Poles in Lithuania champion year of Czeslaw Milosz

Czeslaw Milosz (1986); photo - MDC

Both Polish and Lithuanian parliaments have declared 2011 to be Milosz Year in memory of the late poet and prose writer, most associated with his critique of Stalinism, The Captive Mind (1953).

“We want to take advantage of this year to popularise Lauda [where Milosz was born] and specific places connected to the Milosz family […] and to draw attention to the fact that the ancestors of the poet lie here,” said Ryszard Jankowski, president of the Association of Poles in the region.

The Nobel Prize-winning writer, who died in 2004, was born a hundred years ago in the village of Szetejnie, then a part of the Russian Empire but historically part of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. Milosz’s family were Lithuanian nobles who had assimilated into the Polish elite in the 16th century.

Several events are planned for the Lauda region. Spring and summer will see the Festival of Polish Culture “From Above the Issa”, the title of which refers to the writer’s autobiographical novel The Issa Valley.

There will also be a historical conference and at the initiative of Jankowski, a calendar named “Milosz 1911-2011: Here it all Began” has already been published.

Lithuania’s Polish community currently numbers around 250,000. Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, who has a similar ancestry to that of Milosz, recently admonished the Lithuanian government to rectify alleged discrimination against the Polish minority regarding the right to use Polish names and autonomy within Polish schools.

Milosz Year has the potential to strike a more conciliatory note in Polish-Lithuanian relations. The writer himself always referred to himself in terms of the old Commonwealth of Two Nations, as opposed to within the framework of the more fractious 20th century, with its traumatic upheavals. (nh/pg)

Source: PAP