THE CAPTIVE MINI)
59
Milosz himself could wri te after hi s defection , he said, probably made him
feel less alone than Camu s, who, after having publi shed
L'homme revoite
(Essays
1945-1951),
was advi sed by Sartre that, if he liked neither commu–
ni sm nor capitali sm, he could go to th e Galapagos Islands.
In 1992, Mil osz foresaw the resurgence of patriotic, ethnocentric feelings
in the " fo rmer communi st countri es," w hi ch led to the belief that the state
should be owned by o ne ethnically pure group. Milosz considered ethno–
centri c pressures identi cal
to
the pressures of nationali sti c doctrines; tribal
prejudices hidden in customs and traditional mores-as exemplified in " the
former Yugoslavia." He described th e mi xture of communi st and nati onal–
istic propaganda as being extremely dangerous for an individual, not because
he would be puni shed by the authori ti es, but because he would be ostracized
by the community. He sa id that thi s sort o f di ssidence from the prevailing
mood was new in that part of the world, and peopl e were compl etely
unaware o f it. Of course, Milosz was denoting the dil emmas and ambiguiti es
of di ssidence, the blurring of lines between di ssidence and resistance.
At the 1986 PEN Congress in N ew York, Mil osz pointed out that
writers direc t th eir hos tili ty against th e state if that state won't offer a
utopian promi se, and that th ey censor oth er wri ters who do not tac itly
accept these norms o f behavi o r. Basicall y, thi s was updating one o f th e
themes in
The Capti/)!' Mil/d,
o f whi ch many of the PEN parti cipants th en
seemed unaware. But writers must call a spade a spade. Fo r:
Innumerabl e milli ons of human bein6" were kill ed in thi s century
in th e name of utopia-eith er progressive o r reacti onary, and always
th ere were w riters w ho provid ed convin cing justifi cations fo r
massacre.... R.ecentl y I read, in a French translati on, an article by
a Wes t German literary criti c glo ri fy ing Sartre for hi s assa ult on
Camus, but no t menti oning what was really at stake. Camus's
offe nse was mentioning th e existence of gulags . Sartre was con–
cern ed with injusti ce in hi s world and unwilling to pi ty millions of
vi ctims sacrifi ced in th e name o f a presumed hi sto rical necessity.
I am closing on thi s note, because
Partisan R eview
all along has been
concerned with these issues, and has printed many pieces that didn't fit the
parti-pris
positions of eith er th e so-call ed ri ght or left . I have spent much
time in Europe and thus have realized that the line between the so-call ed
right and left neve r was as clea r as it was presented to us. Milosz knew of
these matters early on, o f th e unw illin gness of the Wes tern left to deal
with the ambiguiti es, and of its need to come to terms with utopias. In
