Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) lived in a time when Europe went through the most massive economic, political and social changes. He witnessed the two world wars, the revolutions in Austria, Germany, Hungary in 1917-1918, the uprising of communism in Russia, fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany, and the Cold War between the United States and Russia (Geary 2). In the 1930s the Nazi Party became increasingly popular in Germany. In 1934, Adolf Hitler took control in Germany and became Führer and Reich Chancellor (Grey 90). Brecht, a believer in Marxism and a socialist writer, became an obvious target of the Nazi German government. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Brecht was exiled from Germany and his books were banned. During his exile, from 1938 to 1945, he wrote five masterpieces that consecrated his fame abroad: Mother Courage and Her Children (1939/1941), The Life of Galileo (1938/1943), The Good Woman of Setzuan (1940 /1943), Mr. Puntila and his servant Matti (1941) and The chalk circle of the Caucasus (1944-1945). These plays are slightly different from his earlier propagandistic and anti-Nazi works, in which his Marxist views are explicit. They show the behaviors of human beings and ask the audience to question what they would do in a similar situation (Grey 109). In The Life of Galileo, Brecht used real historical figures and set the work in the past to alienate his audience. Although the play addresses issues that occurred in 17th century Italy, the play is about Brecht's contemporary era. Brecht historicizes Galileo's life to make his audience reflect on what they see on stage and to make objective judgments on the characters' behaviors. He also used the work to disguise his political views in order to avoid direct problems in this politically and socially troubled time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Life of Galileo is the story of Galileo's struggle with the Catholic Church, which held all political power in 17th-century Italy. Brecht wrote the work chronologically, starting with Galileo at forty-six. He is a professor at the University of Padua, he is not rich and lives with his daughter Virginia, the housekeeper Mrs. Sarti and Mrs. Sarti's son Andrea. Galileo is trying to prove Copernicus' theories, a study of the earth revolving around the sun. His findings, however, conflict with the Church's doctrine that the Earth is the center of the universe. The Church claims that its teaching offends the cosmic order proclaimed by the Church and disrupts its political power in society. The Pope agrees to have him investigated by the Inquisition. Although Galileo is eager to know the truth and show it to the world, in 1633 he recoils when he is shown instruments of torture. His students despise his cowardice and abandon him. Until the end of his life, Galileo is guarded by the Inquisition and is forbidden to write and publish. However, he secretly continues his research, finishes The Discourses and gives the book to his former student, Andrea, to smuggle it abroad. There are three versions of the Life of Galileo: the "Danish" version, the "American" version, and the "Berlin" version. The Danish version was written in 1938 in Denmark and was performed in Zurich in 1943. The plot of the play is more or less the same, but focuses on the "struggle between Galileo and the authorities" (Wilson 146). The character of Galileo is different from the American and Berlin versions in that he is a hero who cleverly abjures and accepts the authority of the church in order to finish the Discourses. Brecht, however, changedhis attitude towards Galileo during the Second World War. In 1944 he wrote the American version in collaboration with Charles Laughton, an English Hollywood actor. This version is shorter than the Danish version, and Brecht changed some incidental characters and altered Galileo after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Galileo, initially a hero who manages to defeat the Inquisition, becomes a coward who betrays his people because he is afraid of physical pain. However Brecht was not satisfied with the American version. Laughton, who did not share Brecht's experience of exile and escape, eliminated many passages about the oppression of truth in Germany. Brecht said: The most profound changes in the structure of entire scenes or even of the play itself were made solely to facilitate the advancement of the action. . . L. (Laughton) treated the "printed text" with a revealing, sometimes brutal indifference that the playwright rarely managed to share. What we created was a script; the show was everything. It was impossible to get him to translate passages that the playwright was willing to omit from the play, but nevertheless wanted to save for the "book." The most important thing was the stage representation, for which the text was only the means, the vehicle: the text was consumed in the production, it was consumed like dust in fireworks. (Stern 137) Due to his dissatisfaction with the American version, Brecht revised the play with the help of Elisabeth Hauptmann, Benno Beson, and Ruth Berlau in 1953 in Berlin. This version was first performed by the Berliner Ensemble in 1957. The Berlin version, which Hill called "an enriched and refined second version" (113), restored much material from the Danish version that Laughton had cut, but Galileo's character remains the same as the American version. Although The Life of Galileo is a historical work, it does not simply show Galileo's life as a scientist. Claude Hill in his book Bertolt Brecht explains: "A playwright rarely, if ever, simply aims for total accuracy when choosing historical material; it must be judged by other criteria" (114). Although the play is set in seventeenth-century Italy, it is a play about the playwright's time, not just Galileo's. The emergence of totalitarianism in Europe in the early 20th century, particularly in Germany, Italy and Russia, brought a series of political and social changes to the world. Governments imposed values ​​and restrictions on people to keep them under their control. Individuality and freedom have been taken away by these governments to achieve a “higher” political goal and ideology. The Nazi government succeeded in indoctrinating its people into believing that its political and social policies would lead the country to what Brecht called the “New Age” (“Preface” 213) and that Germany would no longer suffer from economic depression and of the loss of cultural pride. caused by the First World War. People blindly believed and listened to what the government told them to do without questioning the government's real intentions. In the preface to the Life of Galileo, Brecht said: "And yet these disappointed men may still exist in a new age, an age of great upheavals. Only they know nothing of new ages" ("Foreword" 214). It is clear that Brecht used the play to reflect what was happening in the contemporary world. Galileo is considered a revolutionary scientist who laid the foundations for the development of (British) scientific research. He discovered and demonstrated that the Earth did not remain stationary, but rather rotated around the sun. Although he had the potential to show the world "the dawn of a new age" ("Representation" 217), he withdrew from the Churchand let people blindly follow his teaching. People living under Hitler's Germany in the 1930s were in a very similar situation. The public believed whatever the government told them without questioning whether it was true. Brecht says: Nowadays the very conception of the new is falsified. The Old and the Very Old, now re-entering the arena, are proclaimed new, or it is deemed new when the Old or the Very Old are proposed again in a new way. . . . The "new" for example is the system of wars, while the "old", so they say, is an economic system, proposed but never put into practice, which makes wars superfluous. In the new system, society is rooted in classes; and the old, they say, is the desire to abolish classes. The hopes of humanity are not so discouraged in these times; rather, they are diverted. (“Foreword” 214-215) Through the presentation of the character of Galileo and his story of recantation, Brecht wanted his audience to question totalitarian government. In the play, the Church fears that Galileo's radical discovery will upset his power and change the order of the world. He prefers a more stable world that upholds his authority even if his people are expected to live in illusion. Despite wanting to change the world, Galileo betrays his people by admitting that the Church is right simply because he wants to live. His retraction delays the process of scientific development for years. Brecht, a committed Marxist writer, believed that “questioning, refusing to accept anything as fixed” (Needle and Thomson 79) was necessary to improve human social conditions. By presenting Galileo's weakness, he made his audience understand that something else could have been done to change what happened in the 17th century. Likewise, they could also take action to make a difference in their own society. In addition to showing an image of people being forced to believe those in positions of authority, Brecht also argued that the government's attempt to suppress knowledge and truth would be a mistake. useless (Wilson 147). In the first Danish version of The Life of Galileo, Galileo realizes that death or resistance to authority would not make the Church accept his discovery. He recants and the Inquisition believes he will stop his research. However, he continues and ends the Discourses secretly. Because of his retraction, he is able to smuggle the book abroad, spreading the truth that the Earth revolves around the sun. In the end, knowledge and truth win over the ideological impositions of the Church. Brecht experienced a similar situation to Galileo when Hitler came to power in 1933, and Brecht was sent into exile, all of his works banned in Germany (Socialist Review). However, Brecht believed that Hitler's censorship would sooner or later become useless, which is why he continued to write. Brecht wanted to fight lies and ignorance and educate his audience about the evils of society. He believed that the truth would ultimately defeat totalitarianism. The latest version of the Life of Galileo still concerns the playwright's era. If the Danish version represents the playwright's society in the 1930s, the American version represents his society in the 1940s. In 1941 Brecht left for the United States and arrived in Los Angeles, where he settled in Santa Monica, near Hollywood. With the help of Charles Laughton, he wrote the "American" English version of the Life of Galileo in 1944-47 (the American version is simply called Galileo). Laughton played the role of Galileo in the 1947 Los Angeles premiere and later in the New York production. The American version is much shorter than the original Danish version. Brecht also changed theGalileo's character by changing the reason he ended the Discourses to "more as a result of habit than a deliberate act of defiance" (Hill 116). The reason why Brecht changed the reason for Galileo's retraction was the atomic bombings of the 1940s. In his Unvarnished Picture of a New Age: Preamble to the American Version, Brecht writes: The “atomic” age made its debut in Hiroshima in the midst of our work. From one day to the next, the biography of the founder of the new physics system was read differently. The infernal effect of the great bomb put the conflict between Galileo and the authorities of his time in a new and clearer light. (224) This is clearBrecht wanted to use The Life of Galileo to reflect his time. In the latest versions, Brecht raises the question of the role of science and scientists in relation to humanity. When Galileo presents the telescope as his new discovery to the Venetian court, his pupil Ludovico, who had told him about this new instrument in Amsterdam, says, “I am beginning to understand science” (Brecht and Laughton 58). Ludovico despises the fact that Galileo claims that the instrument is his creation. Brecht thought that some scientists would allow the bourgeois to make use of their research products because this could guarantee them a dignified life. Even though Galileo uses the telescope to show the world what the earth looks like, the Venetian government uses it in its naval battles with other countries and states. A scientific invention that aims to bring good to humanity becomes a weapon that destroys human lives. The atomic bombs made Brecht realize that the nuclear age was also a product of Galileo's discoveries because he brought the world to a new "scientific age" in the seventeenth century. He then called Galileo a traitor to humanity because he was the "root" of the atomic bomb. According to Brecht, the scientists were unaware of the morality behind their research. In the draft preface to the work he condemns those scientists who do not realize their moral values ​​as scientists. Brecht writes: The bourgeois isolates science from the conscience of the scientist, erecting it as an island of independence to be able to practically intertwine it with politics, economics and ideology. The researcher's object is “pure” research; the product of that research is not so pure. The formula E=mc2 is conceived as eternal, not tied to anything. So other people can make the connection: Suddenly the city of Hiroshima was very short-lived. Scientists claim the irresponsibility of machines. (“Drafts” 220) Brecht believes that scientists have gradually become a tool of people who can afford to pay for inventions and research. In the last scene Galileo says to Andrea: "I have given up my knowledge to the powerful, to use it, no, not use it, abuse it, as suits their purposes. I have betrayed my profession" (Brecht and Laughton 124). Scientists, who were supposed to invent a better life and bring truth to human beings, were inventing terrible weapons that destroyed human lives and pushed the world towards the end because of their selfish needs. While it is clear that there are similarities between the playwright's time and Galileo's time, why did Brecht choose to write a historical work rather than a fictional work? Why did Brecht invent (or reinvent) the character of a historical figure? Eric Bentley, a well-known Brecht scholar, explains: Brecht became interested in the historical Galileo at a time when he was concerned about his friends and comrades who remained in Germany and somehow managed to continue working. Prominent in his thoughts was the clandestine politician plotting to subvert Hitler's regime. (14-15)In the first version of the work Galileo says: "be careful when you travelfor Germany with the truth under his coat!" (Bentley 15). Brecht understood that the only way to express the truth in 1930s Germany was to hide it. He wrote "Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties" before finishing the first version of the Life of Galileo. The five difficulties of writing the truth, according to Brecht, are the courage to write it, the acumen to recognize it, the ability to handle it like a weapon, the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective. and the need for cunning in spreading it among the many. Brecht thought that these five difficulties were "formidable problems for writers living under fascism" ("Writing" 133). In the essay he delves especially into the fifth difficulty, the need for "cunning " in writing the truth. He lived in a time of oppression when people could not freely speak the truth, in public or private, because they would be in grave danger. Even Brecht had to flee his home country because his works expressed a political vision contrary to Hitler's government. In the essay he said: “Lenin wanted to deceive exploitation and oppression on Sakhalin Island, but it was necessary to beware of the tsarist police” (“The Writing” 143). Many governments in Europe at that time, especially in Germany, censored all material that went against their political and social policies. It became extremely difficult for writers who wanted to tell the truth to people. Brecht, however, thought that if a writer resorted to wiles, then "many things that cannot be said about Germany in Germany can be said about Austria" ("Writing" 143). Brecht suggested that a writer could get his audience to think about government objectively by writing a play about other places or areas that share similarities with the situation of contemporary society. Brecht's Life of Galileo, in this case, shows a critical situation that occurred in the 17th century, with which his audience could have made an analogy to their own society. It is only by writing astutely that a writer can spread the truth in a time when oppression exists. Brecht thought that The Life of Galileo was “technically a great step backwards” (Kellner 287) because it failed to emotionally distance its audience from the feeling of pity. towards Galileo. However, he used historicization, another famous epic technique, to allow his audience to think about Galileo's situation and actions with appropriate socialist values. Historicization is a dramaturgical device for setting the action of a play in the historical past to draw parallels with the contemporary event (Theatre Dictionary). Brecht often sets his plays in the past or in a foreign country, such as The Good Woman of Setzuan is set in China and Mother Courage and Her Children is set in the German Thirty Years' War. He used this technique to get his audience to draw parallels between the past and the present to think about social and political issues. In The Life of Galileo, Brecht set the work in 17th-century Italy dominated by the Catholic Church and told the story of Galileo's retraction to express his views towards the oppressive contemporary world. He believed that by historicizing his work, audiences would be able to detach themselves from their familiar surroundings and thus be able to adopt a critical attitude towards their own society (Kellner 285). By seeing what happened in the past on stage, the audience would be able to suggest what should have been done in the past to solve the problems (Benjamin 8). By drawing parallels to the contemporary world, they would then be able to see what is going wrong in their societies and what could be done to solve the problems. The 22(2002): 145.