Czeslaw Milosz Biography

1911
Czeslaw Milosz is born on June 30 in Szetejnie (or Seteiniai, in Kedainiai District, Lithuania), to Weronika nee Kunat and Aleksander Milosz, a highway engineer.

1914-1918
Aleksander Milosz is drafted into the Tzar's army after the outbreak of World War I. As a combat engineer officer, he builds bridges and fortifications in front-line areas. His wife and son accompany him in his constant travels about Russia. The Milosz family returns to Lithuania in 1918.

1921
Czeslaw Milosz enters the Zygmunt August High School in Wilno (Vilnius [Lituanian], Vilna [Russian]).

1929
After graduation, Milosz matriculates in the law department of Stefan Batory University in Wilno; he is active in the Polish Studies Literary Club.

1939
Milosz publishes his first poems in "Alma Mater Vilnensis", a university periodical.

1931
Milosz becomes a co-founder and member of the literary group Zagary. He is also active in the Vagabonds Club and participates in summer travels to Western Europe with other students. This is his first time in Paris, where he meets his cousin Oskar Milosz, the French poet.

1933
The Polish Studies Club of Stefan Batory University publishes "Poem on Frozen Time", Milosz's first volume of poetry. With Zbigniew Folejewski, he co-edits "Anthology of Social Poetry", also published in Wilno.

1934
Milosz receives his Master of Law degree. The Union of Polish Writers gives his poetry the first Philomath Literary Award in Wilno. A grant from the National Cultural Fund allows him to spend a year in France, for which he leaves in the fall.

1935
In Paris, Milosz studies at the Alliance Francaise and audits lectures on Thomism at L'Institut Catholique. Among other poems, he writes "Hymn" and "Gates of the Arsenal."

1936
After returning from France, Milosz begins work as a literary programmer at Polish Radio in Wilno. The Union of Polish Writers helps him to publish his second volume of poetry, "Three Winters".

1937
After being dismissed from Radio Wilno for his leftist views, Milosz travels to Italy. On his return he takes a job in the planning office of Polish Radio in Warsaw. He publishes poems and articles in literary periodicals.

1938
Oskar Milosz's translation of "A Song" ("Un Chant") appears in the French journal "Cahiers du Sud", the first trans- lation of a poem by Czeslaw Milosz. His short story "Reckoning" wins a prize in a competition sponsored by the journal "Pion".

1940
Milosz escapes from Soviet-occupied Wilno to Nazi-occupied Warsaw, where he joins the socialist resistance. In Warsaw he publishes a volume of poetry, "Poems," in mimeograph form under the pen name of Jan Syruc.

1941
He is given a job as a janitor at the Warsaw University Library.

1942
Milosz's anthology of anti-Nazi poetry, "The Invincible Song", and his translation of Jacques Maritain's pro- de Gaulle "A travers le desastre" are published by underground presses in occupied Warsaw.

1943
He writes "The World: A Naive Poem"(Rescuing Poetry, Triumphal Poems) and the cycle "The Voices of Poor People" (Rescuing Poetry, Triumphal Poems), and translates Shakespeare's "As You Like It" on commission from the Underground Theatre Council. He also takes part in clandestine poetry readings.

1944
After the destruction of Warsaw, he spends a few months in Goszyce, near Cracow, in the family home of his friend Jerzy Turowicz. He writes a number of poems there.

1945
Milosz moves to Cracow. He publishes poems and articles in the literary press ("Tworczosc"). The state publishing house "Czytelnik" brings out his collected poems in a volume entitled "Rescue"(Rescuing Poetry, Campo Di Fiori, Triumphal Poems) (it consists of two cycles which was written during The II World War in 1943). He leaves for the United States in December to assume a diplomatic post.

1946
Milosz works in the Polish consulate in New York. His poems of this period include "Child of Europe."

1947
Milosz is transferred to Washington as a cultural attache. He writes "Treatise on Morals", published the following year in the journal "Tworczosc". He is a correspondent for the literary press in Poland and translates poetry into Polish.

1949
Milosz makes a brief trip to Poland in the summer. He is shocked at the full dimension of the system's totalitarianism.

1950
Milosz is transferred to the post of first secretary of the Polish embassy in Paris. He travels to Warsaw at the end of the year, and his passport is taken away.

1951
The passport is returned. Milosz goes back to Paris, where on February 1 he asks the French government for political asylum. He moves to Maisons-Laffitte and publishes his first article as an emigre'. Entitled "No," it appears in the May issue of "Kultura". He begins work on "The Captive Mind".

1953
"The Captive Mind" is Milosz's first book published by the Polish-language Instytut Literacki in Paris. There are concurrent translations in English and French. His novel "The Seizure of Power" ("La Prise du pouvoir") is awarded the Swiss book guilds' prize, the Prix Litteraire Europeen. The Instytut Literacki publishes "The Daylight", Milosz's first volume of poetry as an emigre.

1955
Instytut Literacki publishes "The Seizure of Power"; Milosz's second novel, "The Issa Valley", and his translation of Jeanne Hersch's philosophical essays "Politics and Reality".

1957
Instytut Literacki publishes "A Treatise on Poetry" in book form. Milosz is awarded "Kultura"'s annual literary prize.

1958
Milosz publishes his autobiography "Native Realm", a volume of his essays and his translations of poetry, "Continents", and his translation of Simone Weil's "Selected Writings". He receives the award of the Union of Polish Emigre' Writers.

1959
Milosz publishes "Family Europe" ("Rodzinna Europa")

1960
Milosz moves to the United States to assume the position of lecturer in the department of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of California at Berkeley. Soon thereafter he accepts a professorship and for the next twenty years combines his writing with teaching at the universitv.

1962
Milosz publishes "King Popiel and Other Poems" (Ars Poetica, Milosz - the Moralist) and his study of Stanisław Brzozowski, "Man Among Scorpions" (Instytut Literacki).

1965
His seventh volume of poetry, "Bobo's Metamorphosis", is published by Instytut Literacki. He also publishes poems he has selected and translated into English, "Post-War Polish Poetry: An Anthology".

1967
Oficyna Poet6w i Malarzy ("The Poets' and Painters' Press) in London publishes an extensive selection of Milosz's poems in a volume entitled "Poems". He receives the Marian Kister Literary Award in New York.

1968
"Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition" is published in the United States. Milosz receives the Jurzykowski Award.

1969
His next volume of poetry, "City Without a Name" (Avantgarde & Classicism, Ars Poetica, About Emigration), and a collection of essays, "Visions from San Francisco Bay", are published in Polish by Instytut Literacki. His textbook, "The History of Polish Literature", is published in the United States.

1972
Instytut Literacki publishes "Private Obligations", a collection of literary essays.

1973
The Seabury Press in New York publishes the first volume of Milosz's poetry in English, "Selected Poems", reis- sued in a revised version by The Ecco Press in 1982.

1974
Milosz publishes the volume of poetry "From the Rising of the Sun" (Ars Poetica, Milosz - the Moralist) (Instytut Literacki). The Polish P.E.N. Club awards him its prize for his translations of Polish poetry into English.

1976
Milosz receives a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue work on his own poetry and his translations.

1977
The University of Michigan Slavic Publications publishes an extensive selection of his poems in Polish under the title: "Utwory poetyckie: Poems". The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor confers an honorary doctorate on Milosz. Instytut Literacki publishes "The Land of Ulro". A collection of essays entitled "The Emperor of the Earth: Modes of Eccentric Vision" and Milosz's English translation of Aleksander Wat's "Mediterranean Poems" are published in the United States. My Century, Wat's memoirs as taped in conversation with Milosz, is published in London.

l978
Milosz receives the Neustadt International Literary Prize, presented under the auspices of Oklahoma State University. For his literary and academic merits, the University of California presents Milosz with the Berkeley Citation. The second volume of his poetry in English translation, "Bells in Winter", is published in the United States.

1979
Editions du Dialogue in Paris publishes Milosz's translation of the Book of Psalms from Hebrew to Polish, for which he receives the Zygmunt Hertz Award. "The Garden of Knowledge", a collection of essays and translations of foreign poetry into Polish, is published by Instytut Literacki.

1980
Editions du Dialogue publishes Milosz's translation from Hebrew to Polish of the "Book of Job". Milosz is awarded the Nobel Prize. Books of his poetry are published in Poland for the first time since 1945. lnstytut Literacki begins publishing a multivolume edition of "Milosz's Collected Works".

1981
On June Milosz visits Poland for the first time in thirty years. He receives an honorary doctorate from Lublin Catholic University; he meets with Lech Walesa and other Solidarity leaders in Gdansk. An exhibit devoted to his life and work opens at the Literary Museum in Warsaw. A bilingual, Polish-English edition of the Nobel lecture Milosz delivers to the Swedish Academy in December 1980 is published. Milosz holds the Eliot Norton chair at Harvard and gives six public lectures on poetry. He is awarded an honorary doctorate by New York University.

1982
Instytut Literacki publishes his tenth volume of poetry, "Hymn to a Pearl". Editions du Dialogue publishes his translation of "The Books of Five Megiloth" (that is, Lamentations, Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs).

1983
Milosz receives an honorary doctorate from Brandeis University. His lectures at Harvard appear under the title "The Witness of Poetry".

1984
A new volume of translated poems, "The Separate Notebooks", is published in a bilingual, Polish-English edi- tion. "Unattainable Earth" is published in Polish by Instytut Literacki. Editions du Dialogue publishes his translations, from the Greek, of the Gospel According to Mark and the Apocalypse.

1985
"Starting with My Streets", a new volume of essays, is published in Polish by Instytut Literacki.

1986
"Unattainable Earth" is published in English.

1987
Milosz writes the next volume of poems "Chronicles"

1991
Milosz writes the new volume of poems "Provinces"

RECAPITULATION Features of his literary output -turn towards the receiver, not the sender; the receiver who is of wide reading, who thinks; -intellectualisatin of views, disgrace of feelings, philosophication of poetry -tending to clearness-he does not want to amaze by the concept -periphrasis and metaphor - the most often used means -deseriptive style -topics Anemes are „detained” from art and life -he leads constant dialogue with culture