Democratization of Eastern Europe

The Captive Mind:  Stalinism and Spiritual Life

 

I.  Czeslaw Milosz
 

b. 30 Jun 1911 Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Polish speaking gentry

Law degree, Stefan Batory University in Wilno, 1934

 

1933 Frozen in Time

1936 –Three Winters

1943 The World:  A Naïve Poem  

1945 – first post-war collection Rescue

 

Spent 1940-44 in Nazi-occupied Warsaw;

Failed Warsaw Uprising, Aug 1944

He and wife escape to Krakow

Diplomatic attaché for PRL (discuss ethics of this decision for him)

1946-1950 NY, Washington

1950 transferred to Paris but family remained in US

Stalinism begins in earnest

– “less indulgent” of his public ambivalence toward Communism

Dec 1950 when he returned to Poland for holiday, the authorities confiscated his passport and imprisoned him.  He was “inexplicably” allowed to return to work in Paris where he sought asylum Feb 1 1951

Writings were banned in Poland

1951-1953 – worked in ex pat publishing house Kultura in Paris

 

depressed few of his friends could read his work in Polish (discuss)

 

Vilified by French intellectuals who supported Communism (!)

 

1953 – writes most famous work in the West The Captive Mind

 

1960 – becomes visiting lecturer and later professor

 

Diplomatic attaché for PRL (discuss ethics of this decision for him)

 

1946-1950 NY, Washington

1950 transferred to Paris but family remained in US

 

Stalinism begins in earnest – “less indulgent” of his public ambivalence toward Communism

 

Dec 1950 when he returned to Poland for holiday, the authorities confiscated his passport and imprisoned him.  He was “inexplicably” allowed to return to work in Paris where he sought asylum Feb 1 1951

 

Writings were banned in Poland

1951-1953 – worked in ex pat publishing house Kultura in Paris

 

depressed few of his friends could read his work in Polish (discuss)

 

Vilified by French intellectuals who supported Communism (!)

 

1953 – writes most famous work in the West The Captive Mind

 

1960 – becomes visiting lecturer and later professor at University of California, Berkeley

 

1980 awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

 

1981 (note:  the time that Solidarity was legalized) returned to Poland and some of his poems were published in Poland legally for the first time since he was banned in the 1950s

 

Reading from The Captive Mind

Ketman

 

What is Ketman?

 

Origins – Gobineau – describing how people live in Persia, Middle East in the later part of the 19^th Century

 

What is the “New Faith”?

 

In what ways is Stalinist Communism like a religion?

 

Prophets, religious texts, dogma, rituals, professions of faith, confessions and redemption

 

Types of Ketman

National Ketman

Professional Ketman

Aesthetic Ketman

Skeptical Ketman

Ethical Ketman