How the Pope was a poet and playwright: What works were written by John Paul II and what films were shot based on them

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Fifteen years ago, John Paul II passed away, not only the Pope and Catholic saint, but also a playwright, poet and actor, who enriched world art with cycles of poems, plays and plots for feature films. By the way, in the film versions of the works of Karol Wojtyla - and this was the name the pontiff had before his election as Pope - it was considered an honor to appear world-famous stars such as Bert Lancaster, Olivia Hussey, Christoph Waltz and others.

How the future pope dreamed of a theatrical career

To devote one's life to art or to follow the path of serving God - such a question faced the future Pope for many years and was decided in favor of the Vatican due to various factors, mainly because of the events in the life of John Paul II. Karol Jozef Wojtyla remained in the history of the Catholic Church as the first pope of non-Italian origin since the 16th century; he, unlike the popes - his predecessors, visited religious buildings of other confessions - the Anglican Church, the Muslim mosque, the synagogue. John Paul II opposed any war, rejected the death penalty, spoke out in favor of protecting human rights, and also repented of the sins of the leaders of Catholicism.

He was born in the town of Wadowice near the Polish Krakow, it happened in 1920. At the age of eight, Karol lost his mother, four years later, his older brother Edmund died after contracting scarlet fever. The boy stayed with his father. Already in those years, Karol Wojtyla was interested in theater, dreamed of being an actor. He did not dare to dream of the path of a clergyman, believing that he was not worthy of it.

As a teenager, the future pontiff played in the school theater, where he, who had an excellent memory and was generally considered one of the best students, often played the main roles or acted as a director. Already in his youth, a play by the authorship of Karol Wojtyla called "The Spirit King" was born. After graduating from high school, he entered the university at the Faculty of Polonistics, where he studied, among other things, the Russian language and Church Slavonic writing. Karol was generally a polyglot, during his life he mastered thirteen languages.

He practiced a lot in literary writing, wrote about the history of Poland and about the interpretation of biblical texts. In 1939, Wojtyla completed a collection of poems "The Psalter of the Renaissance", which later included the lost poetic drama "David". The school theater group was replaced by the theatrical fraternity of Tadeusz Kudlinsky, Wojtyla played in the performances of his "Studio 39". But then the war intervened in the life of the young man.

Books, plays and the path to the papal throne

From the beginning of World War II to the middle of 1940, Karol Wojtyla wrote many poems and plays, mostly on biblical subjects. He translated Sophocles the Oedipus King into Polish. Then Wojtyla still wanted to connect life with art, with theater. During the war, he attended classes at an underground university, was a member of the underground "Rhapsody Theater" - both in occupied Poland had to be kept secret under the threat of execution or concentration camps. The theater staged plays about social injustice, about the struggle for one's rights, and the performances looked rather peculiar, being rather expressive reading of roles and laconic gestures - there was not even talk of props. At the same time, Wojtyla worked at a quarry, and later at a chemical plant.

During the period of the occupation, he met Jan Tyranovsky, who headed the religious society "Living Rosary". Tyranovsky and inspired Karol Wojtyla to serve his neighbor in the church, study the history of religion and the works of Catholic theologians. In 1941, his father, Karol Wojtyla Sr. died, and the son, who had lost everyone he loved, decided to become a priest.

He entered the courses of the Krakow Theological Seminary, after the war he was ordained. In 1958, Wojtyła became bishop - the youngest in the Polish episcopate, and nine years later - a cardinal.

All this time, Karol did not stop his literary activity, he created poetic cycles and dramatic works, under his own name and under pseudonyms. His works were always distinguished by the slow development of the plot and a small amount of action, the essence of the works was reduced to the inner work of the heroes, to the knowledge of the world and God, to the clash of different ideas and its comprehension. In 1975, Cardinal Wojtyla wrote a cycle of poems "Reflections on Death", and in 1978 his last poem "Stanislav" was written. In the same year, Karol became Pope John Paul II, taking on the name of his predecessor, John Paul I, who remained on the papal throne for only 33 days.

Art as a way to preach the Christian faith

This chapter of the Vatican left behind many works that are not related to fiction - theological and philosophical works, books and encyclicals designed to preach the Christian faith. …

John Paul II combined external fragility and enormous internal power in his image - and was able, thanks to his theatrical past, to use such ambivalence, which means - to attract more attention both to himself and to his words. He was heard and heard - not only by Catholics.

As for the works of Karol Wojtyla, some of them went down in the history of not only literature, but also cinema. Bert Lancaster, Olivia Hussey and Daniel Olbrychsky portrayed the story of the fate that accompanies the purchase of wedding rings from a jeweler in Jewelry Store. Wojtyla wrote the drama of the same name in 1960, the film was released 29 years later.

In 1997, the drama "Brother of Our God" was filmed - about the life of the Catholic Saint Albert Chmielewski, a monk and artist, deeply revered by John Paul II. In the film directed by Krzysztof Zanussi, he also starred Christoph Waltz is one of the most brilliant actors in modern cinema.