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Czeslaw Milosz Facts

Czeslaw Milosz Facts
Czeslaw Milosz was a Polish poet, essayist and prose writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. He was born on June 30th, 1911, in Szetejnie, Kovno Governorate, in the Russian Empire (now Lithuania), to Aleksander Milosz, a civil engineer, and Weronika, a descendant of a noble family. Czeslaw Milosz was educated at Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius, and then at Stefan Batory University where he studied law. After a trip to Paris, Czeslaw formed a poetic group called Zagary with other young poets. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934, the same year he received his law degree.
Interesting Czeslaw Milosz Facts:
Czeslaw was raised Catholic but became an atheist for many years before returning to Catholicism.
In the 1930s Czeslaw Milosz published two volumes of poetry. He also worked for Polish Radio.
Czeslaw Milosz was in Warsaw throughout the Second World War. When the war ended he moved to Paris to work as a Polish cultural representative.
Czeslaw Milosz married Janina in 1944. They had two sons together - Anthony and John Peter.
In 1951 Czeslaw was granted political asylum in France when he defected from Poland.
Czeslaw Milosz's book The Captive Mind was published in 1953. This book became a political science reference on the subject of totalitarianism
In 1953 Czeslaw Milosz was awarded the Prix Littéraire Européen.
In 1960 Czeslaw Milosz moved to the United States, and became a U.S. citizen in 1970.
Czeslaw Milosz became a Berkley professor in 1961in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures in California.
The Captive Mind was translated to English and Czeslaw Milosz received an award for the book in 1974 by the Polish P.E.N. club.
Czesaw Milosz became a Guggenheim Fellow of poetry in 1976.
In 1977 Czeslaw Milosz received an honorary degree from Michigan University, which made him Doctor of Letters.
In 1978 Czeslaw Milosz was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In the same year he was given a 'Berkeley Citation' which is the equivalent of an honorary Ph.D.
In 1980 Czeslaw Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In 1986 Czeslaw's first wife Janina died. He later married Carol Thigpen, a historian. She died in 2002.
Once the Iron Curtain came down Czeslaw Milosz was able to return to Poland. At first he made trips to visit but eventually he took an apartment in Krakow where he lived part-time. The rest of his time was spent at his home in Berkeley.
Harvard University awarded Czeslaw Milosz an honary doctorate in 1989. In the same year he was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Arts.
Czeslaw Milosz created an extensive body of Polish literature in his lifetime, beginning in 1933 with Poemat o czasie zastyg³ym, and ending with Jasno¶ci promieniste i inne wiersze in 2005, published the year after his death.
Czeslaw Milosz's extensive body of work written in English or translated to English began with The Captive Mind (1953), translated into English by Jane Zielonko, and ended with Selected Poems, 1931-2004, published two years after his death in 2006.
Czeslaw Milosz died on August 14th, 2004 at his home in Krakow, at the age of 93.


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