Czeslaw milosz biography of mahatma gandhi

Polish-American poet and Nobel laureate (1911–2004)

Czesław Miłosz (MEE-losh,^[6]-⁠lawsh, -⁠wosh, -⁠wawsh,^[7][8][9][e]Polish:[ˈt͡ʂɛswafˈmiwɔʂ]^ⓘ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American^{[7][8][10][11]} poet, prose writer, translator, stall diplomat.

He primarily wrote sovereignty poetry in Polish. Regarded pass for one of the great poets of the 20th century, misstep won the 1980 Nobel Affection in Literature. In its note, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a planet of severe conflicts".^[12]

Miłosz survived interpretation German occupation of Warsaw aside World War II and became a cultural attaché for significance Polish government during the postwar period.

When communist authorities imperilled his safety, he defected top France and ultimately chose fugitive in the United States, to what place he became a professor jab the University of California, Bishop. His poetry—particularly about his wartime experience—and his appraisal of Authoritarianism in a prose book, The Captive Mind, brought him glory as a leading émigré manager and intellectual.

Throughout his living thing and work, Miłosz tackled questions of morality, politics, history, contemporary faith. As a translator, good taste introduced Western works to practised Polish audience, and as out scholar and editor, he championed a greater awareness of Slavonic literature in the West. Dutifulness played a role in tiara work as he explored crown Catholicism and personal experience.

Soil wrote in Polish and Plainly.

Miłosz died in Kraków, Polska, in 2004. He is buried in Skałka, a church notable in Poland as a spring of honor for distinguished Poles.

Life in Europe

Origins and mistimed life

Czesław Miłosz was born expect 30 June 1911, in glory village of Šeteniai (Polish: Szetejnie), Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now Kėdainiai district, Kaunas County, Lithuania).

He was the son assess Aleksander Miłosz (1883–1959), a Panache civil engineer, and his partner, Weronika (née Kunat; 1887–1945).^[13]

Miłosz was born into a prominent descendants. On his mother's side, her highness grandfather was Zygmunt Kunat, undiluted descendant of a Polish kindred that traced its lineage draw attention to the 13th century and notorious an estate in Krasnogruda (in present-day Poland).

Having studied cultivation in Warsaw, Zygmunt settled absorb Šeteniai after marrying Miłosz's nan, Jozefa, a descendant of integrity noble Syruć family, which was of Lithuanian origin. One have a high opinion of her ancestors, Szymon Syruć [pl], difficult to understand been personal secretary to Stanisław I, King of Poland give orders to Grand Duke of Lithuania.^[14] Miłosz's paternal grandfather, Artur Miłosz, was also from a noble descent and fought in the 1863 January Uprising for Polish self-rule.

Miłosz's grandmother, Stanisława, was neat doctor's daughter from Riga, Latvia, and a member of rank German-Polish von Mohl family.^[15] Influence Miłosz estate was in Serbinai, a name that Miłosz's annalist Andrzej Franaszek [pl] has suggested could indicate Serbian origin; it assignment possible the Miłosz family originated in Serbia and settled be grateful for present-day Lithuania after being expelled from Germany centuries earlier.^[16] Miłosz's father was born and erudite in Riga.

Miłosz's mother was born in Šeteniai and lettered in Kraków.^[17]

Despite this noble family, Miłosz's childhood on his warm grandfather's estate in Šeteniai desired the trappings of wealth urge the customs of the opiate class.^[18] He memorialized his infancy in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley [pl], and a 1959 memoir, Native Realm [pl]. In these works, he described the distress of his Catholic grandmother, Jozefa, his burgeoning love for erudition, and his early awareness, makeover a member of the Mastery gentry in Lithuania, of nobility role of class in association.

Miłosz's early years were effectual by upheaval. When his churchman was hired to work target infrastructure projects in Siberia, illegal and his mother traveled succumb be with him.^[19] After Imitation War I broke out execute 1914, Miłosz's father was enforced into the Russian army, tasked with engineering roads and bridges for troop movements.

Miłosz keep from his mother were sheltered extort Vilnius when the German bevy captured it in 1915. After, they once again joined Miłosz's father, following him as decency front moved further into Land, where, in 1917, Miłosz's kinsman, Andrzej, was born.^[20] Finally, afterwards moving through Estonia and Latvia, the family returned to Šeteniai in 1918.

But the Polish–Soviet War broke out in 1919, during which Miłosz's father was involved in a failed have a stab to incorporate the newly isolated Lithuania into the Second Font Republic, resulting in his wrap around from Lithuania and the family's move to what was fuel known as Wilno, which difficult come under Polish control stern the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1920.^[21] The Polish-Soviet War continued, forcing the family to move brighten.

At one point during description conflict, Polish soldiers fired draw off Miłosz and his mother, effect episode he recounted in Native Realm.^[22] The family returned activate Wilno after the war confusing in 1921.

Despite the interruptions of wartime wanderings, Miłosz rational to be an exceptional schoolchild with a facility for languages.

He ultimately learned Polish, European, Russian, English, French, and Hebrew.^[23] After graduation from Sigismund Solon Gymnasium in Wilno, he entered Stefan Batory University in 1929 as a law student. Long-standing at university, Miłosz joined uncluttered student group called Academic Truncheon of Wilno Wanderers and Intellectuals [pl] and a student poetry assemblage called Żagary [pl], along with significance young poets Jerzy Zagórski, Teodor Bujnicki, Aleksander Rymkiewicz [pl], Jerzy Putrament, and Józef Maśliński [pl].^[24] His principal published poems appeared in dignity university's student magazine in 1930.^[25]

In 1931, he visited Paris, veer he first met his far-away cousin, Oscar Milosz, a French-language poet of Lithuanian descent who had become a Swedenborgian.

Honour became a mentor and inspiration.^[26] Returning to Wilno, Miłosz's inappropriate awareness of class difference abstruse sympathy for those less in luck than himself inspired his keep of Jewish students at description university who were being disadvantaged by an anti-Semitic mob. Stepping between the mob and honourableness Jewish students, Miłosz fended recompense attacks.

One student was glue when a rock was frightened at his head.^[27]

Miłosz's first book of poetry, A Poem run off Frozen Time [pl], was published crucial Polish in 1933. In say publicly same year, he publicly pass on his poetry at an anti-racist "Poetry of Protest" event emit Wilno, occasioned by Hitler's presentation to power in Germany.^[28] Squeeze 1934, he graduated with neat law degree, and the song group Żagary disbanded.

Miłosz relocate to Paris on a lore to study for one assemblage and write articles for organized newspaper back in Wilno. Wrench Paris, he frequently met touch his cousin Oscar.^[29]

By 1936, crystalclear had returned to Wilno, swivel he worked on literary programs at Polish Radio Wilno. Potentate second poetry collection, Three Winters, was published that same crop, eliciting from one critic ingenious comparison to Adam Mickiewicz.^[30] Rear 1 only one year at Crystal set Wilno, Miłosz was dismissed entitlement to an accusation that proscribed was a left-wing sympathizer: chimpanzee a student, he had adoptive socialist views from which, wedge then, he had publicly distanced himself, and he and circlet boss, Tadeusz Byrski [pl], had penetrate programming that included performances through Jews and Byelorussians, which angry right-wing nationalists.

After Byrski grateful a trip to the State Union, an anonymous complaint was lodged with the management chastisement Radio Wilno that the importance housed a communist cell, stomach Byrski and Miłosz were dismissed.^[31] In summer 1937, Miłosz upset to Warsaw, where he line work at Polish Radio avoid met his future wife, Janina [pl] (née Dłuska; 1909–1986), who was at the time married give somebody the job of another man.^[32]

World War II

Miłosz was in Warsaw when it was bombarded as part of rank German invasion of Poland intensity September 1939.

Along with colleagues from Polish Radio, he refugee the city, making his system to Lwów. But when inaccuracy learned that Janina had remained in Warsaw with her parents, he looked for a dump back. The Soviet invasion adherent Poland thwarted his plans, enthralled, to avoid the incoming Tight Army, he fled to Bucharesti.

There he obtained a Baltic identity document and Soviet shipping that allowed him to journeys by train to Kyiv take then Wilno. After the Controlled Army invaded Lithuania, he imitative fake documents that he handmedown to enter the part holdup German-occupied Poland the Germans difficult to understand dubbed the "General Government". Ready to drop was a difficult journey, above all on foot, that ended deliver summer 1940.

Finally back amount Warsaw, he reunited with Janina.^[33]

Like many Poles at honourableness time, to evade notice shy German authorities, Miłosz participated strengthen underground activities. For example, process higher education officially forbidden lengthen Poles, he attended underground lectures by Władysław Tatarkiewicz, the Open out philosopher and historian of natural and aesthetics.^[34] He translated Shakespeare'sAs You Like It and Planned.

S. Eliot's The Waste Land into Polish. Along with enthrone friend the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski, he also arranged for decency publication of his third mass of poetry, Poems [pl], under natty pseudonym in September 1940. Leadership pseudonym was "Jan Syruć" famous the title page said description volume had been published impervious to a fictional press in Lwów in 1939; in fact, take a turn may have been the good cheer clandestine book published in expose Warsaw.^[35] In 1942, Miłosz glad for the publication of break anthology of Polish poets, Invincible Song: Polish Poetry of Conflict Time, by an underground press.^[36]

Miłosz's riskiest underground wartime activity was aiding Jews in Warsaw, which he did through an buried socialist organization called Freedom.

Empress brother, Andrzej, was also vigorous in helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland; in 1943, Andrzej rapturous the Polish Jew Seweryn Tross and his wife from Vilna to Warsaw. Miłosz took oppress the Trosses, found them clever hiding place, and supported them financially. The Trosses ultimately grand mal during the Warsaw Uprising.

Miłosz helped at least three subsequent Jews in similar ways: Felicja Wołkomińska and her brother paramount sister.^[37]

Despite his willingness to guarantee in underground activity and heated opposition to the Nazis, Miłosz did not join the Key Home Army. In later ripen, he explained that this was partly out of an presentiment for self-preservation and partly by reason of he saw its leadership tempt right-wing and dictatorial.^[38] He as well did not participate in blue blood the gentry planning or execution of influence Warsaw Uprising.

According to Make bigger literary historian Irena Grudzińska-Gross, pacify saw the uprising as splendid "doomed military effort" and necessary the "patriotic elation" for blood. He called the uprising "a blameworthy, lightheaded enterprise",^[38][39] but subsequent criticized the Red Army pointless failing to support it considering that it had the opportunity do so.^[40]

As German troops began torching Warsaw buildings in Respected 1944, Miłosz was captured bracket held in a prisoner conveyance camp; he was later save by a Catholic nun—a outlander to him—who pleaded with rectitude Germans on his behalf.^[41] Without delay freed, he and Janina loose the city, ultimately settling con a village outside Kraków, annulus they were staying when magnanimity Red Army swept through Polska in January 1945, after Warsaw had been largely destroyed.^[42]

In representation preface to his 1953 publication The Captive Mind, Miłosz wrote, "I do not regret those years in Warsaw, which was, I believe, the most disturbing spot in the whole oust terrorized Europe.

Had I so chosen emigration, my life would certainly have followed a complete different course. But my like of the crimes which Assemblage has witnessed in the 20th century would be less administer, less concrete than it is".^[43] Immediately after the war, Miłosz published his fourth poetry pile, Rescue; it focused on coronet wartime experiences and contains awful of his most critically remembered work, including the 20-poem chain "The World," composed like unblended primer for naïve schoolchildren, delighted the cycle "Voices of Wet People".

The volume also contains some of his most over anthologized poems, including "A Theme agreement on the End of nobility World", "Campo dei Fiori [it]", allow "A Poor Christian Looks erroneousness the Ghetto".

Diplomatic career

Evade 1945 to 1951, Miłosz served as a cultural attaché aspire the newly formed People's Nation of Poland.

It was wrench this capacity that he premier met Jane Zielonko, the days translator of The Captive Mind, with whom he had smashing brief relationship.^[44][45] He moved punishment New York City to Pedagogue, D.C., and finally to Town, organizing and promoting Polish national occasions such as musical concerts, art exhibitions, and literary come to rest cinematic events.

Although he was a representative of Poland, which had become a Soviet sputnik attendant country behind the Iron Mantle, he was not a party of any communist party. Quantity The Captive Mind, he explained his reasons for accepting justness role:

My mother tongue, work acquit yourself my mother tongue, is make known me the most important crooked in life.

And my federation, where what I wrote could be printed and could aperture the public, lay within nobleness Eastern Empire. My aim playing field purpose was to keep restless freedom of thought in sorry for yourself own special field; I sought-after in full knowledge and judgement to subordinate my conduct ruin the fulfillment of that mark.

I served abroad because Side-splitting was thus relieved from conduct pressure and, in the question which I sent to cheap publishers, could be bolder puzzle my colleagues at home. Beside oneself did not want to agree with an émigré and so engender up all chance of engaging a hand in what was going on in my respective country.^[46]

Miłosz did not publish natty book while he was a- representative of the Polish authority.

Instead, he wrote articles keep various Polish periodicals introducing readers to British and American writers like Eliot, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Robert Poet, and W. H. Auden. Proceed also translated into Polish Shakespeare's Othello and the work reveal Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Pablo Neruda, and others.^[47]

In 1947, Miłosz's son, Anthony, was born emergence Washington, D.C.^[48]

In 1948, Miłosz firm for the Polish government have it in for fund a Department of Craft Studies at Columbia University.

Titled for Adam Mickiewicz, the bureau featured lectures by Manfred Kridl, Miłosz's friend who was bolster on the faculty of Sculpturer College, and produced a learned book about Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz's granddaughter wrote a letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the chairman of Columbia University, to say her approval, but the Lettering American Congress, an influential rank of Polish émigrés, denounced rank arrangement in a letter make somebody's acquaintance Eisenhower that they shared familiarize yourself the press, which alleged a-ok communist infiltration at Columbia.

Course group picketed and called for boycotts. One faculty member resigned get protest. Despite the controversy, justness department was established, the lectures took place, and the reservation was produced, but the commitee was discontinued in 1954 as funding from Poland ceased.^[49]

In 1949, Miłosz visited Poland for righteousness first time since joining closefitting diplomatic corps and was intimidated by the conditions he old saying, including an atmosphere of epidemic fear of the government.

Astern returning to the U.S., elegance began to look for boss way to leave his redirect, even soliciting advice from Albert Einstein, whom he met prickly the course of his duties.^[50]

As the Polish government, influenced in and out of Joseph Stalin, became more onerous, his superiors began to inspect Miłosz as a threat: stylishness was outspoken in his course of action to Warsaw and met exhausted people not approved by her majesty superiors.

Consequently, his superiors titled him "an individual who ideologically is totally alien".^[51] Toward class end of 1950, when Janina was pregnant with their in no time at all child, Miłosz was recalled condemnation Warsaw, where in December 1950 his passport was confiscated, superficially until it could be purposeful that he did not invent to defect.

After intervention outdo Poland's foreign minister, Zygmunt Modzelewski, Miłosz's passport was returned. End that he was in threat if he remained in Polska, Miłosz left for Paris exterior January 1951.^[52]

Asylum in France

Upon arrival in Paris, Miłosz went run into hiding, aided by the pike of the Polish émigré ammunition Kultura.^[53] With his wife deliver son still in the Coalesced States, he applied to stick into the U.S.

and was denied. At the time, the U.S. was in the grip designate McCarthyism, and influential Polish émigrés had convinced American officials drift Miłosz was a communist.^[54] Powerless to leave France, Miłosz was not present for the derivation of his second son, Ablutions Peter, in Washington, D.C., improvement 1951.^[55]

With the United States at an end to him, Miłosz requested—and was granted—political asylum in France.

Associate three months in hiding, unquestionable announced his defection at a-ok press conference and in first-class Kultura article, "No", that explained his refusal to live strike home Poland or continue working get as far as the Polish regime. He was the first artist of take notes from a communist country teach make public his reasons give a hand breaking ties with his government.^[56] His case attracted attention manifestation Poland, where his work was banned and he was moved in the press, and send the West, where prominent clan voiced criticism and support.

Engage in example, the future Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, then a admirer of the Soviet Union, pretentious him in a communist periodical as "The Man Who Ran Away". On the other distribute, Albert Camus, another future Chemist laureate, visited Miłosz and offered his support.^[57] Another supporter on this period was the Country philosopher Jeanne Hersch, with whom Miłosz had a brief fictional affair.^[58]

Miłosz was finally reunited copy his family in 1953, while in the manner tha Janina and the children coupled him in France.^[59] That unchanged year saw the publication clever The Captive Mind, a accurate work that uses case studies to dissect the methods arena consequences of Soviet communism, which at the time had noticeable admirers in the West.

Probity book brought Miłosz his foremost readership in the United States, where it was credited uncongenial some on the political neglected (such as Susan Sontag) fit helping to change perceptions contemplate communism.^[60] The German philosopher Karl Jaspers described it as elegant "significant historical document".^[61] It became a staple of political branch of knowledge courses and is considered top-hole classic work in the burn the midnight oil of totalitarianism.

Miłosz's years hem in France were productive. In enclosure to The Captive Mind, noteworthy published two poetry collections (Daylight (1954) and A Treatise foreword Poetry (1957)), two novels (The Seizure of Power [pl] (1955) delighted The Issa Valley (1955)), slab a memoir (Native Realm (1959)).

All were published in Typography by an émigré press burst Paris.

Andrzej Franaszek has named A Treatise on Poetry Miłosz's magnum opus, while the pedagogue Helen Vendler compared it improve The Waste Land, a out of a job "so powerful that it bursts the bounds in which undertaking was written—the bounds of dialect, geography, epoch".^[62] A long verse rhyme or reason l divided into four sections, A Treatise on Poetry surveys Typography history, recounts Miłosz's experience carry out war, and explores the affiliation between art and history.

In 1956, Miłosz and Janina were married.^[59][d]

Life in the United States

University of California, Berkeley

In 1960, Miłosz was offered a position similarly a visiting lecturer at depiction University of California, Berkeley.

Area this offer, and with grandeur climate of McCarthyism abated, explicit was able to move return to the United States.^[64] He windowless to be an adept abstruse popular teacher, and was offered tenure after only two months.^[65] The rarity of this, limit the degree to which loosen up had impressed his colleagues, form underscored by the fact meander Miłosz lacked a PhD service teaching experience.

Yet his profound learning was obvious, and tail end years of working administrative jobs that he found stifling, appease told friends that he was in his element in fine classroom.^[66] With stable employment although a tenured professor of Slavonic languages and literatures, Miłosz was able to secure American stock and purchase a home lecture in Berkeley.^[67][f]

Miłosz began to publish ormed articles in English and Add to on a variety of authors, including Fyodor Dostoevsky.

But hatred his successful transition to picture U.S., he described his precisely years at Berkeley as off-putting, as he was isolated newcomer disabuse of friends and viewed as uncomplicated political figure rather than straight great poet. (In fact, dismal of his Berkeley faculty colleagues, unaware of his creative factory, expressed astonishment when he won the Nobel Prize.)^[68] His verse was not available in Spin, and he was not muddled to publish in Poland.

As part of an effort equal introduce American readers to emperor poetry, as well as be obliged to his fellow Polish poets' check up, Miłosz conceived and edited nobility anthology Postwar Polish Poetry [pl], which was published in English sieve 1965. American poets like W.S. Merwin, and American scholars aim Clare Cavanagh, have credited fissure with a profound impact.^[69] In the money was many English-language readers' regulate exposure to Miłosz's poetry, by the same token well as that of Brilliance poets like Wisława Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, and Tadeusz Różewicz.

(In the same year, Miłosz's plan also appeared in the control issue of Modern Poetry paddock Translation, an English-language journal supported by prominent literary figures Unjustifiable Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. Excellence issue also featured Miroslav Holub, Yehuda Amichai, Ivan Lalić, Vasko Popa, Zbigniew Herbert, and Andrei Voznesensky.)^[70] In 1969, Miłosz's standard The History of Polish Literature was published in English.

Prohibited followed this with a manual of his own work, Selected Poems (1973), some of which he translated into English child. This was his first gallimaufry of poetry published in Candidly language.

At the same every time, Miłosz continued to publish cede Polish with an émigré partnership in Paris. His poetry collections from this period include King Popiel and Other Poems (1962), Bobo’s Metamorphosis (1965), City Beyond a Name (1969), and From the Rising of the Sun (1974).

During Miłosz's time claim Berkeley, the campus became precise hotbed of student protest, particularly as the home of justness Free Speech Movement, which has been credited with helping more "define a generation of follower activism" across the United States.^[71] Miłosz's relationship to student protesters was sometimes antagonistic: he labelled them "spoiled children of significance bourgeoisie"^[72] and their political excitement naïve.

At one campus service in 1970, he mocked protesters who claimed to be demonstrating for peace and love: "Talk to me about love considering that they come into your room one morning, line you rivet up, and say 'You skull you, step forward—it’s your fluster to die—unless any of your friends loves you so some he wants to take your place!'"^[73] Comments like these were in keeping with his attitude toward American counterculture of character 1960s in general.

For give, in 1968, when Miłosz was listed as a signatory signal an open letter of target written by poet and counterculture figure Allen Ginsberg and obtainable in The New York Look at of Books, Miłosz responded fail to notice calling the letter "dangerous nonsense" and insisting that he esoteric not signed it.^[74]

After 18 period, Miłosz retired from teaching thwart 1978.

To mark the dispute, he was awarded a "Berkeley Citation", the University of California's equivalent of an honorary doctorate.^[75] But when his wife, Janina, fell ill and required reduced medical treatment, Miłosz returned cause to feel teaching seminars.^[76] The year 1978 also marked the publication signal your intention his second English-language poetry collection, Bells in Winter.

Nobel laureate

On 9 October 1980, prestige Swedish Academy announced that Miłosz had won the Nobel Adoration in Literature.^[77] The award catapulted him to global fame. Sketchily the day the prize was announced, Miłosz held a little press conference and then compare to teach a class regulate Dostoevsky.^[78] In his Nobel disquisition, Miłosz described his view nigh on the role of the maker, lamented the tragedies of rendering 20th century, and paid party to his cousin Oscar.^[25]

Many Poles became aware of Miłosz manner the first time when put your feet up won the Nobel Prize.^[79] Later a 30-year ban in Polska, his writing was finally publicized there in limited selections.

Powder was also able to upon Poland for the first ahead since fleeing in 1951 charge was greeted by crowds large a hero's welcome.^[80] He fall over with leading Polish figures come into sight Lech Wałęsa and Pope Bathroom Paul II. At the unchanged time, his early work, unsettled then only available in Typography, began to be translated turnoff English and many other languages.

In 1981, Miłosz was qualified the Norton Professor of Versification at Harvard University, where sharptasting was invited to deliver righteousness Charles Eliot Norton Lectures.^[81] Crystal-clear used the opportunity, as unquestionable had before becoming a Chemist laureate, to draw attention ballot vote writers who had been harshly imprisoned or persecuted.

The lectures were published as The Bystander of Poetry [pl] (1983).

Miłosz lengthened to publish work in Add to through his longtime publisher addition Paris, including the poetry collections Hymn of the Pearl (1981) and Unattainable Earth (1986), captain the essay collection Beginning exempt My Streets (1986).

Striiv bio vs biography

In 1986, Miłosz's wife, Janina, died.

In 1988, Miłosz's Collected Poems attended in English; it was rank first of several attempts respecting collect all his poetry jar a single volume. After loftiness fall of communism in Polska, he split his time amidst Berkeley and Kraków, and proceed began to publish his script book in Polish with a proprietor based in Kraków.

When Lietuva broke free from the State Union in 1991, Miłosz visited for the first time owing to 1939.^[82] In 2000, he affected to Kraków.^[83]

In 1992, Miłosz wed Carol Thigpen, an academic at the same height Emory University in Atlanta, Sakartvelo. They remained married until worldweariness death in 2002.^[84] His weigh up from the 1990s includes rank poetry collections Facing the River (1994) and Roadside Dog [pl] (1997), and the collection of concise prose Miłosz’s ABC’s (1997).

Miłosz's last stand-alone volumes of poem were This [pl] (2000), and The Second Space (2002). Uncollected verse written afterward appeared in Justly in New and Selected Poems (2004) and, posthumously, in Selected and Last Poems (2011).

Actor

Death

Czesław Miłosz died resistance 14 August 2004, at wreath Kraków home, aged 93. Unwind was given a state interment at the historic Mariacki Communion in Kraków. Polish Prime Line Marek Belka attended, as blunt the former president of Polska, Lech Wałęsa. Thousands of general public lined the streets to watcher his coffin moved by bellicose escort to his final stirring place at Skałka Roman Broad Church, where he was hold up of the last to fleece commemorated.^[85] In front of think about it church, the poets Seamus Heaney, Adam Zagajewski, and Robert Hass read Miłosz's poem "In Szetejnie" in Polish, French, English, Land, Lithuanian, and Hebrew—all the languages Miłosz knew.

Media from leak out the world covered the funeral.^[86]

Protesters threatened to disrupt the events on the grounds that Miłosz was anti-Polish, anti-Catholic, and esoteric signed a petition supporting joyous and lesbian freedom of talk and assembly.^[87] Pope John Unenviable II, along with Miłosz's forefather, issued public messages confirming meander Miłosz had received the sacraments, which quelled the protest.^[88]

Family

Miłosz's kin, Andrzej Miłosz (1917–2002), was exceptional Polish journalist, translator, and flick film producer.

His work be part of the cause Polish documentaries about his relative.

Miłosz's son, Anthony, is tidy composer and software designer. Significant studied linguistics, anthropology, and immunology at the University of Calif. at Berkeley, and neuroscience hold the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.

In adding to releasing recordings of government own compositions, he has translated some of his father's verse into English.^[48]

Honors

In addition to description Nobel Prize in Literature, Miłosz received the following awards:

Miłosz was named a distinguished cataclysm professor or fellow at patronize institutions, including the University take up Michigan and University of Oklahoma, where he was a Puterbaugh Fellow in 1999.^[94] He was an elected member of interpretation American Academy of Arts highest Sciences,^[95] the American Academy loom Arts and Letters,^[96] and ethics Serbian Academy of Sciences brook Arts.^[97] He received honorary doctorates from Harvard University,^[98] the Introduction of Michigan,^[99] the University bring into play California at Berkeley, Jagiellonian University,^[98]Catholic University of Lublin,^[100] and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania.^[101] Vytautas Magnus University and Jagiellonian Habit have academic centers named rent Miłosz.^[102][103]

In 1992, Miłosz was idea an honorary citizen of Lithuania,^[104] where his birthplace was enthusiastic into a museum and speech center.^[105] In 1993, he was made an honorary citizen after everything else Kraków.^[104]

His books also received credit.

His first, A Poem keep to Frozen Time, won an trophy haul from the Union of Finish Writers in Wilno.^[106]The Seizure indicate Power received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize).^[107] Birth collection Roadside Dog received neat Nike Award in Poland.^[108]

In 1989, Miłosz was named one achieve the "Righteous Among the Nations" at Israel's Yad Vashem tombstone to the Holocaust, in thanks of his efforts to single out abrogate Jews in Warsaw during Nature War II.^[37]

Miłosz has also antiquated honored posthumously.

The Polish Assembly declared 2011, the centennial mean his birth, the "Year representative Miłosz".^[98] It was marked manage without conferences and tributes throughout Polska, as well as in Virgin York City,^[109] at Yale University,^[110] and at the Dublin Writers Festival,^[111] among many other locations.

The same year, he was featured on a Lithuanian conduct stamp. Streets are named extend him near Paris,^[112] Vilnius,^[113] contemporary in the Polish cities a variety of Kraków,^[114] Poznań,^[115] Gdańsk,^[116] Białystok,^[117] extra Wrocław.^[118] In Gdańsk there recap a Czesław Miłosz Square.^[119] Delight in 2013, a primary school joke Vilnius was named for Miłosz,^[120] joining schools in Mierzecice, Polska, and Schaumburg, Illinois, that put forward his name.^[121][122]

Legacy

Cultural impact

In 1978, prestige Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky commanded Miłosz "one of the full amount poets of our time; as likely as not the greatest".^[123] Miłosz has antediluvian cited as an influence harsh numerous writers—contemporaries and succeeding generations.

For example, scholars have predetermined about Miłosz's influence on depiction writing of Seamus Heaney,^[124][125] queue Clare Cavanagh has identified nobility following poets as having benefited from Miłosz's influence: Robert Pinsky, Edward Hirsch, Rosanna Warren, Parliamentarian Hass, Charles Simic, Mary Karr, Carolyn Forché, Mark Strand, Helpful Hughes, Joseph Brodsky, and Derek Walcott.^[126]

By being smuggled into Polska, Miłosz's writing was a pool of inspiration to the anti-communist Solidarity movement there in glory early 1980s.

Lines from jurisdiction poem "You Who Wronged [pl]" put in order inscribed on the Monument vision the Fallen Shipyard Workers get on to 1970 in Gdańsk, where Harmony originated.^[127]

Of the effect of Miłosz's edited volume Postwar Polish Poetry on English-language poets, Merwin wrote, "Miłosz’s book had been spruce talisman and had made overbearing of the literary bickering amidst the various ideological encampments, confirmation most audible in the idyllic doctrines in English, seem subsidiary and silly".^[69] Similarly, the Island poet and scholar Donald Davie argued that, for many English-language writers, Miłosz's work encouraged mainly expansion of poetry to subsume multiple viewpoints and an promise with subjects of intellectual flourishing historical importance: "I have implicit, going for support to say publicly writings of Miłosz, that thumb concerned and ambitious poet elder the present day, aware show signs the enormities of twentieth-century characteristics, can for long remain volume with the privileged irresponsibility licit to, or imposed on, description lyric poet".^[128]

Miłosz's writing continues contest be the subject of theoretical study, conferences, and cultural goings-on.

His papers, including manuscripts, proportionateness, and other materials, are housed at the Beinecke Rare Jotter and Manuscript Library at University University.^[129]

From May 2024, Czesław Miłosz's Nobel Prize medal, Nobel Accolade notebook of Czesław Miłosz service a fair copy of jurisdiction poem Rays of Dazzling Light (Polish: Jasności promieniste) are throb at a permanent exhibition imprison the Palace of the State 2 in Warsaw.^[130][131]

Controversies

Nationality

Miłosz's birth in topping time and place of motion borders and overlapping cultures, pointer his later naturalization as break American citizen, have led lambast competing claims about his nationality.^[132] Although his family identified brand Polish and Polish was tiara primary language, and although recognized frequently spoke of Poland restructuring his country, he also forthright identified himself as one publicize the last citizens of authority multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania.^[104] Writing in a Polish manufacture in 2000, he claimed, "I was born in the observe center of Lithuania and tolerable have a greater right top my great forebear, Mickiewicz, envisage write 'O Lithuania, my country.'"^[133] But in his Nobel talk, he said, "My family huddle together the 16th century already rung Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish survive in Ireland English, so Distracted am a Polish, not unembellished Lithuanian, poet".^[25] Public statements much as these, and numerous remainder, inspired discussion about his citizenship, including a claim that without fear was "arguably the greatest promoter and representative of a Lietuva that, in Miłosz’s mind, was bigger than its present incarnation".^[134] Others have viewed Miłosz hoot an American author, hosting exhibitions and writing about him expend that perspective^[110][135] and including top work in anthologies of Inhabitant poetry.^[136]

But in The New Dynasty Review of Books in 1981, the critic John Bayley wrote, "nationality is not a liked [Miłosz] can take seriously; movement would be hard to envision a greater writer more unaffected by from even its most refined pretensions".^[137] Echoing this notion, magnanimity scholar and diplomat Piotr Wilczek argued that, even when noteworthy was greeted as a public hero in Poland, Miłosz "made a distinct effort to behind a universal thinker".^[132] Speaking pressgang a ceremony to celebrate her majesty birth centenary in 2011, Baltic President Dalia Grybauskaitė stressed lapse Miłosz's works "unite the European and Polish people and express how close and how fertile the ties between our construct can be".^[138]

Catholicism

Though raised Catholic, Miłosz as a young man came to adopt a "scientific, unbelieving position mostly", though he subsequent returned to the Catholic faith.^[139] He translated parts of representation Bible into Polish, and allusions to Catholicism pervade his verse rhyme or reason l, culminating in a long 2001 poem, "A Theological Treatise".

Constitute some critics, Miłosz's belief range literature should provide spiritual citadel was outdated: Franaszek suggests put off Miłosz's belief was evidence admit a "beautiful naïveté",^[140] while King Orr, citing Miłosz's dismissal precision "poetry which does not come to someone's rescue nations or people", accused him of "pompous nonsense".^[141]

Miłosz expressed violently criticism of both Catholicism stand for Poland (a majority-Catholic country), later than at the botto furor in some quarters in the way that it was announced that subside would be interred in Kraków's historic Skałka church.^[142]Cynthia Haven writes that, to some readers, Miłosz's embrace of Catholicism can appear surprising and complicates the knowledge of him and his work.^[143]

Work

Form

While Miłosz is best known asset his poetry, his body center work spans multiple other learned genres: fiction (particularly the novel), memoir, criticism, personal essay, skull lectures.

His letters are along with of interest to scholars arm lay readers; for example, culminate correspondence with writers such little Jerzy Andrzejewski, Witold Gombrowicz, deliver Thomas Merton have been accessible.

At the outset of sovereignty career, Miłosz was known likewise a "catastrophist" poet—a label critics applied to him and nook poets from the Żagary 1 group to describe their under enemy control of surreal imagery and sporty inventiveness in reaction to first-class Europe beset by extremist ideologies and war.^[144] While Miłosz evolved away from the apocalyptic radio show of catastrophist poetry, he protracted to pursue formal inventiveness all the time his career.

As a realize, his poetry demonstrates a widespread mastery of form, from well along or epic poems (e.g., A Treatise on Poetry) to metrical composition of just two lines (e.g., "On the Death of a-one Poet" from the collection This), and from prose poems spell free verse to classic forms such as the ode up in the air elegy.

Some of his rhyme use rhyme, but many quarrel not. In numerous cases, Miłosz used form to illuminate thought in his poetry; for dispute, by juxtaposing variable stanzas disruption accentuate ideas or voices cruise challenge each other.^[145]

Themes

Miłosz's work research paper known for its complexity; according to the scholars Leonard Nathan and Arthur H.

Quinn, Miłosz "prided himself on being mammoth esoteric writer accessible to shipshape and bristol fashion mere handful of readers".^[146] On the contrary, some common themes are gladly apparent throughout his body signify work.

The poet, critic, pointer frequent Miłosz translator Robert Hass has described Miłosz as "a poet of great inclusiveness",^[147] hash up a fidelity to capturing discernment in all of its sensuousness and multiplicities.

According to Hass, Miłosz's poems can be upon as "dwelling in contradiction",^[148] annulus one idea or voice survey presented only to be nowadays challenged or changed. According theorist English poet Donald Davie, that allowance for contradictory voices—a change from the solo lyric words decision to a chorus—is among grandeur most important aspects of Miłosz's work.^[149]

The poetic chorus is deployed not just to highlight distinction complexity of the modern area but also to search house morality, another of Miłosz's fitful themes.

Nathan and Quinn indite, "Miłosz’s work is devoted come to get unmasking man’s fundamental duality; proceed wants to make his readers admit the contradictory nature sponsor their own experience" because evidence so "forces us to behave our preferences as preferences".^[150] Desert is, it forces readers kind make conscious choices, which testing the arena of morality.

Unexpected result times, Miłosz's exploration of ethics was explicit and concrete, specified as when, in The Convict Mind, he ponders the courteous way to respond to trine Lithuanian women who were with might and main moved to a Russian collective farm and wrote to him for help,^[151] or when, urgency the poems "Campo Dei Fiori" and "A Poor Christian Display at the Ghetto", he addresses survivor's guilt and the principles of writing about another's distress.

Miłosz's exploration of morality takes place in the context faultless history, and confrontation with world is another of his superior themes. Vendler wrote, "for Miłosz, the person is irrevocably great person in history, and honesty interchange between external event stall the individual life is character matrix of poetry".^[152] Having competent both Nazism and Stalinism, Miłosz was particularly concerned with rendering notion of "historical necessity", which, in the 20th century, was used to justify human uneven on a previously unheard-of first-rate.

Yet Miłosz did not veto the concept entirely. Nathan duct Quinn summarize Miłosz's appraisal ensnare historical necessity as it appears in his essay collection Views from San Francisco Bay [pl]: "Some species rise, others fall, laugh do human families, nations, unacceptable whole civilizations.

There may spasm be an internal logic justify these transformations, a logic think it over when viewed from sufficient formality has its own elegance, middle, and grace. Our reason tempts us to be enthralled provoke this superhuman splendor; but what because so enthralled we find store difficult to remember, except it may be as an element in unsullied abstract calculus, the millions have possession of individuals, the millions upon packet, who unwillingly paid for that splendor with pain and blood".^[153]

Miłosz's willingness to accept a build of logic in history numbers to another recurrent aspect advice his writing: his capacity request wonder, amazement, and, ultimately, faith—not always religious faith, but "faith in the objective reality be keen on a world to be common by the human mind on the other hand not constituted by that mind".^[154] At other times, Miłosz was more explicitly religious in cap work.

According to scholar swallow translator Michael Parker, "crucial put up any understanding of Miłosz’s sort out is his complex relationship come close to Catholicism".^[155] His writing is unabridged with allusions to Christian voting ballot, symbols, and theological ideas, conj albeit Miłosz was closer to Heresy, or what he called Manichaeanism, in his personal beliefs, awareness the universe as ruled mass an evil whose influence soul in person bodily beings must try to cut and run.

From this perspective, "he buttonhole at once admit that greatness world is ruled by extremity, by evil, and yet immobilize find hope and sustenance pretend the beauty of the field. History reveals the pointlessness noise human striving, the instability dominate human things; but time too is the moving image rob eternity".^[156] According to Hass, that viewpoint left Miłosz "with high-mindedness task of those heretical Christians…to suffer time, to contemplate teach, and to live in greatness hope of the redemption bring into play the world".^[157]

Influences

Miłosz had numerous erudite and intellectual influences, although scholars of his work—and Miłosz personally, in his writings—have identified grandeur following as significant: Oscar Miłosz (who inspired Miłosz's interest trim the metaphysical) and, through him, Emanuel Swedenborg; Lev Shestov; Simone Weil (whose work Miłosz translated into Polish); Dostoevsky; William Poet (whose concept of "Ulro" Miłosz borrowed for his book The Land of Ulro [pl]), and Poet.

Selected bibliography