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Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books Ltd (1997), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 272 pages
Description
The best known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right. --Publisher.
User reviews
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
Looking back, it's hard to imagine anyone supporting the Communist rule of Eastern Europe, and yet, at the time, there was a lot of support for Russia amongst Western Europe's intelligentsia. If you ever had a feeling of fondness towards the hammer and sickle, then this book will surely rid you of
Milosz, a Polish poet and novelist, lived through the harshest periods of the twentieth century, and here explains to the rest of us what life in a Communist regime is really like for the people who have to suffer it.
He takes four examples to illustrate his case - four poets and politicians who, for varying reasons, allowed themselves to bend and fall into line inside the Party. Theirs are the saddest stories, the bright lights of a generation needlessly, one would say now, dimmed.
Some of Milosz's writing is difficult to work through without a firm grounding in the vernacular of the Communist theory, so be warned. Keep a dictionary to hand, or better yet, an encyclopedia, but if you work through to the end, you will be pleased you did.
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it.Milosz, a Polish poet and novelist, lived through the harshest periods of the twentieth century, and here explains to the rest of us what life in a Communist regime is really like for the people who have to suffer it.
He takes four examples to illustrate his case - four poets and politicians who, for varying reasons, allowed themselves to bend and fall into line inside the Party. Theirs are the saddest stories, the bright lights of a generation needlessly, one would say now, dimmed.
Some of Milosz's writing is difficult to work through without a firm grounding in the vernacular of the Communist theory, so be warned. Keep a dictionary to hand, or better yet, an encyclopedia, but if you work through to the end, you will be pleased you did.
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LibraryThing member Narboink
An excellent read and justifiably a classic. It's certainly a dated piece, as political works usually are, and yet Milosz's instance on confining his commentary to his own experience and epoch (i.e., Nazi and Soviet occupation) makes it a timeless work of intellectual history. Particularly salient
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are his observations about the function and psychology of the artist in society. Just read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member kant1066
"There are occasions when silence no longer suffices, when it may pass as an avowal. Then one must not hesitate. Not only must one deny one's true opinion, but one is commanded to resort to all ruses to deceive one's adversary. One makes all the protestations of faith that can please him, one
"The Captive Mind," written in the early 1950s immediately after Milosz was awarded political asylum in France, is one of the first attempts to articulate the appeal of Communism (or, more broadly, dialectical materialism) to the intellectuals all over Eastern Europe.
Central to the novel are four characters identified by Milosz only as Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma (but who we know enough about to identify as the very real authors Jerzy Andrzejewski, Tadeusz Borowski, Jerzy Putrament, and Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski.) Each of the four has uniquely different relationships to writing, and thinks differently about the way dialectical materialism affects their writing. In Alpha's youth, his far-right politics calls him into writing with the force of "moral authority." He later eschews these politics and becomes a Catholic who speaks out against anti-Semitism. After World War II ends, Alpha's writing ideologically aligns itself with the puppet governments that set themselves up on Eastern Europe, and he is later seen only seen as a literary prostitute by his former friends. Beta, a poet who spent two years in Auschwitz and Dachau only to later be released by American soldiers, later swallows the pill of Murti-Bing and writes hard-line ideological defenses of Leninism and Stalinism. The experiences of Delta and Gamma are equally typical accounts of when the mind of an intellectual bumps into an intractable ideological system which inevitably evolves into "ketman," meaning an outward acceptance of an idea while still holding on to unspoken reservations. In fact, this word, originally from the Arabic, was imported into English by Arthur Gobineau himself (see the quotation above).
The first two chapters are incisive in evoking the spirit of the Communism-addled writer who struggles to balance his "priorities." But the middle chapters on the writers seem as untrue - not false in the strict sense, but lacking the clarity of the moral-political-aesthetic themes with which he was trying to deal - as the ideology with which they are struggling. While they are presented as individuated, personal characters, the reader gets the feeling that Milosz is to turn them into archetypes while at other times working deliberately against this, which has an odd way of turning them into alienating abstractions for the reader.
Perhaps most of all, this book serves as a tocsin. By now, an entire generation of Europeans has had the ability to write, think, and speak publicly about whatever they wish, the very fact of which possibly renders Milosz's book a peculiar curio from the doldrums of intellectual history. For many Americans, whose questions of freedom are restricted to whether or not one is allowed to burn their draft card or a Koran, or utter a prayer in school, reading "The Captive Mind" may very well have a stultifying effect. If that happens, the book runs the risk - we all run the risk - of it becoming still even more relevant than it is now.
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performs all the rites one recognizes to be the most vain, one falsifies one's own books, one exhausts all possible means of deceit." - Arthur Gobineau, from `Religions and Philosophies of Central Asia'"The Captive Mind," written in the early 1950s immediately after Milosz was awarded political asylum in France, is one of the first attempts to articulate the appeal of Communism (or, more broadly, dialectical materialism) to the intellectuals all over Eastern Europe.
Central to the novel are four characters identified by Milosz only as Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma (but who we know enough about to identify as the very real authors Jerzy Andrzejewski, Tadeusz Borowski, Jerzy Putrament, and Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski.) Each of the four has uniquely different relationships to writing, and thinks differently about the way dialectical materialism affects their writing. In Alpha's youth, his far-right politics calls him into writing with the force of "moral authority." He later eschews these politics and becomes a Catholic who speaks out against anti-Semitism. After World War II ends, Alpha's writing ideologically aligns itself with the puppet governments that set themselves up on Eastern Europe, and he is later seen only seen as a literary prostitute by his former friends. Beta, a poet who spent two years in Auschwitz and Dachau only to later be released by American soldiers, later swallows the pill of Murti-Bing and writes hard-line ideological defenses of Leninism and Stalinism. The experiences of Delta and Gamma are equally typical accounts of when the mind of an intellectual bumps into an intractable ideological system which inevitably evolves into "ketman," meaning an outward acceptance of an idea while still holding on to unspoken reservations. In fact, this word, originally from the Arabic, was imported into English by Arthur Gobineau himself (see the quotation above).
The first two chapters are incisive in evoking the spirit of the Communism-addled writer who struggles to balance his "priorities." But the middle chapters on the writers seem as untrue - not false in the strict sense, but lacking the clarity of the moral-political-aesthetic themes with which he was trying to deal - as the ideology with which they are struggling. While they are presented as individuated, personal characters, the reader gets the feeling that Milosz is to turn them into archetypes while at other times working deliberately against this, which has an odd way of turning them into alienating abstractions for the reader.
Perhaps most of all, this book serves as a tocsin. By now, an entire generation of Europeans has had the ability to write, think, and speak publicly about whatever they wish, the very fact of which possibly renders Milosz's book a peculiar curio from the doldrums of intellectual history. For many Americans, whose questions of freedom are restricted to whether or not one is allowed to burn their draft card or a Koran, or utter a prayer in school, reading "The Captive Mind" may very well have a stultifying effect. If that happens, the book runs the risk - we all run the risk - of it becoming still even more relevant than it is now.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Czesław Miłosz was born in 1911 in central Lithuania (then part of Russian empire). He wrote lovingly of his Lithuanian childhood in a novel, The Issa Valley, and also in his memoir Native Realm. In his twenties he traveled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz, a
Miłosz spent World War II in Warsaw, under Nazi Germany's "General Government," where, among other things, he attended underground lectures by Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics, Władysław Tatarkiewicz. He did not participate in the Warsaw Uprising due to his residence outside of Warsaw proper. After the war Miłosz served as cultural attaché of the communist People's Republic of Poland in Paris. However, in 1951 he defected and obtained political asylum in France. In 1953 he received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize).
In 1960 Miłosz emigrated to the United States, and in 1970 he became a U.S. citizen, and in 1980 receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature for a writer "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts". Since his works had been banned in Poland by the communist government, this was the first time that many Poles became aware of him. When the Iron Curtain fell, Miłosz was able to return to Poland, at first to visit and later to live part-time in Kraków, while continuing to spend time each year in America. In 1989 Miłosz received the U.S. National Medal of Arts and an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. Through the Cold War, his name was often invoked in the United States, particularly by conservative commentators such as William F. Buckley, Jr., usually in the context of Miłosz's 1953 book The Captive Mind. During the same time, his name was largely ignored by the government-censored media and publications in Poland.
The Captive Mind has been described as one of the finest studies of the behavior of intellectuals under a repressive regime. In the preface Miłosz observed that "I lived through five years of Nazi occupation . . . I do not regret those years in Warsaw". But it is his analysis of Poland and her intellectuals under the heel of Soviet Communism that is the primary content of this book. Through the examples of four intellectuals Milosz is able to capture the psychological impact on the lives of his countrymen. The criticism is devastating and it has not lost its impact more than fifty years later. He even was prescient enough to speculate the the Soviet Dictatorship might fall at some future date, little did he know in 1953 that it would come to pass less than thirty years later. This reader found that Milosz' prose is as beautifully written as his poetry and he is an author to whom I will continue to return for inspiration.
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French poet of Lithuanian descent. The result, a volume of his own poetry, was published in 1934. After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning to Poland he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed for his leftist views.Miłosz spent World War II in Warsaw, under Nazi Germany's "General Government," where, among other things, he attended underground lectures by Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics, Władysław Tatarkiewicz. He did not participate in the Warsaw Uprising due to his residence outside of Warsaw proper. After the war Miłosz served as cultural attaché of the communist People's Republic of Poland in Paris. However, in 1951 he defected and obtained political asylum in France. In 1953 he received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize).
In 1960 Miłosz emigrated to the United States, and in 1970 he became a U.S. citizen, and in 1980 receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature for a writer "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts". Since his works had been banned in Poland by the communist government, this was the first time that many Poles became aware of him. When the Iron Curtain fell, Miłosz was able to return to Poland, at first to visit and later to live part-time in Kraków, while continuing to spend time each year in America. In 1989 Miłosz received the U.S. National Medal of Arts and an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. Through the Cold War, his name was often invoked in the United States, particularly by conservative commentators such as William F. Buckley, Jr., usually in the context of Miłosz's 1953 book The Captive Mind. During the same time, his name was largely ignored by the government-censored media and publications in Poland.
The Captive Mind has been described as one of the finest studies of the behavior of intellectuals under a repressive regime. In the preface Miłosz observed that "I lived through five years of Nazi occupation . . . I do not regret those years in Warsaw". But it is his analysis of Poland and her intellectuals under the heel of Soviet Communism that is the primary content of this book. Through the examples of four intellectuals Milosz is able to capture the psychological impact on the lives of his countrymen. The criticism is devastating and it has not lost its impact more than fifty years later. He even was prescient enough to speculate the the Soviet Dictatorship might fall at some future date, little did he know in 1953 that it would come to pass less than thirty years later. This reader found that Milosz' prose is as beautifully written as his poetry and he is an author to whom I will continue to return for inspiration.
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LibraryThing member br77rino
A nonfiction book in 7 chapters from a Catholic Polish poet who lived in both Hitler's takeover of Poland and Stalin's takeover of Lithuania and Poland. The first two chapters attempt to inhabit the mind, a bit inconsistently and thus confusingly, I must admit, of an intelligent person living
The next four chapters look at four writer friends and colleagues who he labels Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta (odd, since they are real people apparently), and gives us a short bio on each and their transformation to unquestioning loyalists to the new power.
The final chapter reveals a more personal story, set in Lithuania and the Ukraine, in which he realized the new leaders, as much as he admires their intentions, are simply wrong.
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through this and justifying how it - the Stalinist culture, aka dialectical materialism, the New Faith or the Method - is a good thing. ("Is," because this is written in 1953 when it was all alive and well and thriving, and the writer had escaped to Paris.) The next four chapters look at four writer friends and colleagues who he labels Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta (odd, since they are real people apparently), and gives us a short bio on each and their transformation to unquestioning loyalists to the new power.
The final chapter reveals a more personal story, set in Lithuania and the Ukraine, in which he realized the new leaders, as much as he admires their intentions, are simply wrong.
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LibraryThing member iansales
I bought this last year in an effort to widen my reading. I hadn’t realised when I purchased it that it wasn’t fiction. It’s a political diatribe written by someone who survived both WWII and the Soviet takeover of Poland, but managed to resist the blandishments of both the Underground during
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WWII and the Soviet occupiers afterwards. As a writer, an intellectual, with acceptable political credentials, he ended up as cultural attaché in Washington but, disgusted by the responses of his peers to the new regime, he chose to exile himself. Miłosz first points out that intellectuals were a peculiar class of their own in Central and East European countries, and this particularly applied to writers, one that had no equivalent in Western European – or American – societies. After discussing “ketman”, which seems to be a a misunderstanding of an historical Islamic term (now known as “taqiya”), Miłosz describes four writers of his acquaintance and their response to Soviet occupation – and this is where The Captive Mind comes into its own. I’ve no idea who the writers are he describes, although it probably isn’t difficult to figure out, but his dissection of their character and ambitions in light of Polish history during and after WWII is fascinating stuff. I don’t think for an instant that The Captive Mind is a warning against “totalitarian culture” as the book is often described. It is specific to a time and place, and I suspect some of the tactics described by Miłosz are triggered more by an institutional drive for survival than by an y kind of coherent political thought. The Captive Mind was intended to make for scary reading, but its teeth have long since been pulled – first by Solidarność, then by glasnost, although both of course were the end result of long and dangerous campaigns. On the other hand, in 2018 we seem to be staring down the throat of full-blown fascism, despite everything our parents and grandparents fought against last century, despite the clear benefits to all and sundry that progressivism and regulated economies bring… The Captive Mind is an important historical document, but its remit is too narrow, its lessons are too focused, and the passage of time has rendered its general sense of alarm both moot and badly aimed. However. Worth reading, if you’re interested in the subject. Show Less
LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
This was an excellent work of nonfiction. Milosz describes the state of Eastern Europe, and the ramifications that follow it, in poetic and sublime detail. His observations, hypotheses, and examples permeate to the whole conceptualization of Eastern Europe.
This is a great book. I recommend it to
This is a great book. I recommend it to
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everyone. Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
Published two years after his definitive break with the post-war Polish state, this is the book where Czesław Miłosz investigates in detail how Stalinism affected the minds of people living in the parts of Europe that fell under Soviet domination after World War II. He looks in the abstract at a
In the final chapters, Miłosz looks at the way the unpredictable individuality of the human mind keeps on undermining the "scientific" assumptions of totalitarian ideologies, and he devotes some time to making sure that his readers are aware of the scale of the horrors inflicted on the people of the Baltic states after the Russian occupations of 1940 and 1945 and the Nazi occupation of 1941. If you're going to have a single political system based on a Russian Centre, you'd better be prepared to put up with mass deportations, he's telling us.
Obviously some of this is very specific to the situation Miłosz was in in the early 1950s, but there are also a lot of frighteningly clear insights into the way people behave under pressure in the real world. And some prescient moments when he talks about the likelihood that the countries of Eastern Europe will rise up against Stalin and be crushed one by one, and about Catholicism as the main threat to Stalinism in Poland. Interesting too how Miłosz, who had seen all this at first hand, praises the insight of George Orwell, who hadn't.
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number of mental strategies he has identified for coping with totalitarian rule, and in the light of these he considers his own experience as a left-wing writer who lived through the horrors of the Nazi occupation in Warsaw and also looks at four other Polish writers (coincidentally called Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta) who accommodated themselves, or tried not to, in various different ways. In the final chapters, Miłosz looks at the way the unpredictable individuality of the human mind keeps on undermining the "scientific" assumptions of totalitarian ideologies, and he devotes some time to making sure that his readers are aware of the scale of the horrors inflicted on the people of the Baltic states after the Russian occupations of 1940 and 1945 and the Nazi occupation of 1941. If you're going to have a single political system based on a Russian Centre, you'd better be prepared to put up with mass deportations, he's telling us.
Obviously some of this is very specific to the situation Miłosz was in in the early 1950s, but there are also a lot of frighteningly clear insights into the way people behave under pressure in the real world. And some prescient moments when he talks about the likelihood that the countries of Eastern Europe will rise up against Stalin and be crushed one by one, and about Catholicism as the main threat to Stalinism in Poland. Interesting too how Miłosz, who had seen all this at first hand, praises the insight of George Orwell, who hadn't.
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Language
Original language
Polish
Original publication date
1953
Physical description
272 p.; 7.8 inches
ISBN
0140189270 / 9780140189278
Local notes
Zniewolony umysł