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On August 14, 2004, Czesław Miłosz, Polish-American writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, died at the age of 93. An excerpt from the article:
"Czeslaw Milosz ranks among the most respected figures in 20th-century Polish literature, as well as one of the most respected contemporary poets in the world: he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. Born in Lithuania, where his parents moved temporarily to escape the political upheaval in their native Poland, he left Poland as an adult due to the oppressive Communist regime that came to power following World War II and lived in the United States from 1960 until his death in 2004. Milosz’s poems, novels, essays, and other works are written in his native Polish and translated by the author and others into English. Having lived under the two great totalitarian systems of modern history, national socialism and communism, Milosz wrote of the past in a tragic, ironic style that nonetheless affirmed the value of human life. While the faith of his Roman Catholic upbringing was severely tested, it remained intact. Terrence Des Pres, writing in the Nation, stated that “political catastrophe has defined the nature of our [age], and the result—the collision of personal and public realms—has produced a new kind of writer. Czeslaw Milosz is the perfect example. In exile from a world which no longer exists, a witness to the Nazi devastation of Poland and the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, Milosz deals in his poetry with the central issues of our time: the impact of history upon moral being, the search for ways to survive spiritual ruin in a ruined world.”
Born in Lithuania in 1911, Milosz spent much of his childhood in Czarist Russia, where his father worked as a civil engineer. After World War I the family returned to their hometown, which had become a part of the new Polish state, and Milosz attended local Catholic schools. He published his first collection of poems, Poemat o czasie zastyglym (“Poem of the Frozen Time”), at the age of 21. Milosz was associated with the catastrophist school of poets during the 1930s. The writings of this group of poets ominously foreshadowed World War II; when the war began in 1939, and Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Milosz worked with the underground Resistance movement in Warsaw, writing and editing several books published clandestinely during the occupation. One of these books, a collection titled Wiersze (“Poems”), was published under the pseudonym J. Syruc. Following the war, Milosz became a member of the new communist government’s diplomatic service and was stationed in Paris, France, as a cultural attaché. In 1951, he left this post and defected to the West.
The Captive Mind (1953), his first collection of essays, explains Milosz’s reasons for defecting and examines the life of the artist under a communist regime. Karl Jaspers, in an article for the Saturday Review, described The Captive Mind as “a significant historical document and analysis of the highest order … In astonishing gradations Milosz shows what happens to men subjected simultaneously to constant threat of annihilation and to the promptings of faith in a historical necessity which exerts apparently irresistible force and achieves enormous success. We are presented with a vivid picture of the forms of concealment, of inner transformation, of the sudden bolt to conversion, of the cleavage of man into two.” Milosz defected when he was recalled to Poland from his position at the Polish embassy. He refused to leave. Joseph McLellan of the Washington Post quoted Milosz explaining: “I knew perfectly well that my country was becoming the province of an empire.” In a speech before the Congress for Cultural Freedom, quoted by James Atlas of the New York Times, Milosz declared: “I have rejected the new faith because the practice of the lie is one of its principal commandments and socialist realism is nothing more than a different name for a lie.” After his defection Milosz lived in Paris, where he worked as a translator and freelance writer. In 1960 he was offered a teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley, which he accepted. He became an American citizen in 1970."
"Czeslaw Milosz ranks among the most respected figures in 20th-century Polish literature, as well as one of the most respected contemporary poets in the world: he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. Born in Lithuania, where his parents moved temporarily to escape the political upheaval in their native Poland, he left Poland as an adult due to the oppressive Communist regime that came to power following World War II and lived in the United States from 1960 until his death in 2004. Milosz’s poems, novels, essays, and other works are written in his native Polish and translated by the author and others into English. Having lived under the two great totalitarian systems of modern history, national socialism and communism, Milosz wrote of the past in a tragic, ironic style that nonetheless affirmed the value of human life. While the faith of his Roman Catholic upbringing was severely tested, it remained intact. Terrence Des Pres, writing in the Nation, stated that “political catastrophe has defined the nature of our [age], and the result—the collision of personal and public realms—has produced a new kind of writer. Czeslaw Milosz is the perfect example. In exile from a world which no longer exists, a witness to the Nazi devastation of Poland and the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, Milosz deals in his poetry with the central issues of our time: the impact of history upon moral being, the search for ways to survive spiritual ruin in a ruined world.”
Born in Lithuania in 1911, Milosz spent much of his childhood in Czarist Russia, where his father worked as a civil engineer. After World War I the family returned to their hometown, which had become a part of the new Polish state, and Milosz attended local Catholic schools. He published his first collection of poems, Poemat o czasie zastyglym (“Poem of the Frozen Time”), at the age of 21. Milosz was associated with the catastrophist school of poets during the 1930s. The writings of this group of poets ominously foreshadowed World War II; when the war began in 1939, and Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, Milosz worked with the underground Resistance movement in Warsaw, writing and editing several books published clandestinely during the occupation. One of these books, a collection titled Wiersze (“Poems”), was published under the pseudonym J. Syruc. Following the war, Milosz became a member of the new communist government’s diplomatic service and was stationed in Paris, France, as a cultural attaché. In 1951, he left this post and defected to the West.
The Captive Mind (1953), his first collection of essays, explains Milosz’s reasons for defecting and examines the life of the artist under a communist regime. Karl Jaspers, in an article for the Saturday Review, described The Captive Mind as “a significant historical document and analysis of the highest order … In astonishing gradations Milosz shows what happens to men subjected simultaneously to constant threat of annihilation and to the promptings of faith in a historical necessity which exerts apparently irresistible force and achieves enormous success. We are presented with a vivid picture of the forms of concealment, of inner transformation, of the sudden bolt to conversion, of the cleavage of man into two.” Milosz defected when he was recalled to Poland from his position at the Polish embassy. He refused to leave. Joseph McLellan of the Washington Post quoted Milosz explaining: “I knew perfectly well that my country was becoming the province of an empire.” In a speech before the Congress for Cultural Freedom, quoted by James Atlas of the New York Times, Milosz declared: “I have rejected the new faith because the practice of the lie is one of its principal commandments and socialist realism is nothing more than a different name for a lie.” After his defection Milosz lived in Paris, where he worked as a translator and freelance writer. In 1960 he was offered a teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley, which he accepted. He became an American citizen in 1970."
Czeslaw Milosz | Poetry Foundation
Posted from poetryfoundation.org
World History
Communism
Literature
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Poetry
Posted >1 y ago
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