Czeslaw Milosz
Encyclopedia
Czesław Miłosz was a Polish
poet, prose writer and translator of Lithuania
n origin and subsequent American citizenship. His World War II-era sequence The World is a collection of 20 "naive" poems. He defected to the West in 1951, and his nonfiction book The Captive Mind
(1953) is a classic of anti-Stalinism. From 1961 to 1998 he was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley
. In 1980 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
.
Czesław Miłosz was born on June 30, 1911 in the village of Seteniai , Kaunas Governorate, Russian Empire
(now Kėdainiai district
, Kaunas County
, Lithuania
) on the border between two Lithuanian historical regions of Samogitia
and Aukštaitija
in central Lithuania. He was a son of Aleksander Miłosz (d.1959), a civil engineer, and Weronika, née Kunat (d.1945), descendant of the Siručiai noble family. Miłosz was fluent in Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, English and French. His brother, Andrzej Miłosz (1917–2002), a Polish journalist, translator of literature and of film subtitles into Polish, was a documentary-film producer who created Polish documentaries about his brother.
Miłosz was raised Catholic in rural Lithuania and emphasized his identity with the multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania
, a stance that led to ongoing controversies; he refused to categorically identify himself as either a Pole or a Lithuanian. He said of himself: "I am a Lithuanian to whom it was not given to be a Lithuanian.", and "My family in the sixteenth century already spoke Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish and in Ireland English, so I am a Polish not a Lithuanian poet. But the landscapes and perhaps the spirits of Lithuania have never abandoned me". Miłosz memorialised his Lithuanian childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley, and in the 1959 memoir Native Realm.
In his youth, Miłosz came to adopt, as he put it, a "scientific, atheistic position mostly", though he was later to return to the Catholic faith. After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium
in Vilnius
, he studied law at Stefan Batory University
and in 1931 he travelled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz
, a French poet of Lithuanian descent and a Swedenborgian
. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934. After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms
into Polish.
Miłosz spent World War II in Warsaw
, under Nazi Germany's "General Government
". Here he attended underground lectures
by Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics
, Władysław Tatarkiewicz. He did not participate in the Warsaw Uprising
since he resided outside Warsaw proper. After World War II, Miłosz served as cultural attaché of the communist People's Republic of Poland
in Paris
. In 1951 he defected and obtained political asylum in France. In 1953 he received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize).
In 1960 Miłosz emigrated to the United States, and in 1970 he became a U.S. citizen. In 1961 he began a professorship in Polish literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley
. In 1978 he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature
. He retired that same year, but continued teaching at Berkeley. Milosz' personal attitude about living in Berkeley is sensitively portrayed in his poem, "A Magic Mountain," contained in a collection of translated poems entitled Bells in Winter, published by Ecco Press (1985). Having grown up in the cold climates of Eastern Europe, Milosz was especially struck by the lack of seasonal weather in Berkeley and by some of the brilliant refugees from around the world who became his friends at the university.
In 1980 Miłosz received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Since his works had been banned in Poland by the communist government, this was the first time that many Poles became aware of him. When the Iron Curtain
fell, Miłosz was able to return to Poland, at first to visit and later to live part-time in Kraków
. He divided his time between his home in Berkeley and an apartment in Kraków. In 1989, he received the U.S. National Medal of Arts
and an honorary doctorate from Harvard University
. During this period in Poland, his work was silenced by government-censored media.
Miłosz's 1953 book The Captive Mind
is a study about how intellectuals behave under a repressive regime, a work which he himself later translated into English. Miłosz observed that those who became dissident
s were not necessarily those with the strongest minds, but rather those with the weakest stomachs; the mind can rationalize anything, he said, but the stomach can take only so much. Through the Cold War
, the book was often cited by US conservative commentators such as William F. Buckley, Jr.
.
Miłosz spoke of the difficulty of writing religious poetry in a largely postreligious world. His compatriot Pope John Paul II
, commenting upon some of his work, in particular "Six Lectures in Verse", said to him, "You make one step forward, one step back." Miłosz answered, "Holy Father, how in the twentieth century can one write religious poetry differently?" The Pope smiled.
's Skałka Roman Catholic Church, one of the last to be commemorated there. His first wife, Janina (née Dłuska), whom he had married in 1944, predeceased him in 1986. They had two sons, Anthony (b. 1947) and John Peter (b.1951 ). His second wife, Carol Thigpen, an American-born historian, died in 2002.
Miłosz is honoured at Israel's Yad Vashem
memorial to the Holocaust
, as one of the "Righteous among the Nations
". A poem by Miłosz appears on a Gdańsk
memorial to protesting shipyard workers who had been killed by government security forces in 1970. His books and poems have been translated by many hands, including Jane Zielonko, Peter Dale Scott
, Robert Pinsky
and Robert Hass
.
From October 19 through October 21, Claremont McKenna College
will host Milosz and the Future: A Centenary Festival in Honor of Czeslaw Milosz to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Milosz's birth. Speakers will include Jacek Dehnel
, Piotr Florczyk, Jacek Gutorow, W.S. Merwin, Adam Michnik
, Azar Nafisi
, Robert Pinsky
, Peter Dale Scott
, Tomasz Rozycki
, Dariusz Sosnicki and Joanna Trzeciak.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
poet, prose writer and translator of Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n origin and subsequent American citizenship. His World War II-era sequence The World is a collection of 20 "naive" poems. He defected to the West in 1951, and his nonfiction book The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind is a 1953 work of nonfiction by Polish writer, academic and Nobel laureate, Czesław Miłosz, translated into English by Jane Zielonko and originally published by Secker and Warburg. The book was written soon after the author received political asylum in Paris following his break...
(1953) is a classic of anti-Stalinism. From 1961 to 1998 he was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. In 1980 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
.
Life in Europe
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(now Kėdainiai district
Kedainiai district municipality
- Structure :District structure:* 1 city – Kėdainiai;* 10 towns – Akademija, Kėdainiai, Dotnuva, Gudžiūnai, Josvainiai, Krakės, Pagiriai, Pernarava, Surviliškis, Šėta and Truskava;* 534 villages.Biggest population :*Kėdainiai – 32048*Josvainiai – 1545...
, Kaunas County
Kaunas County
Kaunas County is one of ten counties of Lithuania. It is in the centre of the country, and its capital is Kaunas...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
) on the border between two Lithuanian historical regions of Samogitia
Samogitia
Samogitia is one of the five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. It is located in northwestern Lithuania. Its largest city is Šiauliai/Šiaulē. The region has a long and distinct cultural history, reflected in the existence of the Samogitian dialect...
and Aukštaitija
Aukštaitija
Aukštaitija is the name of one of five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. The name comes from the relatively high elevation of the region, particularly the eastern parts.-Geography:...
in central Lithuania. He was a son of Aleksander Miłosz (d.1959), a civil engineer, and Weronika, née Kunat (d.1945), descendant of the Siručiai noble family. Miłosz was fluent in Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, English and French. His brother, Andrzej Miłosz (1917–2002), a Polish journalist, translator of literature and of film subtitles into Polish, was a documentary-film producer who created Polish documentaries about his brother.
Miłosz was raised Catholic in rural Lithuania and emphasized his identity with the multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state from the 12th /13th century until 1569 and then as a constituent part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1791 when Constitution of May 3, 1791 abolished it in favor of unitary state. It was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic...
, a stance that led to ongoing controversies; he refused to categorically identify himself as either a Pole or a Lithuanian. He said of himself: "I am a Lithuanian to whom it was not given to be a Lithuanian.", and "My family in the sixteenth century already spoke Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish and in Ireland English, so I am a Polish not a Lithuanian poet. But the landscapes and perhaps the spirits of Lithuania have never abandoned me". Miłosz memorialised his Lithuanian childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley, and in the 1959 memoir Native Realm.
In his youth, Miłosz came to adopt, as he put it, a "scientific, atheistic position mostly", though he was later to return to the Catholic faith. After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, he studied law at Stefan Batory University
Vilnius University
Vilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. It is also the largest university in Lithuania....
and in 1931 he travelled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz
Oscar Milosz
Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz was a French-Lithuanian writer and representative of Lithuania at the League of Nations. His literary work was concerned with symbols and associations. A recluse, his poems were vibrant and tormented, concerned with love, loneliness and anger. Milosz was primarily...
, a French poet of Lithuanian descent and a Swedenborgian
Swedenborgian
A Swedenborgian is the doctrines, beliefs, and practices of the Church of the New Jerusalem, and is an adjective describing a person or an organization that understands the Bible through the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg....
. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934. After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
into Polish.
Miłosz spent World War II in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, under Nazi Germany's "General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
". Here he attended underground lectures
Education in Poland during World War II
This article covers the topic of underground education in Poland during World War II. Secret learning prepared new cadres for the post-war reconstruction of Poland and countered the German and Soviet threat to exterminate the Polish culture....
by Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, Władysław Tatarkiewicz. He did not participate in the Warsaw Uprising
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
since he resided outside Warsaw proper. After World War II, Miłosz served as cultural attaché of the communist People's Republic of Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1951 he defected and obtained political asylum in France. In 1953 he received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize).
Life in the United States
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. In 1978 he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature
Neustadt International Prize for Literature
The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award for literature sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and its international literary publication, World Literature Today. It is widely considered to be the most prestigious international literary prize after the Nobel Prize in...
. He retired that same year, but continued teaching at Berkeley. Milosz' personal attitude about living in Berkeley is sensitively portrayed in his poem, "A Magic Mountain," contained in a collection of translated poems entitled Bells in Winter, published by Ecco Press (1985). Having grown up in the cold climates of Eastern Europe, Milosz was especially struck by the lack of seasonal weather in Berkeley and by some of the brilliant refugees from around the world who became his friends at the university.
In 1980 Miłosz received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Since his works had been banned in Poland by the communist government, this was the first time that many Poles became aware of him. When the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
fell, Miłosz was able to return to Poland, at first to visit and later to live part-time in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
. He divided his time between his home in Berkeley and an apartment in Kraków. In 1989, he received the U.S. National Medal of Arts
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
and an honorary doctorate from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. During this period in Poland, his work was silenced by government-censored media.
Miłosz's 1953 book The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind is a 1953 work of nonfiction by Polish writer, academic and Nobel laureate, Czesław Miłosz, translated into English by Jane Zielonko and originally published by Secker and Warburg. The book was written soon after the author received political asylum in Paris following his break...
is a study about how intellectuals behave under a repressive regime, a work which he himself later translated into English. Miłosz observed that those who became dissident
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
s were not necessarily those with the strongest minds, but rather those with the weakest stomachs; the mind can rationalize anything, he said, but the stomach can take only so much. Through the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, the book was often cited by US conservative commentators such as William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
.
Miłosz spoke of the difficulty of writing religious poetry in a largely postreligious world. His compatriot Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
, commenting upon some of his work, in particular "Six Lectures in Verse", said to him, "You make one step forward, one step back." Miłosz answered, "Holy Father, how in the twentieth century can one write religious poetry differently?" The Pope smiled.
Death and legacy
Miłosz died in 2004 at his Kraków home, aged 93 and was buried in KrakówKraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
's Skałka Roman Catholic Church, one of the last to be commemorated there. His first wife, Janina (née Dłuska), whom he had married in 1944, predeceased him in 1986. They had two sons, Anthony (b. 1947) and John Peter (b.1951 ). His second wife, Carol Thigpen, an American-born historian, died in 2002.
Miłosz is honoured at Israel's Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
memorial to the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, as one of the "Righteous among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
". A poem by Miłosz appears on a Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
memorial to protesting shipyard workers who had been killed by government security forces in 1970. His books and poems have been translated by many hands, including Jane Zielonko, Peter Dale Scott
Peter Dale Scott
Peter Dale Scott is a Canadian born, former English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a former diplomat and a poet....
, Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
and Robert Hass
Robert Hass
Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...
.
From October 19 through October 21, Claremont McKenna College
Claremont McKenna College
Claremont McKenna College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college and a member of the Claremont Colleges located in Claremont, California. The campus is located east of Downtown Los Angeles...
will host Milosz and the Future: A Centenary Festival in Honor of Czeslaw Milosz to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Milosz's birth. Speakers will include Jacek Dehnel
Jacek Dehnel
Jacek Dehnel in Gdańsk, Poland) is a Polish poet, writer, translator and painter. Dehnel studied at Warsaw University in the MISH College and graduated from the Polish Language and Literature department...
, Piotr Florczyk, Jacek Gutorow, W.S. Merwin, Adam Michnik
Adam Michnik
Adam Michnik is the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, where he sometimes writes under the pen-names of Andrzej Zagozda or Andrzej Jagodziński. In 1966–1989 he was one of the leading organizers of the illegal, democratic opposition in Poland...
, Azar Nafisi
Azar Nafisi
Azar Nafisi, born ca. 1947, is an Iranian academic and bestselling writer who has resided in the United States since 1997 when she emigrated from Iran. Her field is English language literature....
, Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...
, Peter Dale Scott
Peter Dale Scott
Peter Dale Scott is a Canadian born, former English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a former diplomat and a poet....
, Tomasz Rozycki
Tomasz Różycki
Tomasz Różycki is a Polish poet and translator. He studied Romance Languages at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and taught French at the Foreign Languages Teaching College in Opole...
, Dariusz Sosnicki and Joanna Trzeciak.
Poetry collections
- 1936: Trzy zimyTrzy zimyTrzy zimy is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1936....
(Three Winters); Warsaw: Władysława Mortkowicz - 1945: OcalenieOcalenieOcalenie is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1945....
(Rescue); Warsaw: Czytelnik - 1954: Światło dzienne (The Light of Day); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1957: Traktat poetyckiTraktat poetyckiTraktat poetycki is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1957....
(A Poetical Treatise); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1962: Król Popiel i inne wierszeKról Popiel i inne wierszeKról Popiel i inne wiersze is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1962....
(King Popiel and Other Poems); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1965: Gucio zaczarowanyGucio zaczarowanyGucio zaczarowany is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1965....
(Gucio Enchanted); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1969: Miasto bez imieniaMiasto bez imieniaMiasto bez imienia is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1969....
(City Without a Name); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1974: Gdzie słońce wschodzi i kedy zapada (Where the Sun Rises and Where it Sets); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1982: Hymn o PerleHymn o PerleHymn o Perle is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz which means "Hymn of the Pearl". It was first published in 1982....
(The Poem of the Pearl); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1984: Nieobjęta ziemiaNieobjeta ziemiaNieobjeta ziemia is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1984....
(The Unencompassed Earth); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1989: KronikiKronikiKroniki is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1989....
(Chronicles); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1991: Dalsze okoliceDalsze okoliceDalsze okolice is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1991....
(Farther Surroundings); Kraków: Znak - 1994: Na brzegu rzekiNa brzegu rzekiNa brzegu rzeki is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 1994....
(Facing the River); Kraków: Znak - 2000: ToTo (play)To is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 2000....
(It), Kraków: Znak - 2002: Druga przestrzeńDruga przestrzenDruga przestrzen is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 2002....
(The Second Space); Cracow: Znak - 2003: Orfeusz i EurydykaOrfeusz i EurydykaOrfeusz i Eurydyka is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 2003....
(Orpheus and Eurydice); Kraków: WL - 2006: Wiersze ostatnieWiersze ostatnieWiersze ostatnie is a poetry collection by Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in 2006....
(Last Poems) Kraków: Znak
Prose collections
- 1953: Zniewolony umysł (The Captive MindThe Captive MindThe Captive Mind is a 1953 work of nonfiction by Polish writer, academic and Nobel laureate, Czesław Miłosz, translated into English by Jane Zielonko and originally published by Secker and Warburg. The book was written soon after the author received political asylum in Paris following his break...
); Paris: Instytut Literacki - 1955: Zdobycie władzy (The Seizure of Power); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1955: Dolina Issy (The Issa Valley); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1959: Rodzinna Europa (Native Realm); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1969: The History of Polish Literature; London-New York: MacMillan
- 1969: Widzenia nad Zatoką San Francisco (A View of San Francisco Bay); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1974: Prywatne obowiązki (Private Obligations); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1976: Emperor of the Earth; Berkeley: University of California Press
- 1977: Ziemia Ulro (The Land of Ulro); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1979: Ogród Nauk (The Garden of Science); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1981: Nobel Lecture; New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1981
- 1983: The Witness of Poetry; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
- 1985: Zaczynając od moich ulic (Starting from My Streets); Paris: Instytut Literacki
- 1986: A mi Európánkról (About our Europe); New York: Hill and Wang
- 1992: Szukanie ojczyzny (In Search of a Homeland); Kraków: Znak
- 1995: Metafizyczna pauza (The Metaphysical Pause); Kraków: Znak
- 1996: Legendy nowoczesności (Modern Legends, War Essays); Kraków: WL
- 1997: Zycie na wyspach (Life on Islands); Kraków: Znak
- 1997: Piesek przydrożny (Roadside Dog); Kraków: Znak
- 1997: Abecadło Milosza (Milosz's Alphabet); Kraków: WL
- 1988: Inne Abecadło (A Further Alphabet); Kraków: WL
- 1999: Wyprawa w dwudziestolecie (An Excursion through the Twenties and Thirties); Cracow: WL
- 2004: Spiżarnia literacka (A Literary Larder); Kraków: WL
- 2004: Przygody młodego umysłu; Kraków: Znak
- 2004: O podróżach w czasie; (On time travel) Kraków: Znak
Translations by Miłosz
- 1996: Talking to My Body by Anna SwirAnna SwirszczynskaAnna Świrszczyńska was a Polish poet whose works deal with themes, including her experiences during World War II, motherhood, the female body, and sensuality.-Background:...
translated by Czesław Miłosz and Leonard NathanLeonard NathanDr. Leonard E. Nathan, was an American poet, critic, and professor emeritus of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley where he retired in 1991....
, Copper Canyon PressCopper Canyon PressCopper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, specializing in the publication of poetry and located in the picturesque town of Port Townsend, Washington. Since 1972, the Press has published poetry exclusively and has established an international reputation for its commitment to...
Further reading
- Zagajewski, AdamAdam ZagajewskiAdam Zagajewski is a Polish poet, novelist, translator and essayist.In 1982 he emigrated to Paris, but in 2002 he returned to Poland, and resides in Kraków. His poem "Try To Praise The Mutilated World", printed in The New Yorker, became famous after the 11 September attacks...
, editor (2007) Polish Writers on Writing featuring Czeslaw Milosz. Trinity University Press - Faggen, Robert, editor (1996) Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czesław Miłosz. Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Haven, Cynthia L., editor (2006) Czeslaw Milosz: Conversations. University Press of Mississippi ISBN 1578068290
- Miłosz, Czesław (2006) New and Collected Poems 1931-2001. Penguin Modern Classics Poetry ISBN 0141186410 (posthumous collection)
- Miłosz, Czesław (2010) Proud To Be A Mammal: Essays on War, Faith and Memory. Penguin Translated Texts ISBN 0141193190 (posthumous collection)
Profiles and interviews
- 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature (official site). Accessed 2010-08-04
- Profile at the American Academy of Poets. Accessed 2010-08-04
- Profile and works at the Poetry Foundation
- Profile at Culture PL. Accessed 2011-03-17
- Interview with Nathan Gardels for the New York Review of Books, February 1986. Accessed 2010-08-04
- Conversation between Milosz and Susan Sontag. UC Berkeley, March 1990 (audio). Accessed 2010-08-04
- Georgia Review 2001. Accessed 2010-08-04
- Obituary The Economist. Accessed 2010-08-04
- Obituary New York Times. Accessed 2010-08-04
Works and archive
- Biography and selected works listing. The Book Institute. Accessed 2010-08-04
- Czeslaw Milosz Papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library