Oscar Milosz

Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz

Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz
Born May 28, 1877
Čareja (near Mogilev in present day Belarus)
Died March 2, 1939 (aged 61)
Fontainebleau
Cause of death
 Heart Attack
Resting place
 Fontainebleau
Nationality Lithuanian / French
Other names Lithuanian: Oskaras Milašius
Education École des langues orientales
Known for Poet and Diplomat
Religion Catholic
Spouse(s) None
Children None
Parent(s) Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz, Marie Rosalie Rosenthal
Relatives Distant cousin, Czeslaw Milosz

Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz (Lithuanian: Oskaras Milašius) (May 28, 1877—March 2, 1939) was a French-Lithuanian[1][2] poet, playwright, essayist and representative of Lithuania at the League of Nations.[2] His literary career — as manifested through his many poems, two novels and three plays — passed from its beginnings in the late symbolist movement of la Belle Époque towards a highly personal and dense Christian cosmology comparable to that of Dante and Milton. A recluse and metaphysician, his poems were visionary and tormented, concerned with love and loneliness and full of alchemical imagery.[3] Milosz also wrote essays. He was a distant cousin of Polish writer Czesław Miłosz, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980.


Life

I am a Lithuanian poet, writing in French[4]
—Oscar Milosz

Oscar Milosz was born in Čareja (near Mogilev in present day Belarus). Earlier these lands had belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but at the time was part of the Russian Empire. It was here that he spent his childhood. He was baptized on July 2, 1886, at St. Alexander's Church in Warsaw. His father, Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz, was a former officer in the Russian army and his mother, Marie Rosalie Rosenthal, was a Polish Jew from Warsaw. His parents did not marry until Oscar Milosz was 17. In 1889, Milosz's parents placed him at the Lycée Janson de Sailly in Paris. He began writing poems in 1894 and started to frequent artistic circles, meeting Oscar Wilde and Jean Moréas. After finishing at the Lycée, he enrolled at the École des langues orientales, where he studied Syriac and Hebrew.

His first book of verse, Le Poème des Décadences, appeared in 1899. Milosz travelled widely in Europe and North Africa and explored many foreign literatures. He was an excellent linguist and was fluent in English, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Polish, as well as being able to read Latin and Hebrew. Later in life, he would learn Lithuanian and Basque too. He chose to write his works in French.

On December 14, 1914, following on an intensive reading of the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, Milosz experienced an illumination, a divine vision that he described to one of his friends as "I have seen the spiritual sun."[5] On the wake of this vision, his poetry became more hermetic and more mature. He began the study of alchemy, the Kabbalah, Jacob Boehme, Paracelsus, the history of secret esoteric orders. At the same time, he engaged in Catholic meditative practices.[6]

In 1916, during World War I, Milosz was conscripted to the Russian division of the French army and was assigned to the press corps. Here he learned about the growing movement for Lithuanian independence. By the end of the war when both Lithuania and Poland were effectively independent again, Milosz chose to identify with Lithuania - even though he did not yet speak Lithuanian — because he believed that it had been the original homeland of his ancestors in the 13th century. After the Russian revolution of 1917, Milosz's estate at Čareja came under Soviet control and was seized by the Bolsheviks. In 1920 when France recognized the independence of Lithuania, he was appointed officially as Chargé d'Affaires for the new state. In 1931 he became a French citizen and was awarded the Légion d'honneur the same year.

Ill with cancer, he died of a heart attack at his house in Fontainebleau in 1939.[7]

Works

Milosz collected Lithuanian folk tales, and wrote fiction, drama, and essays. Largely neglected during his lifetime, Milosz has increasingly come to be considered as an important figure in French poetry. ″He tried to integrate into Christian metaphysics the mystical writings of the Kabbalah, Neoplatonic tradition, and other Hermetic sciences. In this regard, Milosz considered himself the disciple and follower of Renaissance alchemists. In a letter of 1926 to James Chouvet, he confesses that "... studies taught me the only thing they could, namely, that the truth is one and that some respect and love are enough to discover it in the depths of our consciousness. "″.[8]

Some of his works in French:

Works translated into English:

Opera based on his poems:

References

  1. ↑ A century's witness. Retrieved 2009-12-23
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Czesław Miłosz, Cynthia L. Haven. Czesław Miłosz. 2006p.203
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Scottish Arts Council - Books of Silence". Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  4. ↑ Oskaras Milašius, 1877-1939. retrieved on 2009-03-10
  5. ↑ Bamford (ed.), 1985, p. 449.
  6. ↑ Buzaite, Saule, ″Psychobiography: Oskaras Milašius″, Lituanus (Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences), vol. 46, no. 4, Winter 2000.
  7. ↑ "Biography of Oscar Milosz". Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  8. ↑ Buzaite, S., ″Psychobiography″.

External links