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He was born in Szetejnie , Lithuania and always underlined his connection to Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Milosz studied law at the University in Vilnius . His childhood was spent partly in Russia around the time of Revolution.
In 1944 he refused to take part in the Warsaw UprisingThe Warsaw Uprising Powstanie Warszawskie was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1 1944 as a part of a nationwide uprising, Op.
A diplomat for the communistThis article is about one-party states ruled by Communist Parties. For information regarding communism as a form of society, as an ideology advocating that form of society, or as a popular movement, see the main Communism article. In common speech in the People's Republic of PolandThe People's Republic of Poland ( Polish Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa PRL) was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1989, during its period of rule by the Communist party, officially called the Polish United Workers' Party Polska Zjednoczona Partia Ro, he broke with the government in 1951Events January events January 9 United Nations headquarters officially opens ( New York City). January 15 Ilse Koch, The "Witch of Buchenwald," wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in We and sought political asylumUnder international law, a refugee is a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political in FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents.. In 19531953 is a common year starting on Thursday (click on link for the calendar). Events January events January 7 President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. January 13 Marshal Josip Broz Tito chosen President of Yugosl he received the Prix Littéraire Européen , a European literature prize.
In 1961 he became a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. He retired in 1978 but continued to teach there. When the Iron Curtain fell he was able to return to Poland.
In addition to his poetry, his book The Captive Mind is considered one of the finest studies of the condition of intellectuals under repressive regimes.
In The Captive Mind he said that the intellectuals who became dissidents were not necessarily the ones with the strongest minds, but those with the weakest stomachs. The mind can rationalize anything, he said, but the stomach can only take so much.
He also said that as a poet he avoided touching his nation's wounds for fearing of making them holy.
Czeslaw Milosz is honored at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust as one of the "Righteous Among The Nations."
His poems were put on the monuments of fallen shipyard workers in Gdansk. Many of his books and poems have been translated into English by his friend and Berkeley colleague Robert Hass.
Milosz died in 2004 at his home in Kraków at age 93. His first wife, Janina, died in 1986. His second wife, Carol, a U.S.-born historian, died in 2003.