Czesław Miłosz wobec przemocy i wojny

This article reviews Irena Grudzińska-Gross’s book Miłosz i długi cień wojny [Milosz and the Long Shadow of War], which was published by Pogranicze in 2020. The reviewer analyses the definition of violence and its relation to Polish narratives of wartime solidarity seen as heroism. To this end, she examines the work of Czesław Miłosz, written during the Second World War, and later texts thematising the war experience. An additional layer of the publication is the poet’s take on the Jewish question – both in the context of Miłosz’s poetic works and the subsequent discussions they provoked. The author, taking into account Miłosz’s autobiogeographical predispositions, also analyses the changing images of Warsaw in his works as a space where the poet spent most of the war. For this reason, she examines the poet’s attitude to the Warsaw Uprising and the public perception of his decision not to join the cause.

Pan Tadeusz Adama Mickiewicza: „stara” – „nowa” lektura

In the article „Pan Tadeusz” by Adam Mickiewicz: „old” – „new” reading, the author presented the contextual reading of the epic at school through the prism of the works of Czesław Miłosz (metaphysical and epaphysical reading) and Tomasz Różycki (postmodern epic). The adopted perspective allows us to show the timelessness of the works of Czesław Miłosz (metaphysical and epaphysical reading) and Tomasz Różycki (postmodern epic). The adopted perspective allows us to show the timelessness of the work of a romantic artist, the value of narration as a story about Poland and Poles, as well a story about an individual’s fate and its search for a universal meaning of one’s own existenc.

Wretched Subjectivity

This article rethinks critically a landmark work of the twentieth century—The Captive Mind, by Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz. Published in 1953, the book sought to understand human subjectivity, or, as it put it, “how the human mind functions,” in Cold-War Eastern Europe. I argue that, while probing what Western intellectuals of that time saw as the historical novelty of totalitarianism, Miłosz formulates an analysis that is rather retro. He represents Eastern Europe in terms of colonialism and imperialism—as a colonized realm and a colonized mind. What is more, he casts his representation in the terms of what Edward Said famously called “Orientalism”—producing a distorted, Orientalist work. Finally, while intimating hope for overcoming Eastern Europe’s domination, Miłosz shows that hope as illusory.

Unde malum? Czesław Miłosz on Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Vladimir Solovyov

This article discusses Czesław Miłosz’s essays on Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and A Tale of the Anti-Christ by Vladimir Solovyov. These essays focus on the essence, genesis, and forms of evil, and seek an answer to the unde malum question. Miłosz believes that in world literature there are no other works that show the nature of evil in a similar way. Dostoyevsky’s work, when read from various philosophical perspectives, reveals very complex meanings, as Solovyov demonstrates. Through his engagement with the two great Russian writers, Miłosz’s own work resonates more strongly in the debate about the condition of the modern man.

„Twice two makes fi ve is sometimes a very charming thing too” Some remarks on Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and his work on the 200th anniversary of the writer’s birth

This introductory article refl ects on the relevance of issues raised in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novels within the horizon of the 21st century. It refers to a range of other writers, among others: Ryszard Przybylski, Czesław Miłosz, Cezary Wodziński, Hannah Arendt, Alain Finkielkraut and Peter Sloterdijk.

Well Known and Unknown Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Relations with Lithuania

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1864–1916), one of the most notable novelist of Positivism epoch, the first Polish laureate of the Nobel Prize (1905), is associated with Lithuania. One of the proof to certificate this connection is his nickname „Litwos”. Another evidence is the fact of his marriage with „Lithuanian girl” Maria Szetkiewicz from Hanuszyszki (Trakai district). Not only literature researches, but also readers can remember the image of “Lauda”, so reliably represented by Sienkiewicz in his novels “Potop” (the Flood) or “Dzwonnik” (the Bellringer). Julian Krzyzanowski in the ‘50s of 20th century, in his work Henryk Sienkiewicz. Kalendarz życia i twórczości (Henryk Sienkiewicz. The callendar of his life and his output”) wrote about Sienkiewicz, and his relations with Lithuania. Only later, in ’90 of 20th c., were published other works about this author, for example, Związki Sienkiewicza z Wilnem i Wileńszczyzną (1994) (Sienkiewicz connections with Vilnius, and Vilnius region) by Maria Bokszczanin, and Sienkiewicz (1999) by Tadeusz Żabski. Famous Polish writer and also Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Miłosz mentioned Sienkiewicz in his poetic papers and esseys. Unfortunatelly this theme was not discussed propely, and only after 100 years of novelist death, in 21st century, some facts were discovered. The latest studies by Tadeusz Bujnicki and Andrzej Rataj give a chance to rediscover and expose some new details, and once again show Sienkiewicz relations with Lithuania.

Relations between Modern Mathematics and Poetry: Czesław Miłosz; Zbigniew Herbert; Ion Barbu/Dan Barbilian

<p>This doctoral thesis is an examination of the relationship between poetry and mathematics, centred on three twentieth-century case studies: the Polish poets Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004) and Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998), and the Romanian mathematician and poet Dan Barbilian/Ion Barbu (1895-1961). Part One of the thesis is a review of current scholarly literature, divided into two chapters. The first chapter looks at the nature of mathematics, outlining its historical developments and describing some major mathematical concepts as they pertain to the later case studies. This entails a focus on non-Euclidean geometries, modern algebra, and the foundations of mathematics in Europe; the nature of mathematical truth and language; and the modern historical evolution of mathematical schools in Poland and Romania. The second chapter examines some existing attempts to bring together mathematics and poetry, drawing on literature and science as an academic field; the role of the imagination and invention in the languages of both poetics and mathematics; the interest in mathematics among certain Symbolist poets, notably Mallarmé; and the experimental work of the French groups of mathematicians and mathematician-poets, Bourbaki and Oulipo. The role of metaphor is examined in particular. Part Two of the thesis is the case studies. The first presents the ethical and moral stance of Czesław Miłosz, investigating his attitudes towards classical and later relativistic science, in the light of the Nazi occupation and the Marxist regimes in Poland, and how these are reflected in his poetry. The study of Zbigniew Herbert is structured around a wide selection of his poetic oeuvre, and identifying his treatment of evolving and increasingly more complex mathematical concepts. The third case study, on Dan Barbilian, who published his poetry under the name Ion Barbu, begins with an examination of the mathematical school at Göttingen in the 1920s, tracing the influence of Gauss, Riemann, Klein, Hilbert and Noether in Barbilian’s own mathematical work, particularly in the areas of metric spaces and axiomatic geometry. In the discussion, the critical analysis of the mathematician and linguist Solomon Marcus is examined. This study finishes with a close reading of seven of Barbu’s poems. The relationship of mathematics and poetry has rarely been studied as a coherent academic field, and the relevant scholarship is often disconnected. A feature of this thesis is that it brings together a wide range of scholarly literature and discussion. Although primarily in English, a considerable amount of the academic literature collated here is in French, Romanian, Polish and some German. The poems themselves are presented in the original Polish and Romanian with both published and working translations appended in the footnotes. In the case of the two Polish poets, one a Nobel laureate and the other a multiple prize-winning figure highly regarded in Poland, this thesis is unusual in its concentration on mathematics as a feature of the poetry which is otherwise much-admired for its politically-engaged and lyrical qualities. In the case of the Romanian, Dan Barbilian, he is widely known in Romania as a mathematician, and most particularly as the published poet Ion Barbu, yet his work is little studied outside that country, and indeed much of it is not yet translated into English. This thesis suggests at an array of both theoretical and specific starting points for examining the multi-stranded and intricate relationship between mathematics and poetry, pointing to a number of continuing avenues of further research.</p>

Relations between Modern Mathematics and Poetry: Czesław Miłosz; Zbigniew Herbert; Ion Barbu/Dan Barbilian

<p>This doctoral thesis is an examination of the relationship between poetry and mathematics, centred on three twentieth-century case studies: the Polish poets Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004) and Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998), and the Romanian mathematician and poet Dan Barbilian/Ion Barbu (1895-1961). Part One of the thesis is a review of current scholarly literature, divided into two chapters. The first chapter looks at the nature of mathematics, outlining its historical developments and describing some major mathematical concepts as they pertain to the later case studies. This entails a focus on non-Euclidean geometries, modern algebra, and the foundations of mathematics in Europe; the nature of mathematical truth and language; and the modern historical evolution of mathematical schools in Poland and Romania. The second chapter examines some existing attempts to bring together mathematics and poetry, drawing on literature and science as an academic field; the role of the imagination and invention in the languages of both poetics and mathematics; the interest in mathematics among certain Symbolist poets, notably Mallarmé; and the experimental work of the French groups of mathematicians and mathematician-poets, Bourbaki and Oulipo. The role of metaphor is examined in particular. Part Two of the thesis is the case studies. The first presents the ethical and moral stance of Czesław Miłosz, investigating his attitudes towards classical and later relativistic science, in the light of the Nazi occupation and the Marxist regimes in Poland, and how these are reflected in his poetry. The study of Zbigniew Herbert is structured around a wide selection of his poetic oeuvre, and identifying his treatment of evolving and increasingly more complex mathematical concepts. The third case study, on Dan Barbilian, who published his poetry under the name Ion Barbu, begins with an examination of the mathematical school at Göttingen in the 1920s, tracing the influence of Gauss, Riemann, Klein, Hilbert and Noether in Barbilian’s own mathematical work, particularly in the areas of metric spaces and axiomatic geometry. In the discussion, the critical analysis of the mathematician and linguist Solomon Marcus is examined. This study finishes with a close reading of seven of Barbu’s poems. The relationship of mathematics and poetry has rarely been studied as a coherent academic field, and the relevant scholarship is often disconnected. A feature of this thesis is that it brings together a wide range of scholarly literature and discussion. Although primarily in English, a considerable amount of the academic literature collated here is in French, Romanian, Polish and some German. The poems themselves are presented in the original Polish and Romanian with both published and working translations appended in the footnotes. In the case of the two Polish poets, one a Nobel laureate and the other a multiple prize-winning figure highly regarded in Poland, this thesis is unusual in its concentration on mathematics as a feature of the poetry which is otherwise much-admired for its politically-engaged and lyrical qualities. In the case of the Romanian, Dan Barbilian, he is widely known in Romania as a mathematician, and most particularly as the published poet Ion Barbu, yet his work is little studied outside that country, and indeed much of it is not yet translated into English. This thesis suggests at an array of both theoretical and specific starting points for examining the multi-stranded and intricate relationship between mathematics and poetry, pointing to a number of continuing avenues of further research.</p>

Diante da Arte:

Este ensaio pretende discutir a questão da hermenêutica de Martin Buber em sua relação a arte. Nosso ponto de partida é a relação Eu-Tu como caminho para uma hermenêutica espiritual. A seguir discutiremos a questão da relação entre hermenêutica e arte no pensamento de Buber e, por extensão, a questão da relação dialógica com as esferas da natureza e dos objetos. Será abordada, ainda, a questão do que Buber designa por “a graça da unidade”, momento de encontro da alma com de Deus e, o seu inverso, o momento do caos experienciado pela alma. Para tal se escutarão as vozes de Czeslaw Milosz, Simone Weill, Paul Tillich, Milan Kundera e também de Dostoievski, interpretadas sob o viés buberiano. Concluímos com a hipótese de que é possível, a partir do horizonte hermenêutico fornecido pelo pensamento buberiano, se pensar acerca de uma concepção de hermenêutica espiritual de caráter dialógico.