Milosz, Czeslaw

▪ 2005

      Polish-born poet, essayist, critic, and translator (b. June 30, 1911, Šateiniai, Lithuania, Russian Empire [now in Lithuania]—d. Aug. 14, 2004, Kraków, Pol.), as a witness to World War II and the subsequent Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, crafted emotional and provocative works that examined inhumanity, displacement, and loss. Considered one of the major poets of the 20th century, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. Miłosz received a law degree (1934) from Stefan Batory University in Wilno, Pol. (now Vilnius, Lithuania). A member of the Catastrophist group of poets, he foreshadowed World War II in his first book of verse, Poemat o czasie zastygłym (1933; “Poem of Frozen Time”). Following Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, Miłosz moved to Warsaw and became active in the resistance. The poems he wrote during the occupation were collected in Ocalenie (1945; “Rescue”). After the war he served as a diplomat for Poland's communist government before defecting in 1951. He eventually settled in the U.S., where he taught (1960–80) at the University of California, Berkeley. He became a U.S. citizen in 1970. Although Miłosz was primarily a poet, perhaps his best-known work was Zniewolony umysł (1953; The Captive Mind, 1953), a collection of essays in which he described the life of intellectuals under communist rule. His other writings included scholarly texts, novels, and the autobiography Rodzinna Europa (1959; Native Realm, 1968). He also translated a number of works into Polish. Regarded as a national hero by many Poles, Miłosz returned to Poland in the early 1990s following the fall of communism.

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