Miłosz's paternal grandfather, Artur Miłosz, was also from a noble family and fought in the 1863 January Uprising for Polish independence.
He was the son of Aleksander Miłosz (1883–1959), a Polish civil engineer, and his wife, Weronika (née Kunat; 1887–1945). Miłosz was born into a prominent family.
In summer 1937, Miłosz moved to Warsaw, where he found work at Polish Radio and met his future wife, Janina (née Dłuska; 1909–1986), who was at the time married to another man. ===World War II=== Miłosz was in Warsaw when it was bombarded as part of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.
Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat.
He is interred in Skałka, a church known in Poland as a place of honor for distinguished Poles. ==Life in Europe== ===Origins and early life=== Czesław Miłosz was born on 30 June 1911, in the village of Šeteniai (Szetejnie), Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now Kėdainiai district, Kaunas County, Lithuania).
General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. === Biographies, memoirs, photographs === Czesław Miłosz 1911–2004 – The life („Gazeta.pl”) My Milosz – the memories of Nobel Prize winners, including Seamus Heaney and Maria Janion Genealogia Czesława Miłosza w: M.J.
After World War I broke out in 1914, Miłosz's father was conscripted into the Russian army, tasked with engineering roads and bridges for troop movements.
Miłosz and his mother were sheltered in Vilnius when the German army captured it in 1915.
Afterward, they once again joined Miłosz's father, following him as the front moved further into Russia, where, in 1917, Miłosz's brother, Andrzej, was born.
Finally, after 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 attempt to incorporate the newly independent Lithuania into the Second Polish Republic, resulting in his expulsion from Lithuania and the family's move to what was then known as Wilno, which had come under Polish control after the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1920.
But the Polish–Soviet War broke out in 1919, during which Miłosz's father was involved in a failed attempt to incorporate the newly independent Lithuania into the Second Polish Republic, resulting in his expulsion from Lithuania and the family's move to what was then known as Wilno, which had come under Polish control after the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1920.
The family returned to Wilno after the war ended in 1921. Despite the interruptions of wartime wanderings, Miłosz proved to be an exceptional student with a facility for languages.
After graduation from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Wilno, he entered Stefan Batory University in 1929 as a law student.
His first published poems appeared in the university's student magazine in 1930. In 1931, he visited Paris, where he first met his distant cousin, Oscar Milosz, a French-language poet of Lithuanian descent who had become a Swedenborgian.
His first published poems appeared in the university's student magazine in 1930. In 1931, he visited Paris, where he first met his distant cousin, Oscar Milosz, a French-language poet of Lithuanian descent who had become a Swedenborgian.
One student was killed when a rock was thrown at his head. Miłosz's first volume of poetry, A Poem on Frozen Time, was published in Polish in 1933.
In 1934, he graduated with a law degree, and the poetry group Żagary disbanded.
In Paris, he frequently met with his cousin Oscar. By 1936, he had returned to Wilno, where he worked on literary programs at Radio Wilno.
In summer 1937, Miłosz moved to Warsaw, where he found work at Polish Radio and met his future wife, Janina (née Dłuska; 1909–1986), who was at the time married to another man. ===World War II=== Miłosz was in Warsaw when it was bombarded as part of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.
In summer 1937, Miłosz moved to Warsaw, where he found work at Polish Radio and met his future wife, Janina (née Dłuska; 1909–1986), who was at the time married to another man. ===World War II=== Miłosz was in Warsaw when it was bombarded as part of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.
The pseudonym was "Jan Syruć" and the title page said the volume had been published by a fictional press in Lwów in 1939; in fact, it may have been the first clandestine book published in occupied Warsaw.
When Lithuania broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991, Miłosz visited for the first time since 1939.
It was a difficult journey, mostly on foot, that ended in summer 1940.
Along with his friend the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski, he also arranged for the publication of his third volume of poetry, Poems, under a pseudonym in September 1940.
In 1942, Miłosz arranged for the publication of an anthology of Polish poets, Invincible Song: Polish Poetry of War Time, by an underground press. Miłosz's riskiest underground wartime activity was aiding Jews in Warsaw, which he did through an underground socialist organization called Freedom.
His brother, Andrzej, was also active in helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland; in 1943, he transported the Polish Jew Seweryn Tross and his wife from Vilnius to Warsaw.
He called the uprising "a blameworthy, lightheaded enterprise", but later criticized the Red Army for failing to support it when it had the opportunity to do so. As German troops began torching Warsaw buildings in August 1944, Miłosz was captured and held in a prisoner transit camp; he was later rescued by a Catholic nun—a stranger to him—who pleaded with the Germans on his behalf.
Once freed, he and Janina escaped the city, ultimately settling in a village outside Kraków, where they were staying when the Red Army swept through Poland in January 1945, after Warsaw had been largely destroyed. In the preface to his 1953 book The Captive Mind, Miłosz wrote, "I do not regret those years in Warsaw, which was, I believe, the most agonizing spot in the whole of terrorized Europe.
The volume also contains some of his most frequently anthologized poems, including "A Song on the End of the World", "Campo Dei Fiori", and "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto". ===Diplomatic career=== From 1945 to 1951, Miłosz served as a cultural attaché for the newly formed People's Republic of Poland.
He also translated into Polish Shakespeare's Othello and the work of Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Pablo Neruda, and others. In 1947, Miłosz's son, Anthony, was born in Washington, D.C. In 1948, Miłosz arranged for the Polish government to fund a Department of Polish Studies at Columbia University.
He also translated into Polish Shakespeare's Othello and the work of Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Pablo Neruda, and others. In 1947, Miłosz's son, Anthony, was born in Washington, D.C. In 1948, Miłosz arranged for the Polish government to fund a Department of Polish Studies at Columbia University.
Despite the controversy, the department was established, the lectures took place, and the book was produced, but the department was discontinued in 1954 when funding from Poland ceased. In 1949, Miłosz visited Poland for the first time since joining its diplomatic corps and was appalled by the conditions he saw, including an atmosphere of pervasive fear of the government.
Toward the end of 1950, when Janina was pregnant with their second child, Miłosz was recalled to Warsaw, where in December 1950 his passport was confiscated, ostensibly until it could be determined that he did not plan to defect.
The volume also contains some of his most frequently anthologized poems, including "A Song on the End of the World", "Campo Dei Fiori", and "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto". ===Diplomatic career=== From 1945 to 1951, Miłosz served as a cultural attaché for the newly formed People's Republic of Poland.
Realizing that he was in danger if he remained in Poland, Miłosz left for Paris in January 1951. === Asylum in France === Upon arriving in Paris, Miłosz went into hiding, aided by the staff of the Polish émigré magazine Kultura.
Unable to leave France, Miłosz was not present for the birth of his second son, John Peter, in Washington, D.C., in 1951. With the United States closed to him, Miłosz requested—and was granted—political asylum in France.
He was also able to visit Poland for the first time since fleeing in 1951 and was greeted by crowds with a hero's welcome.
Once freed, he and Janina escaped the city, ultimately settling in a village outside Kraków, where they were staying when the Red Army swept through Poland in January 1945, after Warsaw had been largely destroyed. In the preface to his 1953 book The Captive Mind, Miłosz wrote, "I do not regret those years in Warsaw, which was, I believe, the most agonizing spot in the whole of terrorized Europe.
Another supporter during this period was the Swiss philosopher Jeanne Hersch, with whom Miłosz had a brief romantic affair. Miłosz was finally reunited with his family in 1953, when Janina and the children joined him in France.
Despite the controversy, the department was established, the lectures took place, and the book was produced, but the department was discontinued in 1954 when funding from Poland ceased. In 1949, Miłosz visited Poland for the first time since joining its diplomatic corps and was appalled by the conditions he saw, including an atmosphere of pervasive fear of the government.
He memorialized his childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley, and a 1959 memoir, Native Realm.
A long poem divided into four sections, A Treatise on Poetry surveys Polish history, recounts Miłosz's experience of war, and explores the relationship between art and history. In 1956, Miłosz and Janina were married. ==Life in the United States== === University of California at Berkeley === In 1960, Miłosz was offered a position as a visiting lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley.
He memorialized his childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley, and a 1959 memoir, Native Realm.
A long poem divided into four sections, A Treatise on Poetry surveys Polish history, recounts Miłosz's experience of war, and explores the relationship between art and history. In 1956, Miłosz and Janina were married. ==Life in the United States== === University of California at Berkeley === In 1960, Miłosz was offered a position as a visiting lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley.
At one campus event in 1970, he mocked protesters who claimed to be demonstrating for peace and love: "Talk to me about love when they come into your cell one morning, line you all up, and say 'You and you, step forward—it’s your time to die—unless any of your friends loves you so much he wants to take your place!'" Comments like these were in keeping with his stance toward American counterculture of the 1960s in general.
(In fact, some of his Berkeley faculty colleagues, unaware of his creative output, expressed astonishment when he won the Nobel Prize.) His poetry was not available in English, and he was not able to publish in Poland. As part of an effort to introduce American readers to his poetry, as well as to his fellow Polish poets' work, Miłosz conceived and edited the anthology Postwar Polish Poetry, which was published in English in 1965.
For example, in 1968, when Miłosz was listed as a signatory of an open letter of protest written by poet and counterculture figure Allen Ginsberg and published in The New York Review of Books, Miłosz responded by calling the letter "dangerous nonsense" and insisting that he had not signed it. After 18 years, Miłosz retired from teaching in 1978.
The issue also featured Miroslav Holub, Yehuda Amichai, Ivan Lalić, Vasko Popa, Zbigniew Herbert, and Andrei Voznesensky.) In 1969, Miłosz's textbook The History of Polish Literature was published in English.
At one campus event in 1970, he mocked protesters who claimed to be demonstrating for peace and love: "Talk to me about love when they come into your cell one morning, line you all up, and say 'You and you, step forward—it’s your time to die—unless any of your friends loves you so much he wants to take your place!'" Comments like these were in keeping with his stance toward American counterculture of the 1960s in general.
Lines from his poem "You Who Wronged" are inscribed on the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 in Gdańsk, where Solidarity originated. Of the effect of Miłosz's edited volume Postwar Polish Poetry on English-language poets, Merwin wrote, "Miłosz’s book had been a talisman and had made most of the literary bickering among the various ideological encampments, then most audible in the poetic doctrines in English, seem frivolous and silly".
For example, in 1968, when Miłosz was listed as a signatory of an open letter of protest written by poet and counterculture figure Allen Ginsberg and published in The New York Review of Books, Miłosz responded by calling the letter "dangerous nonsense" and insisting that he had not signed it. After 18 years, Miłosz retired from teaching in 1978.
In 2013, a primary school in Vilnius was named for Miłosz, joining schools in Mierzecice, Poland, and Schaumburg, Illinois, that bear his name. == Legacy == === Cultural impact === In 1978, the Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky called Miłosz "one of the great poets of our time; perhaps the greatest".
Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature.
But when his wife, Janina, fell ill and required expensive medical treatment, Miłosz returned to teaching seminars. === Nobel laureate === On 9 October 1980, the Swedish Academy announced that Miłosz had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
For example, scholars have written about Miłosz's influence on the writing of Seamus Heaney, and Clare Cavanagh has identified the following poets as having benefited from Miłosz's influence: Robert Pinsky, Edward Hirsch, Rosanna Warren, Robert Hass, Charles Simic, Mary Karr, Carolyn Forché, Mark Strand, Ted Hughes, Joseph Brodsky, and Derek Walcott. By being smuggled into Poland, Miłosz's writing was a source of inspiration to the anti-communist Solidarity movement there in the early 1980s.
At the same time, his early work, until then only available in Polish, began to be translated into English and many other languages. In 1981, Miłosz was appointed the Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, where he was invited to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures.
Others have viewed Miłosz as an American author, hosting exhibitions and writing about him from that perspective and including his work in anthologies of American poetry. But in The New York Review of Books in 1981, the critic John Bayley wrote, "nationality is not a thing [Miłosz] can take seriously; it would be hard to imagine a greater writer more emancipated from even its most subtle pretensions".
The lectures were published as The Witness of Poetry (1983). Miłosz continued to publish work in Polish through his longtime publisher in Paris, including the poetry collections Hymn of the Pearl (1981), Bells in Winter (1984) and Unattainable Earth (1986), and the essay collection Beginning with My Streets (1986). In 1986, Miłosz's wife, Janina, died. In 1988, Miłosz's Collected Poems appeared in English; it was the first of several attempts to collect all his poetry into a single volume.
Davie, Donald, Czesław Miłosz and the Insufficiency of Lyric, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986.
Retrieved 2010-08-04 Profile and works at the Poetry Foundation === Articles === Interview with Nathan Gardels for the New York Review of Books, February 1986.
The lectures were published as The Witness of Poetry (1983). Miłosz continued to publish work in Polish through his longtime publisher in Paris, including the poetry collections Hymn of the Pearl (1981), Bells in Winter (1984) and Unattainable Earth (1986), and the essay collection Beginning with My Streets (1986). In 1986, Miłosz's wife, Janina, died. In 1988, Miłosz's Collected Poems appeared in English; it was the first of several attempts to collect all his poetry into a single volume.
Możejko, Edward, editor, Between Anxiety and Hope: The Poetry and Writing of Czesław Miłosz, Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1988.
The collection Roadside Dog received a Nike Award in Poland. In 1989, Miłosz was named one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust, in recognition of his efforts to save Jews in Warsaw during World War II. Miłosz has also been honored posthumously.
His work from the 1990s includes the poetry collections Facing the River (1994) and Roadside Dog (1997), and the collection of short prose Miłosz’s ABC’s (1997).
Fiut, Aleksander, The Eternal Moment: The Poetry of Czesław Miłosz, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
When Lithuania broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991, Miłosz visited for the first time since 1939.
Nathan, Leonard, and Arthur Quinn, The Poet's Work: An Introduction to Czesław Miłosz, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.
In 2000, he moved to Kraków. In 1992, Miłosz married Carol Thigpen, an academic at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
The last institution also has an academic center named for Miłosz. In 1992, Miłosz was made an honorary citizen of Lithuania, where his birthplace was made into a museum and conference center.
In 1993, he was made an honorary citizen of Kraków. His books also received awards.
Faggen, Robert, editor, Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czesław Miłosz, New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1996.
In 2000, he moved to Kraków. In 1992, Miłosz married Carol Thigpen, an academic at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Writing in a Polish newspaper in 2000, he claimed, "I was born in the very center of Lithuania and so have a greater right than my great forebear, Mickiewicz, to write 'O Lithuania, my country.'" But in his Nobel lecture, he said, "My family in the 16th 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".
He translated parts of the Bible into Polish, and allusions to Catholicism pervade his poetry, culminating in a long 2001 poem, "A Theological Treatise".
Retrieved 2010-08-04 Georgia Review 2001.
They remained married until her death in 2002.
Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat.
Faith played a role in his work as he explored his Catholicism and personal experience. Miłosz died in Kraków, Poland, in 2004.
Uncollected poems written afterward appeared in English in New and Selected Poems (2004) and, posthumously, in Selected and Last Poems (2011). ==Death== Czesław Miłosz died on 14 August 2004, at his Kraków home, aged 93.
Haven, Cynthia L., editor, Czesław Miłosz: Conversations, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006.
Zagajewski, Adam, editor, Polish Writers on Writing, San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2007.
Cavanagh, Clare, Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
Grudzinska Gross, Irena, Czesław Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky: Fellowship of Poets, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
Retrieved 2010-08-04 Profile and works at the Poetry Foundation === Articles === Interview with Nathan Gardels for the New York Review of Books, February 1986.
Retrieved 2010-08-04 Georgia Review 2001.
Retrieved 2010-08-04 Obituary The Economist.
Retrieved 2010-08-04 Obituary New York Times.
Retrieved 2010-08-04 Biography and selected works listing.
Retrieved 2010-08-04 [Milosz Papers].
The Polish Parliament declared 2011, the centennial of his birth, the "Year of Miłosz".
Speaking at a ceremony to celebrate his birth centenary in 2011, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė stressed that Miłosz's works "unite the Lithuanian and Polish people and reveal how close and how fruitful the ties between our people can be". ==== Catholicism ==== Though raised Catholic, Miłosz as a young man came to adopt a "scientific, atheistic position mostly", though he later returned to the Catholic faith.
Haven, Cynthia L., editor, An Invisible Rope: Portraits of Czesław Miłosz, Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011.
Kraszewski, Charles, Irresolute Heresiarch: Catholicism, Gnosticism, and Paganism in the Poetry of Czesław Miłosz, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.
In 2013, a primary school in Vilnius was named for Miłosz, joining schools in Mierzecice, Poland, and Schaumburg, Illinois, that bear his name. == Legacy == === Cultural impact === In 1978, the Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky called Miłosz "one of the great poets of our time; perhaps the greatest".
Tischner, Łukasz, Miłosz and the Problem of Evil, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2015.
Franaszek, Andrzej, Miłosz: A Biography, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017.
Golubiewski, Mikołaj, The Persona of Czesław Miłosz: Authorial Poetics, Critical Debates, Reception Games, Bern: Peter Lang, 2018.
Kay, Magdalena, "Czesław Miłosz in the World: The Will to Transcendence", in A Companion to World Literature, John Wiley & Sons, 2020.
Eliot, Czesław Miłosz, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
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