30
PART ISAN REVIEW
Italian tinge. A provincial backwater, it nevertheless presented a sort of minor
Al exandria, marked with a fin e mixture of languages, customs, and hi storical
eras. Here, Milosz attended the university , and here he became a poet.
In
hi s student years, he was fasc inated by Catas trophi st thinking which
attempted to interpret anew the di sas ters of war and revolution, as well as the
very concepts of evil and eschatology. For Catas trophi sts, the cri sis of the
twentieth century assumed not merely hi storical but cosmic proportions. Thi s
philosophy also had its adherents in independent Lithuania. Oscar Milosz,
Czeslaw's elder relative, was the mos t seri ous among them. He became a
Lithuanian diplomat in France, supported Lithuania's claims to her capital,
and was, for that reason, os tracized by Poli sh public opinion. Under O scar
Milosz's gu idance, Czeslaw became even more interes ted in Lithuania's sepa–
rate tradition. Characteri stically, the literary magazine he es tabli shed with hi s
stud ent fri ends appea red under the titl e
Zagary
(brushwood) which
means nothing in Polish but is immediately unders tood by any Lithuanian.
Three more Lithuanians influenced Milosz: Pranas Ancevicius, an emi–
gre o f lefti st yet very sober views w ho became hi s tutor in poli ti cs; Kazys
Boruta, a born anarchi st and fascinating writer; and Juozas Keliuoti s, the
edito r of a highbrow j ournal in Kaunas, Lithuania's tempora ry capital. Each
of th em suffered a tragic fa te. After the Soviet invasion, both Bo ruta and
Keliuoti s were impri soned. BOI·uta retained hi s integri ty but came out of
the gulag a very ill man . Keliuoti s became not only sick but morally bro–
ken; Ancevicius managed to emi grate but committed sui cide in Canada.
The Soviet invasion in the summer of 1940 was fateful for MiJosz as well.
He left Lithuania without the slightes t hope of seeing her aga in . I was one o f
the few who predicted that Milosz would be awarded an honorary degree by
a university in the free Lithuania, which happened fifty-two years later.
In
the
year of hi s visit,
1992,
Milosz publi shed a book in which he wrote:
Wilno with the details of i
ts
streets, brick walls, shops, courtyards, church
facades remains for me the city whi ch I might have left yes terday....
It
is once more a capital of th e independent Lithuani a, and I am happy
beca use of th e fac t, sin ce I w ish th at city well.
In
Milosz's perception , time is a substance with whi ch one should
neve r tamper. And o ne sho uld no t vio late ancient taboos. All meta–
mo rph oses have to occur naturally and not as a result o f applying some
utopi an doc trin e concoc ted by politicians or arm.chair scienti sts. Thi s
may be call ed a conse rva tive view but it is, first and fo remos t, pro–
fo undl y anti-totalitari an . Mil osz di strusts the relati visti c attitude o f o ur
