Conscience and Conscientiousness - Francis of Assisi and Mao Zedong

Description

2026 marks the anniversaries of two personalities whose lives could hardly be more contrasting: Francis of Assisi (†1226) and Mao Zedong (†1976). One ignited a peaceful mass movement through extreme renunciation and personal sacrifice, which in turn marginalized him during his lifetime and drove him into internal exile. The other maintained a decades-long revolutionary upheaval, accepting millions of deaths in the process. Drawing a line between such opposites undoubtedly provokes critical questions that cannot be easily answered within a conventional concert program. It is clear from the outset that this interdisciplinary concert project – consisting of lectures, panel discussions, main concert with live projected photo series, and a moderated late concert with audience discussion – is not about moral equivalence of two of the most extreme figures in human history. Rather, it aims to explore where the extremes meet, under whatever historical and personal circumstances. After all, Francis and Mao are united by a common question and the fundamentalist uncompromisingness in which they both sought answers: social justice and empathy for the impoverished. A second, less obvious parallel lies in how the published images of these two personalities helped construct their respective 'images' in the public eye. The social question is so old that it can be considered a constant in human history and appears in various forms across almost all religions. Awareness of social injustice, compassion for the hungry and freezing, has likely existed as long as the bitter experience of failing to structurally eliminate this injustice. Francis was born into a wealthy family. When his compassion for the disadvantaged stirred, he initially stole money from his father and gave it to the poor – not a particularly commendable behavior. But shortly thereafter, he dedicated himself to possessing less than anyone else, begged and froze, was maliciously mocked, and passed on donations to those even more in need. He often did hard physical work in fields and on construction sites. Many monks and nuns cared for lepers, but Francis, despite the known risk of infection, also engaged in extensive comforting physical contact. He may be famous for miracles of questionable authenticity, but the strength behind this lifelong consistency is unimaginable from today's perspective, just as the misery of the poor was in his time. Francis's charisma was so great that others joined him, and within a few years, a movement grew that, through its radical imitation of Christ, became a threat to the established church power. The church chose not to repress openly but instead to contain the movement within its structures. Thus, the movement became a religious order with professional management, making an economically sustainable foundation inevitable. Francis's principled strength continued to attract young people across Europe, who increasingly sought personal educational opportunities rather than a life of hardship and faith practice: The Order of the Lesser Brothers contributed to the founding of universities in Europe despite fierce resistance from its founder. Soon after returning from the Crusade of Damietta (and the unsuccessful attempt to convert Sultan al-Kamil), Francis distanced himself from his order and resigned with his old followers. Francis was not a social revolutionary and did not seek to overthrow societal structures. He merely took the demands of Jesus Christ seriously in a fundamentalist manner. The church's appropriation of his order, which already moderated it during his lifetime, continued posthumously through legends, magnificent architecture, and visual representations: In the fresco cycle of the upper church of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, attributed to Giotto, Francis is depicted as a follower of Christ. The artistically exaggerated virtue of the saint masks the unprecedented hardships of his life, which starkly contrast with the church's reality. A depiction of Francis on the triumphal chariot, like that by Franz Ludwig Hermann (ceiling fresco of the Franciscan Church in Überlingen), fulfills the propaganda role in this context. Using a series of such and other culturally significant images of Francis projected onto a screen, we trace the evolution of the public image of Francis over the last 800 years, musically countered by the Gregorian Versus alleluiaticus Franciscus pauper et humilis and Carlo Gesualdo's six-part motet Franciscus humilis, arranged for soprano, oboe, tenor, viola, electric guitar, and bass. Jörg Herchet's Franciscan cantata will certainly not heed the traditional, comfortable saintly image. In his composition (commissioned by KlangForum Heidelberg), part of the cycle The Spiritual Year begun in 1978, the veteran and devout Catholic explores the elusive faith drive and personality of Francis. Herchet's libretto, written by Jörg Milbradt, aims to: "...Saint Francis totally breaks all normality, so I also want to push musical boundaries" (email, 13.02.2025). Herchet has experience in transcending spiritual limitations. Growing up in the GDR, he once considered dodecaphony a form of resistance against socialist constraints. He interprets Francis's work as a reflection of his early Christian rebelliousness, directed against the mindless hustle of everyday business, driven by a deeply human conscience. Mao's actions, at least in terms of the number of his victims, defy imagination. Wikipedia estimates 40-80 million people, but the data is uncertain. Why then compare him to Francis, personified peace?
This project description can only sketch Mao's development briefly – this task will be undertaken by Prof. Barbara Mittler in her introductory lecture. However, his starting point was quite similar to that of Francis. Born into a wealthy peasant family, Mao faced unspeakable misery and hunger, exacerbated by the decline of the Qing Dynasty under colonial pressure. Influenced by Buddhism through his mother, Mao acquired the tools of communist theory through disciplined self-study, analyzing the causes of pervasive poverty. Despite his later catastrophic crimes, it must be noted that Mao's original impulse was empathetic: his totalitarian mindset arose precisely from the unyielding will to tackle and uproot injustice at its root. Mao's projection of power culminated in a personality cult that developed its own dynamics. As he aged, maintaining the image of the "Great Chairman" required elaborate retouching of every published photo, often erasing the real context of the original image and replacing it with a fictional one. The text cuts off here.

Highlights

• Interdisciplinary concert project
• Lectures and panel discussions
• Live projected photo series

General Information

The event explores the lives of Francis of Assisi and Mao Zedong, two figures with extremely different approaches to social justice. It includes lectures, discussions, and a main concert that themes the connection between these historical figures.

Location

Am Bahnbetriebswerk 5, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany

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