Czesławo Miłoszo "katastrofizmas" ir Vakarų kultūros krizė ; Czesław Miłosz's "catastrophism" and the crisis of Western culture

Abstract

The article deals with the reflection of Western cultural crisis in Czesław Miłosz's creativity expressed as "catastrophism". The experience of crisis must be linked with the political situation between the two World Wars, but Miłosz perceives it as a crisis of culture and first of all a crisis in the changed social sphere. His view is close to the opinion of the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset: "the rebellion of the mass" is one of the signs of cultural crisis. Miłosz rejects Ortega's idea of "dehumanization of art" because, according to Miłosz, a contemporary artist reflecting himself as a single individual and seeking to avoid the man of mass in fact is part of that mass. "The Captive mind" is the analysis of Polish writers' timeserving policy after World War II. In this book, Miłosz tried to find some kind of justification of writers' position and introduced a concept of "ketman". Miłosz practiced "ketman" himself when he worked in diplomatic service of the Polish People's Republic and later in West emigration.