir – this is a small town in Russian countryside in the 19th
century. A troika was ridden by the officials when they were looking for the
murderer. A troika is a traditional Russian sleigh or carriage drawn by three
horses harnessed abreast. It was developed around the 17th to 18th century
as a method of quickly crossing Russia’s lengthy and hazardous roads.
• The Inn
• Siberia - For centuries, Russian and Soviet governments have used the region
as the site of prison labor camps and a place of exile for political dissidents.
Famous Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky was punished for participating in
clandestine political organizing and made to spend four years in a Siberian
prison camp
• Jail

Themes

➢ Injustice
The main character, Aksionov was imprisoned and convicted in Siberia
for almost 26 years with an accusation of murder and theft. He was found
guilty even though he was not the real culprit behind the death of the
merchant. He suffered and lost his family paying for a crime he never
committed.
➢ Faith

Aksionov felt that no one believed in him specially his own wife and
that is the time he started to come closer to God because he believes that God
is the one who knows that he is innocent from everything that is being accused
on him. In prison, Aksionov transforms into a humble and God-fearing figure.
 Aksionov faith in God is strong that lead him to forgive the person that caused
his sufferings.
➢ Forgiveness

Aksionov granted Makar forgiveness when he admitted that he was the

one or the real culprit behind the death of the merchant. Aside from that,
Aksionov himself had felt relief in granting forgiveness to Makar which means
he can now move on to the afterlife at peace.
➢ Acceptance

Despite facing the injustice, Aksionov showed acceptance of his

situation and dedicated himself to God. Aksionov was able to exhibit
acceptance when he freed himself from the idea of being wronged in his life.

-------- End --------

LITERARY PIECE: BIOGRAPHY OF ALBERT EINSTEIN

On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany.
The family relocated to Munich six weeks later, where he started his education
at the Luitpold Gymnasium. They later travel to Italy, where Albert began his
studies in
Aarau, Switzerland, before enrolling in the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School
in Zurich in 1896 to train as a physics and mathematics instructor. He became
a Swiss citizen in 1901, the year he received his graduation, and when
he couldn't find a teaching job, he took a position as a technical assistant at the
Swiss Patent Office. In 1905, he received his doctorate.
Childhood and Education
Einstein's parents were middle-class, secular Jews. His father, Hermann
Einstein, was a featherbed salesman who later ran a moderately successful
electrochemical factory. His mother, Pauline Koch, was the head of the household.
Maria (also known as Maja) was his only sibling, born two years after Albert.
Einstein would write that two “wonders” deeply affected his early years. At the
age of five, he had his first brush with a compass. He was perplexed that the needle
could be deflected by unseen forces. This will pique his interest in unseen powers for
the rest of his life. The second marvel occurred when he was 12 years old and
stumbled across a book of geometry, which he devoured and dubbed this as his
"sacred little geometry book."
At the age of twelve, Einstein became profoundly religious, writing numerous
songs in praise of God and singing religious songs on his way to school. However, after
reading science books that defied his religious views, he started to change his mind.
This defiance of existing authority made an indelible impression. Einstein also felt out
of place and victimized at the Luitpold Gymnasium, where a Prussian-style
educational structure appeared to suffocate originality and imagination. He was also
threatened by one of his teachers that he would never contribute to much.
Another influential figure in Einstein's life was Max Talmud (later Max
Talmey), a young medical student who frequently asks Einstein out for dinner.
Einstein's informal mentor, Talmud, introduced him to higher mathematics and
philosophy. When Einstein was 16 years old, a pivotal turning point happened.
Talmud had previously introduced him to Aaron Bernstein's Naturwissenschaftliche
Volksbucher (1867–68; Poular Books on Physical Science), a children's science series
in which the author pictured riding alongside electricity traveling through a telegraph
wire. The topic that would consume Einstein's thoughts for the next ten years was
then posed to him: How does a light beam appear if you were able to race alongside
it? The light beam could look stationary, like a suspended wave, if light were a wave.
Even as a kid, he was aware that stationary light waves had never been observed,
posing a paradox. At the same time, Einstein published his first "scientific paper"
("The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields").
His father's business interrupted Einstein's schooling. Hermann Einstein
traveled to Milan to live with a relative after his business failed to win a major
contract to electrify the city of Munich in 1894. Einstein was sent to a boarding school
in Munich, where he was expected to complete his studies. When Einstein turned 16,
he was alone, unhappy, and repelled by the possibility of military service, so he ran
away and landed on the doorstep of his shocked parents six months later. His parents
were well aware of the significant difficulties he encountered as a school dropout and
draft eluder with no employable skills. His prospects did not seem to be promising.
 Fortunately, Einstein could apply without a high school diploma to Zürich's
Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (“Swiss Federal Polytechnic School”; in 1911,
after extension to full university status in 1909, it was renamed the Eidgenössische
Technische Hochschule, or “Swiss Federal Institute of Technology”) if he passed its
rigorous entrance exams. He did well in mathematics and physics, but not in French,
chemistry, or biology, according to his grades. He was admitted to the polytechnic on
the condition that he complete his formal education first, due to his excellent math
scores. (Until 1901, when he was given Swiss citizenship, he was a stateless.) Einstein
considered his years in Zürich to be some of the best of his life. He met several
students who would become lifelong friends, including mathematician Marcel
Grossmann and Besso, with whom he had long discussions about space and time. He
also met Mileva Maric, his future partner, who also is a fellow Serbian physics student.
Einstein experienced the greatest crises in his life after his graduation in 1900.
This included subsequent turned down applications for every academic position he
applied to, and death of his child, Lieserl (commonly thought she died due to scarlet
fever). Einstein was at his lowest point of his life in 1902. Without a career, he couldn't
marry Maric and maintain a household, and his father's business went bankrupt.
Unemployed and desperate, Einstein took low-paying positions tutoring children, but
he was fired from all of it. Later that year, his childhood friend Marcel Grossmann's
father was able to recommend him for a job as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in
Bern, and that was the turning point. As Einstein's father became critically ill during
this time, he gave his blessing for his son to marry Maric just before he died. For years,
Einstein was tormented by the fact that his father died believing him to be a failure.
For the first time, Einstein felt secure enough in his finances to marry Maric,
which he did on January 6, 1903. Hans Albert and Eduard, their twins, were born in
Bern in 1904 and 1910, respectively. Einstein's work at the patent office turned out
to be a blessing in disguise. He'd finish reviewing patent applications easily, giving
him time to daydream about the fantasy that had plagued him since he was sixteen
years old: What if you had to run alongside a light beam? He had studied Maxwell's
equations, which explain the origin of light, while at the polytechnic school and
discovered a phenomenon unknown to James Clerk Maxwell himself: the speed of
light stays constant no matter how fast one goes. However, since Isaac Newton's
principle does not have an absolute velocity, this contradicts Newton's laws of
motion. This realization inspired Einstein to coin the phrase "the speed of light is a
constant in every inertial frame (constantly moving frame)."
In 1905, sometimes referred to as Einstein's "miracle year," he published four
articles in the Annalen der Physik, each of which would have a profound impact on
modern physics:
 1. “Über einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes betreffenden
heuristischen Gesichtspunkt” (“On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the
Production and Transformation of Light”), in which Einstein applied the
quantum theory to light in order to explain the photoelectric effect. If light
occurs in tiny packets (later called photons), then it should knock out electrons
in a metal in a precise way.
2. “Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte
Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen” (“On the
Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the
Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat”), in which Einstein offered the first
experimental proof of the existence of atoms. By analyzing the motion of tiny
particles suspended in still water, called Brownian motion, he could calculate
the size of the jostling atoms and Avogadro’s number (see Avogadro’s law).
3. “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper” (“On the Electrodynamics of Moving
Bodies”), in which Einstein laid out the mathematical theory of special
relativity.
4. “Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?” (“Does
the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”), submitted almost as
an afterthought, which showed that relativity theory led to the equation E =
mc2. This provided the first mechanism to explain the energy source of the
Sun and other stars.

Einstein also submitted a paper in 1905 for his doctorate.

Newton's laws of motion and Maxwell's theory of light became the two
foundations of physics in the nineteenth century. Einstein was the only one who
recognized that they were incompatible and that one of them had to break.

Einstein’s General Relativity and Teaching Career

The physics group initially dismissed Einstein's 1905 papers. This started to
improve when he attracted the interest of only one physicist, Max Planck, the inventor
of quantum theory, possibly the most influential physicist of his time. Due to Planck's
praise and observations that eventually validated Einstein's theory, he was soon
invited to speak at international conferences such as the Solvay Conferences, and he
grew quickly in the academic community. From 1913 to 1933, he held positions at the
University of Zürich, the University of Prague, the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology, and finally the University of Berlin, where he was head of the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute for Physics (although the opening of the institute was delayed until
1917).
From 1905 to 1915, Einstein was preoccupied with a critical error in his own
theory: it made no mention of gravitation or acceleration. Einstein will devote the
next ten years to formulating a theory of gravity based on the curvature of space-time.
Newton's gravitational force, according to Einstein, was a by-product of a greater
reality: the bending of space and time's fabric.
Einstein's general theory of relativity, which he called his masterpiece, was
eventually completed in November 1915. Einstein gave six two-hour lectures at the
University of Göttingen in the summer of 1915, in which he extensively outlined an
unfinished version of general relativity that omitted a few necessary mathematical
specifics. Much to Einstein's consternation, the mathematician David Hilbert, who had
arranged the lectures at his university and had been collaborating with Einstein, then
finished these details and submitted a paper on general relativity only five days
before Einstein, as if the theory were his own, just five days before Einstein. They
eventually reconciled their differences and remained friends. The action from which
the equations are formulated is now known as the Einstein-Hilbert action, but the
principle is credited exclusively to Einstein.

World Renown and Novel Prize

World War I put a halt to Einstein's function. He was a committed pacifist and
one of the four German intellectuals to sign a manifesto protesting Germany's entry
into the war. He was so disgusted that he referred to nationalism as "the measles of
mankind." “At such a time as this, one realizes what a sorry type of animal one belongs
to,” he would write.
In November 1918, during the postwar unrest, militant students took control
of the University of Berlin and kept the rector and other professors’ hostage. Many
people worried that summoning the cops to release the officials would lead to a tragic
confrontation. Since he was well-liked by both students and professors, Einstein was
the obvious choice to mediate the situation. Einstein, in collaboration with Max Born,
mediated a solution.
Two expeditions were sent after the war to verify Einstein's prediction of
deflected starlight near the Sun. To see the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, one set out
for the island of Principe off the coast of West Africa, and the other for Sobral in
northern Brazil. The findings were revealed at a joint meeting of the Royal Society
and the Royal Astronomical Society on November 6 in London.
“Revolution of Science—New Theory of the Universe—Ideas Newton's
Overthrown—Momentous Pronouncement—Space ‘Warped,'” read the headline in
The Times of London. Einstein rose to prominence as a world-renowned physicist and
Isaac Newton's successor almost immediately.
Invitations to appear at events all over the world poured in. Einstein's first of
many world tours opened in 1921, with stops in the United States, England, Japan,
and France. Thousands of people flocked to him everywhere he went. On his way back
from Japan, he learned that he had won the Nobel Prize in Physics, but for the
photoelectric effect rather than for his theory of relativity. Instead of speaking about
the photoelectric effect, Einstein shocked the audience by speaking about relativity
during his acceptance speech.
Einstein was also the founder of cosmology, a new branch of science.
According to his equations, the universe is dynamic, expanding or contracting. He
reluctantly added a "cosmological concept" to stabilize his model of the universe
because this defied the common belief that the universe was static. Astronomer
Edwin Hubble discovered in 1929 that the universe was expanding, verifying
Einstein's earlier work. Einstein met with Hubble at the Mount Wilson Observatory
near Los Angeles in 1930 and declared the cosmological constant his "greatest
blunder." Recent satellite data, on the other hand, also shown that the cosmological
constant is most likely not zero, but rather dominates the universe's matter-energy
content. Einstein's "blunder" seems to decide the universe's final fate. On the same
visit to California, Einstein was asked to appear alongside comic actor Charlie Chaplin
in the film City Lights, which had its premiere in Hollywood. “The people applaud me
because everyone understands me, and they applaud you because no one
understands you,” Chaplin said as they were mobbed by thousands. “What does it all
mean?” Einstein asked of Chaplin. “Nothing,” Chaplin answered.
During this time, Einstein started correspondence with other influential
thinkers. He corresponded with Sigmund Freud on whether war was inextricably
linked to humanity (both of them had sons with mental problems).
Einstein also explained his religious beliefs, claiming to believe in a "old one"
that was the ultimate lawgiver. He said that he did not believe in a personal God who
participated in human affairs, but rather in the God of Benedict de Spinoza, a 17th-
century Dutch Jewish philosopher who believed in harmony and beauty. His mission,
he believed, was to develop a master theory that would allow him to “read the mind
of God.”

Nazi Backlash and Coming to America

Inevitably, Einstein’s fame and the great success of his theories created a
backlash. The rising Nazi movement found a convenient target in relativity, branding
it “Jewish physics” and sponsoring conferences and book burnings to denounce
Einstein and his theories. The Nazis enlisted other physicists, including Nobel
laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, to denounce Einstein. “One Hundred
Authors Against Einstein” was published in 1931. When asked to comment on this
denunciation of relativity by so many scientists, Einstein replied that to defeat
relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.
In December 1932 Einstein decided to leave Germany forever (he would never
go back). It became obvious to Einstein that his life was in danger. A Nazi organization
published a magazine with Einstein’s picture and the caption “Not Yet Hanged” on the
cover. There was even a price on his head. So great was the threat that Einstein split
with his pacifist friends and said that it was justified to defend yourself with arms
against Nazi aggression. To Einstein, pacifism was not an absolute concept but one
that had to be re-examined depending on the magnitude of the threat.
Einstein settled at the newly formed Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton,
New Jersey, which soon became a mecca for physicists from around the world.
Newspaper articles declared that the “pope of physics” had left Germany and that
Princeton had become the new Vatican.

Personal Sorrow, World War II, and the Atomic Bomb

The 1930s were hard years for Einstein. His son Eduard was diagnosed with
schizophrenia and suffered a mental breakdown in 1930. (Eduard would be
institutionalized for the rest of his life.) Einstein’s close friend, physicist Paul
Ehrenfest, who helped in the development of general relativity, committed suicide in
1933. And Einstein’s beloved wife, Elsa, died in 1936.
To his horror, during the late 1930s, physicists began seriously to consider
whether his equation “E = mc2” might make an atomic bomb possible. In 1920
Einstein himself had considered but eventually dismissed the possibility. However,
he left it open if a method could be found to magnify the power of the atom. Then in
1938–39 Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, Lise Meitner, and Otto Frisch showed that vast
amounts of energy could be unleashed by the splitting of the uranium atom. The news
electrified the physics community.
In July 1939 physicist Leo Szilard convinced Einstein that he should send a
letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging him to develop an atomic bomb.
With Einstein’s guidance, Szilard drafted a letter on August 2 that Einstein signed, and
the document was delivered to Roosevelt by one of his economic advisers, Alexander
Sachs, on October 11. Roosevelt wrote back on October 19, informing Einstein that he
had organized the Uranium Committee to study the issue.
Einstein was granted permanent residency in the United States in 1935 and
became an American citizen in 1940, although he chose to retain his Swiss citizenship.
During the war Einstein’s colleagues were asked to journey to the desert town of Los
Alamos, New Mexico, to develop the first atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project.
Einstein, the man whose equation had set the whole effort into motion, was never
asked to participate. Voluminous declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
files, numbering several thousand, reveal the reason: the U.S. government feared
Einstein’s lifelong association with peace and socialist organizations. (FBI director J.
Edgar Hoover went so far as to recommend that Einstein be kept out of America by
the Alien Exclusion Act, but he was overruled by the U.S. State Department.) Instead,
during the war Einstein was asked to help the U.S. Navy evaluate designs for future
weapons systems. Einstein also helped the war effort by auctioning off priceless
personal manuscripts. In particular, a handwritten copy of his 1905 paper on special
relativity was sold for $6.5 million. It is now located in the Library of Congress.
Einstein was on vacation when he heard the news that an atomic bomb had
been dropped on Japan. Almost immediately he was part of an international effort to
try to bring the atomic bomb under control, forming the Emergency Committee of
Atomic Scientists.
The physics community split on the question of whether to build a hydrogen
bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the atomic bomb project, was stripped
of his security clearance for having suspected leftist associations. Einstein backed
Oppenheimer and opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, instead calling
for international controls on the spread of nuclear technology. Einstein also was
increasingly drawn to antiwar activities and to advancing the civil rights of African
Americans.

Increasing Professional Isolation and Death

Although Einstein continued to pioneer many key developments in the theory
of general relativity—such as wormholes, higher dimensions, the possibility of time
travel, the existence of black holes, and the creation of the universe—he was
increasingly isolated from the rest of the physics community. Because of the huge
strides made by quantum theory in unraveling the secrets of atoms and molecules,
the majority of physicists were working on the quantum theory, not relativity. In fact,
Einstein would engage in a series of historic private debates with Niels Bohr,
originator of the Bohr atomic model. Through a series of sophisticated “thought
experiments,” Einstein tried to find logical inconsistencies in the quantum theory,
particularly its lack of a deterministic mechanism. Einstein would often say that “God
does not play dice with the universe.”
In 1935 Einstein’s most celebrated attack on the quantum theory led to the
EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) thought experiment. According to quantum theory,
under certain circumstances two electrons separated by huge distances would have
their properties linked, as if by an umbilical cord. Under these circumstances, if the
properties of the first electron were measured, the state of the second electron would
be known instantly—faster than the speed of light. This conclusion, Einstein claimed,
clearly violated relativity. (Experiments conducted since then have confirmed that
the quantum theory, rather than Einstein, was correct about the EPR experiment. In
essence, what Einstein had actually shown was that quantum mechanics is nonlocal—
i.e., random information can travel faster than light. This does not violate relativity,
because the information is random and therefore useless.)
The other reason for Einstein’s increasing detachment from his colleagues was
his obsession, beginning in 1925, with discovering a unified field theory—an all-
embracing theory that would unify the forces of the universe, and thereby the laws of
physics, into one framework. In his later years he stopped opposing the quantum
theory and tried to incorporate it, along with light and gravity, into a larger unified
field theory. Gradually Einstein became set in his ways. He rarely traveled far,
confining himself to long walks around Princeton with close associates, whom he
engaged in deep conversations about politics, religion, physics, and his unified field
theory. In 1950 he published an article on his theory in Scientific American, but
because it neglected the still-mysterious strong force, it was necessarily incomplete.
When he died five years later of an aortic aneurysm, it was still unfinished.

Legacy
In some sense, Einstein, instead of being a relic, may have been too far ahead
of his time. The strong force, a major piece of any unified field theory, was still a total
mystery in Einstein’s lifetime. Only in the 1970s and ’80s did physicists begin to
unravel the secret of the strong force with the quark model. Nevertheless, Einstein’s
work continues to win Nobel Prizes for succeeding physicists. In 1993 a Nobel Prize
was awarded to the discoverers of gravitation waves, predicted by Einstein. In 1995
a Nobel Prize was awarded to the discoverers of Bose-Einstein condensates (a new
form of matter that can occur at extremely low temperatures). Known black holes
now number in the thousands. New generations of space satellites have continued to
verify the cosmology of Einstein. And many leading physicists are trying to finish
Einstein’s ultimate dream of a “theory of everything.”

Birthdate and Place

➢ Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1897 in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany

Family Members
➢ Father - Hermann Einstein (1847–1902), a German electrical engineer and
businessman
➢ Mother - Pauline Koch, a Jewish and married the merchant Hermann Einstein
who lived in Ulm.
➢ Sibling - Maja Einstein (1881–1951), the young sister of Albert Einstein
➢ Spouses
- Mileva Marić (1875–1948), was a Serbian physicist and mathematician and
the first wife of Albert Einstein from 1903 to 1919.
- Elsa Einstein (1876–1936), was the second wife and cousin of Albert
Einstein. Their mothers were sisters, making them maternal first cousins,
 and further, their fathers were first cousins, making them paternal second
cousins. Elsa had the surname of Einstein at birth, lost it when she took the
name of her first husband Max Löwenthal, and regained it in 1919 when she
married her cousin Albert.
➢ Children
- Lieserl Einstein (January 27 1902; date of death unknown), was the first
child and first daughter of Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein
- Hans Albert Einstein (May 14, 1904 – July 26, 1973) was the second child
and first son of Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić. A Swiss-American engineer
and educator.
- Eduard “Tete” Einstein (July 28, 1910 – October 25, 1965), was the third
child and second son of Albert Einstein from his first wife Mileva Marić

Childhood and School Life

➢ Einstein's childhood was a normal one, except that to his family's irritation, he
learnt to speak at a late age.
➢ Beginning in 1884 he received private education in order to get prepared for
school.
➢ In 1885 he started learning to play violin.
➢ Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich, from the age of five,
for three years. At the age of eight, he was transferred to the Luitpold
Gymnasium (now known as the Albert Einstein Gymnasium), where he
received advanced primary and secondary school education until he left the
German Empire seven years later.
➢ Einstein excelled at math and physics from a young age, reaching
mathematical level years ahead of his peers. The 12-year-old Einstein taught
himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer.
➢ Einstein also independently discovered his own original proof of the
Pythagorean theorem at age 12.
➢ Einstein started teaching himself calculus at 12, and as a 14-year-old he says
he had "mastered integral and differential calculus".
 ➢ At age 13, when he had become more seriously interested in philosophy (and
music),

Hobbies, Interests, and Activities

➢ Albert Einstein taught himself to play violin.
➢ When Einstein attended college at the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich,
Switzerland, he fell in love with sailing. He would often take a boat out onto a
lake, pull out a notebook, relax, and think.
➢ He used to spend his time with his fellow scientist talking and exchanging
ideas with them on variety of topics like science, culture, arts, politics and
many more. He was also very fond of kids.

Anecdotes
➢ Einstein's first of many world tours opened in 1921, with stops in the United
States, England, Japan, and France. Thousands of people flocked to him
everywhere he went. On his way back from Japan, he learned that he had won
the Nobel Prize in Physics, but for the photoelectric effect rather than for his
theory of relativity. Instead of speaking about the photoelectric effect, Einstein
shocked the audience by speaking about relativity during his acceptance
speech.
➢ Einstein met with Hubble at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles
in 1930 and declared the cosmological constant his "greatest blunder."
➢ Speaking at the Sorbonne during the 1930s, Einstein said, "If my relativity
theory is verified, Germany will proclaim me a German and France will call me
a citizen of the world. But if my theory is proved false, France will emphasize
that I am a German and Germany will say that I am a Jew."
➢ In 1931 Charlie Chaplin invited Albert Einstein, who was visiting Hollywood,
to a private screening of his new film City Lights. As the two men drove into
town together, passersby waved and cheered. Chaplin turned to his guest and
explained: "The people are applauding you because none of them understands
you and applauding me because everybody understands me."
Career
➢ Einstein receives his diploma as a mathematics teacher and starts work on his
doctoral thesis in 1900.
➢ Albert Einstein completed his paper on quantum theory on March 17, 1905
➢ On May 1905, Einstein's paper on Brownian motion is accepted by the Annalen
der Physik.
➢ On September 1905, Einstein's paper on the special theory of relativity is
published in the Annalen der Physik.
➢ Einstein receives his doctorate from the University of Zurich on January 1906
➢ Albert Einstein held positions at the University of Zürich, the University of
Prague, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and finally the University of
Berlin, where he was head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics from
1905 to 1915.
➢ On November 1915, His general theory of relativity which he called was his
masterpiece was completed.
➢ Einstein's first of many world tours opened in 1921, with stops in the United
States, England, Japan, and France.
➢ November 9, 1922: ·Einstein wins the Nobel Prize for his work on quantum
theory.

Reason for Fame

➢ Albert Einstein is famously known for devising his theory of relativity, which
revolutionized our understanding of space, time, gravity, and the universe.
Albert Einstein was a physicist who developed the general theory of relativity.
He is considered one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century.

Later Life/Old Age

➢ In December 1932 Einstein decided to leave Germany forever
➢ On October 1, 1940, Einstein becomes an American citizen.
➢ Einstein published an article on his theory in Scientific American, but
because it neglected the still-mysterious strong force, it was necessarily
incomplete in 1950.
Death
➢ Albert Einstein died at the age of 76 years old on April 18, 1955 on Penn
Medicine Princeton Medical Center, New Jersey, United States
➢ The cause of his death is abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture
➢ Einstein refused surgery, saying, "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to
prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it
elegantly." He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of
76, having continued to work until near the end.

-------- End --------

LITERARY PIECE: SHAKESPEAR’S SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Line-by-line Analysis
Line 1-2 Reflects the speaker's uncertainty as he attempts to compare his beloved (fair
youth) to a summer's day. Lovely is still quite commonly used in England and
carries the same meaning then as it does now (attractive, nice, beautiful), while
temperate, in Shakespeare's time, meant constant or never changes over time.
Line 3-4 It expresses what the speaker means by stating the first two lines. Darling buds
representing beauty as a flower and lease representing the terms and conditions
 of another season to summer wherein it will remain for a limited period and
eventually replaced afterwards therefore, supports the claim that the beauty of
summer is not everlasting.
Lines 5-6 The sun is presented as the eye of heaven whereas it appears to be dimm’d by
which its rays do not fall directly to earth as it is hindered by clouds appearing
hazy and blurred. It is the time when the speaker personified the sun by giving it
a human attribute.
Lines 7-8 Declined means death or elimination referring to the death of beautiful things
either by chance or naturally. Thus, untrimm’d means uninterrupted or
unchanged meaning to say that beauty is mortal, and it will die at any cause for
nothing will remain here except his beloved which is above all and is not subject
to any external force.
Lines 9-10 In these lines the poet is immensely impress and appreciates the beauty of his
beloved by which he compares it in contrast to summer. Summer in this line
represents good time and therefore his beloved can enjoy it forever.
Lines 11-12 These lines are about his beloved’s immortal beauty. Death is personified as an
assassin wherein it will not be able to drag the beloved of the poet into his grave
as he is immortalized through immortal verses of the poet and its beauty will be
preserved.
Lines 13-14 The poet wants to convey a message to his beloved wherein it will enjoy its life
each and every time people read his poetry and will be appreciated and
commemorated forever.

ELEMENTS OF SONNET 18

a. Elements of Poetry
Type of Poem Lyric Poem
Theme Although love is the overarching theme of the sonnets, there are
three specific underlying themes: (1) the brevity of life, (2) the
transience of beauty, and (3) the trappings of desire. In the middle
sonnets of the young man sequence the poet tries to immortalize the
young man through his own poetry (Mabillard, 2009) The stability of
love and its power to immortalize someone is the overarching theme
of this poem (Hyun, 2018).
Sense of Poem Figurative Language (Metaphor)
Sound of a Poem: Tone Rhyme Scheme (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG)
Color
Sound of a Poem: Iambic Pentameter (Unaccented, Accented). It contains 14 lines
Rhythm / Meter including three quatrains followed by a couplet
Structure of the Poem Syntax - This poem develops with a definite structure. The first two
quatrains consist of an ongoing comparison between the summer
and Shakespeare's lover. Then in the third quatrain (9th line) there
is a significant change in tone where Shakespeare begins to talk
about the morality of his beloved. The poem is then ended with a
rhyming couplet which both sums up and redefines what came
before it.
Punctuation - Every single line is this poem is end-stopped, there is
no flow over into the next lines. Every line seems to show a complete
thought. Since this poem is in iambic pentameter, in some of the
lines apostrophes are added in place of syllables in order to keep the
rhyme scheme consistent.
Tone Appreciation of beauty and its exaggeration.
Mood Romantic as it professes love and adoration for the poet’s lover.
Diction Simple, straightforward and archaic. It depicts the setting of the
poem which is Elizabethan Era. Also, it is a dramatic monologue with
the poet-persona lines being addressed to his lover.

b. Literary Devices
1. Rhetorical Question “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
2. Personification “…the eye of heaven…”
“…his gold complexion…”
“Nor shall death brag thou…”
“…this gives life to thee”
3. Apostrophe The poem is apostrophic with the general use of “thy”, “thee”, “thou”
etc.
4. Metaphor “…darling buds of May”
“…gold complexion…”
“…thy eternal summer…”
“…eternal lines to Time…”
5. Hyperbole “Thou art more lovely and more temperate”
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade”
6. Anaphora The use of “And…” in lines 6 & 7; “so long…” in lines 13 & 14 to begin
the lines successively
7. Synecdoche “…eyes can see…”
8. Irony “When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st”. Here, there is situational
irony in that the lover is said to continuously grow with time even in
death. Death ends life
9. Repetition The repetition of words like “more”, “summer”, “eternal”, “this”, “so
long”, “fair”, “nor” etc. in the poem to create emphasis.
10. Alliteration “…every fair from fair…” (/f/ sound)
“…chance or nature’s changing course…” (/ts/ sound)
11. Assonance “…more lovely and more temperate…” (/ͻ/ sound)
“…summer’s lease hath all too short a date” (/ǝ/ sound)
“…is his gold complexion dimmed” (/I/ sound)
12. Archaic Words “thee, thou, thy, ow’st, grow’st, wand’rest”

-------- End --------

 LITERARY PIECE: BIOGRAPHY OF ST. JOHN PAUL II
St. John
Paul II, Latin Johannes Paulus, original name Karol Józef Wojtyła, (born May
18, 1920, Wadowice, Poland—died April 2, 2005, Vatican City; beatified
May 1, 2011; canonized April 27, 2014; feast day October
22), bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic
Church (1978–2005), the first non-Italian pope in 455 years
and the first from a Slavic country. His pontificate of more
than 26 years was the third longest in history

As part of his effort to promote greater understanding between

nations and between religions, he undertook numerous trips abroad, traveling
far greater distances than had all other popes
combined, and he extended his influence beyond
the church by campaigning against political
oppression and criticizing the materialism of the West.
He also issued several unprecedented apologies to groups
that historically had been wronged by Catholics, most
notably Jews and Muslims. His unabashed
Polish nationalism and his emphasis on nonviolent political
activism aided the Solidarity movement in
communist Poland in the 1980s and ultimately contributed to the peaceful
dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. More generally, John Paul used his influence
among Catholics and throughout the world to advance the recognition of human
dignity and to deter the use of violence. His centralized style of church governance,
however, dismayed some members of the clergy, who found it autocratic and stifling.
He failed to reverse an overall decline in the numbers of priests and nuns, and his
traditional interpretations of church teachings on personal and
sexual morality alienated some segments of the laity.

Early Life And Influences

Wojtyła’s childhood coincided with the only period of freedom that Poland
would know between 1772 and 1989: the two decades between Marshal Józef
Piłsudski’s defeat of the Soviet Red Army in 1920 and the German invasion in 1939.
Wojtyła thus grew up experiencing national freedom but also understanding its
vulnerability. Although Wadowice, a town of about 8,000 Catholics and 2,000 Jews,
lay only 15 miles (24 km) from the future site of Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp, there
was apparently little anti-Semitism in the town before the war. One of Wojtyła’s close
boyhood friends was a son of the leader of Wadowice’s Jewish community.

Wojtyła’s father, Karol senior, was a lieutenant in the Polish army. His mother,
Emilia Kaczorowska, died when he was eight years old; his brother, Edmund, who had
become a physician, died less than four years later. Wojtyła was an outgoing youth,
though always with a serious side. He excelled in academics and dramatics,
played football (soccer), and, under his father’s guidance, lived a disciplined life of
routine religious observance. He regularly assisted Father Kazimierz Figlewicz,
his confessor and first teacher in Catholicism, in Wadowice’s main church, which was
next door to the Wojtyła family’s tiny apartment.

After graduating from secondary school as valedictorian, Wojtyła moved with

his father to Kraków, where he attended the Jagiellonian University. His studies
ended abruptly when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. In the
months that followed, Jews as well as non-Jewish cultural and political leaders,
including professors and priests, were killed or deported to concentration camps by
the Nazis, who considered the Slavs an inferior race.

Wojtyła and his father fled with thousands to the east but soon returned after
learning that the Russians had also invaded Poland. Back in Kraków, Wojtyła
continued his studies in clandestine classes. For the next four years, in order to avoid
arrest and deportation, he worked in a factory owned by Solvay, a chemical firm that
the Nazis considered essential to their war effort. Wojtyła was thus the only pope, at
least in modern times, to have been a labourer.

During these years Wojtyła began to write nationalistic plays, and he joined
the Rhapsodic Theatre, an underground resistance group that aimed to sustain
Polish culture and morale through covert readings of poetry and drama. Through Jan
Tyranowski, a tailor who conducted a youth ministry for the local church, Wojtyła
was introduced to the teachings of St. John of the Cross, a Carmelite mystic who held
that redemption could be gained through suffering and a “spirituality of
abandonment.” Tyranowski’s example helped to convince Wojtyła that the church,
even more than a renewed Polish theatre, might improve the world. Wojtyła’s
confessor continued to be his childhood mentor, Figlewicz, who had transferred to
Wawel Cathedral in Kraków.
Decision To Join The Priesthood

In February 1941 Wojtyła returned from work one day to discover that his
father had died alone; he prayed by the body all night. By the autumn of 1942 he had
decided to enter the priesthood. For two years, while still working at the chemical
factory, he attended illegal seminary classes run by Kraków’s cardinal archbishop,
Prince Adam Sapieha. After narrowly escaping a Nazi roundup of able-bodied men
and boys in 1944, Wojtyła spent the rest of the war in the archbishop’s palace,
disguised as a cleric. As pope, Wojtyła recalled that witnessing Nazi horrors, including
the murder of many priests, showed him the real meaning of the priesthood.

In 1945 the Soviets replaced the Germans as occupiers of Poland. In November

1946 Wojtyła was ordained by Sapieha into the Catholic priesthood. He chose to say
his first mass, assisted by Figlewicz, in Wawel Cathedral’s crypt chapel amid the
sarcophagi of Polish monarchs and heroes, including those who had defended
national freedom and European Christendom. He then began two years of study
in Rome, where he completed his first doctorate, an examination of the theology of St.
John of the Cross. Assigned to Kraków’s St. Florian’s parish in 1949, he studied, wrote,
and lectured on philosophy and social and sexual ethics. During the next decade he
completed a second doctorate, taught theology and ethics at the Jagiellonian
University, and eventually was appointed to a full professorship at the Catholic
University of Lublin.

The young priest wrote poetry, published anonymously, on a variety of

religious, social, and personal themes. He also became the spiritual leader and mentor
of a circle of young adult friends whom he joined on kayaking and camping trips.
Together, they celebrated mass in the open at a time when unapproved worship
outside of churches was forbidden by the communist regime. Experiences with these
friends contributed to the ideas in his first book of nonfiction, Love and
Responsibility (1960), an exploration of the several graces available in conjugal sexual
relationships. The work was considered radical by those who held the traditional
church view that sex was solely for the purpose of procreation.

Church leaders were impressed by Wojtyła’s ability to operate

a dynamic pastorate despite communist restrictions. In 1958 Pope Pius XII appointed
him an auxiliary bishop of Kraków. At the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) Wojtyła
so distinguished himself that halfway through the council, in December 1963,
Pope Paul VI named him archbishop of Kraków.
 The Second Vatican Council introduced Wojtyła to issues including the role of
the laity, the church’s relations with other religions, and its relations with
the secular world. After the council’s conclusion in 1965, Wojtyła was appointed to
Pope Paul VI’s Commission for the Study of Problems of the Family, Population, and
Birth Rate. His work appears to have influenced Humanae vitae (1968; “Of Human
Life”), Paul VI’s encyclical rejecting artificial contraception, which became one of the
church’s most ignored teachings. Some bishops also disagreed with it, saying
privately that, on this issue, Wojtyła may have made basic theological mistakes.

Actions As Cardinal

Wojtyła was made a cardinal in June 1967. As cardinal archbishop of Kraków,

he worked closely with Poland’s powerful primate cardinal, Stefan Wyszyński,
archbishop of Warsaw, who declared that Christianity, not communism, was the true
protector of the poor and oppressed. In an effort that spanned two decades, Wojtyła
lobbied for permission to build a church in Kraków’s new industrial suburb, Nowa
Huta. He planted a cross in the field where the church was to stand and defied
communist authorities by holding masses there. He also applied for permission to
hold traditional religious processions in the streets, though he was often turned
down. Eventually Wojtyła prevailed, and he consecrated Nowa Huta’s new Ark
Church in 1977. Meanwhile, he had written his major philosophical work, The Acting
Person (1969), which argues that moral actions—not simply thoughts or
statements—create authentic personality and define what a person truly stands for.

Ironically, the authorities forced Wojtyła to develop a public speaking style

that would eventually work against them: denied access to the media, he and fellow
church leaders traveled ceaselessly among the people and grew skilled at
communicating with large crowds. This ability would enhance the impact of the
messages he delivered as pope to the faithful around the world, especially during his
trips, when his ability to appeal to the millions who gathered to see him was captured
in global television broadcasts.

Election As Pope

When Pope Paul VI died in August 1978, the College of Cardinals, split between
two powerful Italians, elected the Venetian Albino Luciani as Pope John Paul I. He died
only 33 days later. When the cardinals entered the second conclave of 1978, the
world did not know that Wojtyła had received votes in the first conclave. Wojtyła
seemed in some ways a good compromise candidate who could hold together a
divided church. Liberal interpretations of religious life that followed the Second
Vatican Council had created rifts and defections; religious conservatives were digging
in, claiming that the council had betrayed the church. Wojtyła appeared to be
traditional in church discipline but forward-looking in his acceptance of Vatican
Council reforms. The cardinals also hoped that his relative youthfulness would attract
young people to the church. Wojtyła’s election on October 16, 1978, made him the
first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Adrian VI (reigned 1522–23).

Taking the name John Paul II—which his predecessor, John Paul I, had said
honoured the two popes of the Second Vatican Council—he signaled his intention to
continue with the council’s reforms. His homily at an installation mass on October 22,
1978, repeated the refrain “Be not afraid!”—a Biblical phrase announcing the
presence of God and Jesus Christ and calling for Christian courage. It also presaged
the bold but nonviolent human rights campaigns that John Paul would conduct
around the world.

First Year Of Travels

John Paul’s characteristic mixture of religion and politics—and its deep roots
in Poland—became evident during the first year of his pontificate in his first four trips
abroad. He went first to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and The Bahamas (January–
February 1979), where he reaffirmed for the bishops of Latin America, leaders of half
the world’s Catholics, that politics—especially as it concerns human rights, personal
dignity, and religious freedom—is an area of human life in which priests as well as
laity must be involved. While in Mexico, he attracted what was called the largest
crowd ever assembled—estimated at some five million people.

His second trip (June 1979) was to Poland, where he declared to his audiences
that their Catholic faith dictated that they had a right to be free. Many Poles said later
that the sight of themselves assembled in enormous but orderly gatherings made
them realize their own political strength and encouraged their subsequent defiance
of the communist regime. John Paul’s speeches and activities served as models for the
Polish priests who would carry out his independence campaigns in the country after
he returned to Rome.

John Paul’s third trip (September–October 1979) took him to Ireland, where
he condemned violence done in the name of religion, and to the United States, where
he was given a Wall Street ticker-tape parade. To the chagrin of some Americans,
John Paul used his U.S. visit to express serious disagreements with the West, including
aspects of American capitalism. In particular, he decried the neglect of the poor and
denounced the exploitation of poor nations by wealthy ones.

On his fourth trip (November 1979) he visited Turkey to meet with the titular
head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which included most of the state-allied
churches of what was then the Soviet Union. He thereby indicated a possible intention
to pressure Soviet leaders by means of church congregations across eastern Europe.
Although such an eastern arm of his anti-Soviet campaign never materialized, the
Soviet government viewed it as a serious threat.

Political And Cultural Messages

In travels during the next 10 years, John Paul preached to the world his
messages of religious freedom, national independence, and human rights. He
declared that all of Europe—“from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains” (east
of Moscow)—should be reunited through its common Christian heritage. Some
Vatican clergy said privately that the new pope was traveling too much, giving a
triumphalist face to Catholicism when he should have been concentrating more on
rebuilding the church from behind his desk in the Vatican. John Paul kept traveling.
 From the start of his papacy, John Paul strictly reasserted the canon
law banning priests from any active participation in party politics. His intention was
not to weaken Catholicism’s political impact but to unify the church and to strengthen
its moral authority. He wanted Catholic social doctrine—developed in part from
Pope Leo XIII’s seminal encyclical on workers’ rights, Rerum novarum (1891; “Of
New Things”)—to be delivered with the singular political authority of the Vatican,
unaltered by local politics.

On May 13, 1981, John Paul was shot in the abdomen and nearly killed by a 23-
year-old Turkish man, Mehmet Ali Agca. Meanwhile, the Poles’ other spiritual leader,
Primate Cardinal Wyszyński, lay dying of cancer. The sudden prospect of losing both
men unsettled the Solidarity movement. Although no conspiracy in the assassination
attempt was ever proved in court, the widespread suspicion that the Soviets were
involved (in the hope of demoralizing Solidarity) did much to diminish world opinion
of the Soviet Union at the time. John Paul later publicly forgave his would-be assassin,
who had shot him on the feast day of the Virgin of Fátima. John Paul said the Virgin
had saved his life by guiding the bullet away from vital organs; in May 2000 the
Vatican announced that the mysterious third message the Virgin gave the peasant
children in Fátima, Portugal, in 1917 was a vision of the 1981 assassination attempt
on Pope John Paul II. He made a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin in Fátima on the
first anniversary of the assassination attempt, but, during a ceremony in which John
Paul consecrated the modern world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a priest
ordained by (and subsequently disowned by) the dissident French archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre lunged at the pope with a bayonet, narrowly missing him.

As the Polish Solidarity movement gained momentum, John Paul repeatedly

emphasized to his fellow Poles the importance of pressing for change peacefully, so
as not to give the communist regime a justification for using force and dismantling
the trade union. In December 1981 Poland’s premier, General Wojciech Jaruzelski,
declared martial law. Despite the arrest of thousands of Solidarity members and years
of uncertainty, the movement persevered. In April 1989 the communists legalized
the trade union, and in June of that year Solidarity made a strong showing in free
elections. In December 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev became the first Soviet leader to visit
the Vatican. The collapse of the Soviet Union occurred two years later. Throughout
the 1980s John Paul’s continuing private discussions with Polish and Soviet leaders,
and his persistent success in keeping Solidarity a nonviolent movement, helped
inspire similar movements in other Soviet-bloc countries and eventually led
Gorbachev to write that John Paul’s approach had made a new kind of thinking
possible.

John Paul’s visits to other countries ruled by nondemocratic regimes,

especially in Latin America, raised the political expectations of the people and thus
contributed, in the opinion of some analysts, to the eventual emergence of democratic
governments in those regions. In a 1995 address to the General Assembly of
the United Nations (UN), he said that universal moral law could help the world move
from “a century of violent coercion” to “a century of persuasion.” His intervention in
a territorial dispute between Chile and Argentina during the first year of his
pontificate was credited with preventing a war between the two countries. Not all his
political initiatives were successful, however. His fierce criticism of some U.S. actions,
such as the First and Second Persian Gulf wars against Iraq and the economic
embargo against Cuba, had little visible effect. His popular visit to communist Cuba in
1998, however—where he was openly welcomed by President Fidel Castro, who
admired John Paul’s criticisms of unbridled American capitalism—did lead to greater
acceptance and freedom for the Roman Catholic Church there.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, John Paul continued to criticize what
he considered the pernicious effects of materialism in the West,
including consumerism and pornography. Western societies, he believed, were
falling prey to a “culture of death” characterized by acceptance
of abortion and euthanasia; he also chided their indifference to the suffering of the
poor and the widely held belief that modern technologies can assure fundamental
happiness. In the later years of his papacy, he strongly emphasized the message of
nonviolence, reflecting a concern borne of his experience of the German and Soviet
occupations of his homeland. He frequently made personal appeals for clemency in
cases of prisoners sentenced with the death penalty, and he repeatedly insisted
that religion should never be used as an excuse for violence of any kind.

Dialogue With Other Faiths – World Religions

In 1986 John Paul invited the leaders of all major religions to Assisi, Italy, for
a universal prayer service for world peace. The meeting was scorned by the
ultraconservatives of several religions, including his own. The
traditionalist archbishop Lefebvre called the pope’s action a “scandal” and a betrayal
of “the one true faith.” Lefebvre also cited it as one of the reasons he consecrated his
own bishops (without papal approval) in 1988—the first significant schism in
reaction to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and an act Lefebvre knew would
result in his excommunication. Nevertheless, by the mid-1990s John Paul had
orchestrated some dramatic acts of interfaith reconciliation, especially with the two
other religions that stem from Abraham—Judaism and Islam. He worked to improve
relations with these two faiths through frequent meetings that often garnered little
public attention. Crucial to John Paul’s approach to other religions was his
unprecedented campaign to involve Catholics in general apologies for the sins of
Catholics against others throughout history, including those committed during
the Crusades and against indigenous peoples, women, suspected heretics, non-
Catholic Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

From the start of his pontificate, John Paul cultivated personal contacts with
Jewish leaders and continued to assert, as he had in Poland, that the Jews are, for
Christians, “our elder brothers in faith.” In 1986 he became the first pontiff known to
have entered a synagogue, when he embraced the chief rabbi at the Great Synagogue
of Rome. In 1990 he declared anti-Semitism a sin against God and humanity, and
throughout his papacy he used his influence in efforts to help end nearly 2,000 years
of oppression and violence inflicted on Jews by Christians. By the end of 1993 he had
pushed the Vatican to recognize the State of Israel, overriding the objections of
Vatican officials who worried about the consequences for Christian minorities in Arab
countries, and on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 1994 he hosted Jews and
Christians at an unprecedented memorial concert inside the Vatican. On the
controversial question of Pope Pius XII’s policy of neutrality during World War II,
John Paul did not criticize his silence but asserted that Pius had acted with
deep conscience in a terrible situation. The Vatican document We Remember: A
Reflection on the Shoah (1998) reviewed various aspects of Catholic anti-
Jewish prejudice that contributed to the Holocaust.

A few reconciliation efforts failed. John Paul’s canonization of Jewish

convert Edith Stein, a nun killed at Auschwitz because she was Jewish, offended many
Jews who felt it usurped a Jewish tragedy for Catholic purposes. For them, John Paul
only added to this offense by saying her new saint’s day should be a Catholic
remembrance of the Holocaust’s Jewish victims. In March 2000 in Jerusalem, Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak welcomed John Paul to Yad Vashem, a memorial to
Holocaust victims, with the words “Blessed are you in Israel.” Three days later the
pope prayed alone at the Western Wall, into which he placed a printed prayer
requesting forgiveness and citing a desire for “genuine brotherhood with the People
of the Covenant.” These gestures were favourably received by most Israelis.

One month earlier, in Cairo, John Paul had become the first head of his church
to meet with the Sheikh al-Azhar, one of Sunnī Islam’s highest religious authorities.
The next year, in May 2001, John Paul became the first pope ever to enter a mosque,
the Great Mosque of Damascus (also known as the Umayyad Mosque), where, in the
company of Muslim clerics, he prayed at the shrine of St. John the Baptist. From the
beginning of his pontificate, he held nearly 50 substantive meetings with Muslim
leaders—far more than those of all previous popes combined.
Christian Ecumenism

John Paul’s highly personalized encyclical Ut unum sint (1995; “That They May
Be One”) reviewed 30 years of ecumenical relations, including his visits—the first by
any pope—to Canterbury Cathedral and to Lutheran churches
in Germany and Sweden. Its invitation to non-Catholic churches to join John Paul in
rethinking the role of the papacy in world Christianity sparked new ecumenical
discussions.

Although his hopes of mending the 1,000-year rift with the Eastern Orthodox
Church (see Schism of 1054) were advanced with his visits to a few nations of the
former Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church remained suspicious and did not
invite him to visit the country.

Ecclesiastical And Theological Contributions

During his long pontificate, John Paul directed the rewriting of several major
church texts. The revisions included the new Codex Juris Canonici (1983), the first
update of the Code of Canon Law since 1917; Pastor Bonus (1988; “Good Shepherd”),
the first reform of the Roman Curia since 1967; and the new Codex Canonum
Ecclesiarum Orientalium (1990; “Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches”). In 1992
he promulgated the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, its first revision in more
than four centuries (see catechism).

John Paul admired and encouraged the scientific search for truth but warned
against the misuse of science in ways that undermine human dignity. He saw no basic
contradiction between the findings of modern science and biblical accounts of
the Creation, stating in a series of brief homilies (published as Original Unity of Man
and Woman, 1981) that some stories in Genesis, including the story of Adam and Eve,
should be understood as inspired metaphor. In 1984 the Vatican declared that the
church’s condemnation of Galileo in 1633 had been in error; John Paul subsequently
stated that Galileo had been “imprudently opposed” by the church. In his
encyclical Fides et ratio (1998; “Faith and Reason”), he argued for the importance of
reason in the development of any meaningful faith. He was also the first pope to link
the protection of the natural environment firmly to Catholic theology, declaring in
1999 that destruction of the environment “can be a grave sin” and “a sign of
real contempt for man.”

Final Years

Beginning in the early 1990s, the once-robust John Paul was increasingly
slowed by Parkinson disease and by a series of operations. Nonetheless, he
maintained a rigorous schedule, insisting that his visible suffering was part of his
ministry. To aides urging him to slow down, he reportedly said simply, “Si crollo,
crollo” (“If I collapse, I collapse”). Although he may have considered the possibility of
resignation, he remained silent on the subject (few popes had resigned, the last
being Gregory XII in 1415). Even in old age he continued to attract enormous crowds;
four million were estimated to have joined him at a mass in Manila in 1995, and two
million assembled at a Kraków mass in 2002. After 2003, he appeared in public only
when seated. By Easter 2005, following a tracheotomy, he was unable to speak to the
people he blessed from his apartment window. He died at his Vatican residence in
accordance with his wishes. His funeral in April 2005 drew to Rome millions
of pilgrims as well as a number of the world’s former and current political leaders. In
May 2005 his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, waiving the usual five-year waiting
period, allowed review to begin in the cause of John Paul II
for beatification and canonization. In January 2011 the Vatican recognized the
recovery of a French nun from Parkinson disease as a miracle performed by John Paul
II. He was beatified on May 1 and canonized with Pope John XXIII on April 27, 2014.
Legacy

John Paul II was, in a real sense, the first globally oriented pope. His election
coincided with the arrival of routine, worldwide, instantaneous audiovisual
communications, and many of his major efforts were intended to adjust—though not
to challenge—the essential tenets of Catholicism for an open, interconnected world
in which nations and religions must live in daily contact with one another. By
publishing unprecedented papal meditations about other faiths, he demonstrated
how a Catholic may approach them with reverence. He also hoped to strengthen
Catholicism in many cultures around the world by canonizing far more saints—
drawn from a broader geographical and occupational spectrum—than had any of his
predecessors.

In 2000 John Paul centralized ecclesiastical and theological control over

Catholic educational institutions around the world, prompting
renewed criticism from members of the church hierarchy who believed that
the Second Vatican Council had called upon the pope to be less of an autocrat and
more of a collegial moderator. John Paul also proscribed the teachings of some
dissident Catholic theologians. For example, early in his pontificate he censured Hans
Küng for arguing that the Catholic church was wrong to invoke papal infallibility. In
the 1980s John Paul’s uneasiness with liberation theology (which he regarded as too
closely allied with Marxism and Soviet communism) prompted him to
withdraw bureaucratic and moral support from ecclesial base communities in parts
of Latin America, a move that may have contributed to the defection of large numbers
of Catholics in the region to Evangelical Protestantism.
Throughout his pontificate John Paul maintained traditional church positions on
gender and sexual issues, denouncing abortion, artificial contraception, premarital
sex, and—through Vatican teachings—homosexual practices (though not
homosexual orientation). He continually rebuffed pleas for priests to be allowed to
marry and denied requests from Catholic nuns who wanted a greater role in the
church. And, though he often spoke out for full equality for women outside religious
vocations, he rejected even any discussion of the ordination of women as priests—a
stance that evoked sharp and continuing criticism from some quarters.

Some critics charged that John Paul’s autocratic style of governing greatly
discouraged American and European bishops from seeking the Vatican’s help in
responding to accusations, which began in the late 20th century, of sexual abuse of
minors by clergy. Even as revelations of the abuse grew into a worldwide scandal, the
church did little to confront the problem, allowing it to fester without intervention or
punishment. In April 2002 the U.S. cardinals received an unprecedented papal
summons to Rome, during which time John Paul declared that there was “no place in
the priesthood” for anyone who would abuse children. In June 2002 all American
bishops met in Dallas, Texas, to adopt strict new policies for investigating any charges
of clergy abuse of minors and removing proven offenders. Ultimately, however, the
church’s reputation in the United States and Europe was gravely damaged. By 2005
the church in the United States had spent more than $1 billion in litigation and legal
settlements.

John Paul’s emphasis on human rights and national and religious freedom
suggested to some a theology that was excessively “human-centred” and
insufficiently “Christ-centred.” A related criticism was that his political campaigns
involved the church too directly in worldly affairs and thereby threatened to obscure
its spiritual mission. His defenders argued that his humanistic Catholicism was based
upon the person and inspiration of Christ and that his campaigns could be justified by
the Catholic belief that it was his duty as the Vicar of Christ to help alleviate the
world’s suffering. Moreover, they urged, his activism only helped the church by
showing that its essential values, advanced with commitment and courage, could
improve the world. Other critics claimed that his pontifical writings were often
unfocused, but supporters insisted that his encyclicals and other assertions were
simply so numerous, varied, and farsighted that it would take years for their impact
on Catholicism to be understood.
 From the start of his pontificate, John Paul tried to reassert a sense of religious
challenge and discipline by making firm declarations about personal morality and the
religious life. This effort generally did not reverse a dramatic decline in vocations to
the priesthood and sisterhood, nor did it improve church attendance in many Catholic
countries. The cardinals who elected him had asked that he end the sense of confusion
among many Catholics that seemed to stem from the reforms of the Second Vatican
Council, but there was no consensus that he did. Nevertheless, John Paul is generally
seen as having increased the global prestige of the papacy and thus to have laid a
foundation for possible future revival within the church.

Birthdate and place

➢ Wojtyła was born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland.
Family Members
➢ Father - Karol senior, was a lieutenant in the Polish army.
➢ Mother - Emilia Kaczorowska, died when he was eight years old;
➢ Brother - Edmund, who had become a physician, died less than four years
later.
Childhood and School Life
➢ Wojtyła was an outgoing youth, though always with a serious side.
➢ Excelled in academics and dramatics, played football (soccer), and, under his
father’s guidance, lived a disciplined life of routine religious observance.
➢ He regularly assisted Father Kazimierz Figlewicz, his confessor and first
teacher in Catholicism
➢ Wotjyla and his father fled with thousands to the east to attend universities
but soon returned after learning the invasion in Poland
➢ Back in Kraków, Wojtyła continued his studies in clandestine classes.
➢ He worked in a factory owned by Solvay, a chemical firm.
Hobbies, Interests, and Activities
➢ The young priest wrote poetry, published anonymously, on a variety of
religious, social, and personal themes.
➢ He also became the spiritual leader and mentor of a circle of young adult
friends whom he joined on kayaking and camping trips.
➢ Wojtyla wrote nationalistic plays and joined Rhapsodic Theater.

Anecdotes
➢ John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.
➢ Wojtyła was the only pope, at least in modern times, to have been a labourer.
➢ He travelled abroad extensively in an effort to promote greater understanding
between countries and religions, and he campaigned against political
oppression, violence, and materialism.
➢ He survived an assassination attempt in 1981.
Career
➢ By the autumn of 1942 he had decided to enter the priesthood.
➢ In November 1946 Wojtyła was ordained by Sapieha into the Catholic
priesthood.
➢ In 1958 Pope Pius XII appointed him an auxiliary bishop of Kraków
➢ In December 1963, Pope Paul VI named him archbishop of Kraków.
➢ Wojtyła was made a cardinal in June 1967.
➢ Wojtyła’s election on October 16, 1978, made him the first non-Italian pope.
➢ John Paul II’s private conversations with Polish and Soviet leaders contributed
to the peaceful end of the Soviet regime in Eastern Europe, and his worldwide
outreach brought greater visibility to the church. He engaged in acts of
interfaith reconciliation with Judaism and Islam, promulgated a new
catechism (1992), and canonized nearly 500 saints.
Reason for Fame
➢ John Paul II was the first globally oriented pope, and he increased the global
prestige of the papacy. His emphasis on religious and national freedom was
unprecedented. He also centralized control over Catholic educational
 institutions and maintained traditional church positions on gender and sexual
issues.
Later Life/Old Age
➢ In 1990, John Paul was slowed by Parkinson disease and had a series of
operations
➢ Despite his condition, John Paul insisted that his suffering was part of his
ministry and said “Si crollo, crollo” (“If I collapse, I collapse”). He also remained
silent about his resignation.
➢ At his old age, an enormous crowd (2-4million people) have joined him at a
mass in Manila and Krakow.
Death
➢ He died on April 2, 2005 at his Vatican residence in accordance with his
wishes.
➢ He was beatified on May 1 and canonized with Pope John XXIII on April 27,
2014.

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