Also see hitler's photograph poem and the first poem in the szymborska book

1. FATE OF THE
INTELLIGENTSIA
By: Andre Escobar
Michael Leon

2. CZESLAW MILOSZ
 Czeslaw Milosz was born on June 30, 1911 in what was then Russian
Lithuania
 Milosz was raised Catholic in rural Lithuania and emphasized his identity with
the multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania (he refused to categorically identify
himself as either a Pole or a Lithuanian).
 In his youth, Milosz came to adopt, as he put it, a "scientific, atheistic position
mostly", though he was later to return to the Catholic faith.
 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, Milosz was able to return to Poland. During this period in Poland,
his work was silenced by government-censored media.
 Milosz spent World War II in Warsaw, under Nazi Germany's "General
Government". Here he attended underground lectures by Polish philosopher
and historian of philosophy and aesthetics, Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz. He did
not participate in the Warsaw Uprising since he resided outside Warsaw
proper.

3. MILOSZ LITERATURE
Milosz wrote all his poetry, fiction and essays
in Polish and translated the Old Testament
Psalms into Polish.
 After World War II, Milosz served as cultural
representative of the communist People's
Republic of Poland in Paris. In 1951 he
deserted and obtained political asylum in
France.
In 1953 he received the European Literary
Prize.

4. MILOSZ & “THE CAPTIVE
MIND”(1953)
 The book was written soon after the author received political
asylum in Paris following his break with Poland's Communist
government.
 It states his experiences as an underground writer during World
War II, and his position within the political and cultural elite of
Poland in the immediate post-war years.
 The book explains both the intellectual charm of Stalinism and
the temptation of collaboration with the Stalinist regime among
intellectuals in post-war Central and Eastern Europe.
 At the heart of the book then follow, a depiction of a gifted Polish
man who submitted to the demands of the Communist state.

5. INTELLIGENTSIA AND RUSSIA VS. THE
WORLD
 Intellectuals who form an artistic, social, or political vanguard or elite
 Intelligentsia The consciousness of our Intelligentsia has not been oriented
towards the historically concrete and it is lacking in the proper organs for
judgment and appraisal in this area.
 This consciousness makes a fatal use of its judgment and evaluations, taken
from areas altogether different, and more the customary for it.
 The traditional Intelligentsia consciousness was totally focused upon
questions of internal politics and it was oriented exclusively towards social
interests.
 Across the wide masses of the Russian Intelligentsia, the war ought to
generate a deep crisis of consciousness, a broadening of horizons, an
altering of the basic values of life.
 The world war inevitably refocuses the awareness upon international politics
and it evokes an exceptional interest on the role of Russia in world life.

6. INTELLIGENTSIAS
 Władysław Broniewski: At first, he published his poems in the
newspaper published by the Soviets, but soon he was arrested by
NKVD on the charges of "hooliganism”
 Aleksander Wat: in 1931 he was also one of the main journalists of
the Marxist Tygodnik literacki. Until the outbreak of World War II he
was also the literary director of Gebethner Wolff, the biggest and the
most renown Polish printing house of the time. Despite his sympathy
for Communism, he was arrested by the NKVD and exiled to
Kazakhstan.
 Leopold Lewin: was a Polish poet, journalist and translator. Arrested
by NKVD, he became a Polish communist, joined the Union of Polish
Patriots there, and was an author of many socrealistic poems. After
the war he was an editor of several Polish newspapers and the
Secretary General of the Polish Literary Society.

7. INTELLIGENTSIAS (CONTINUED)
 Anatol Stern: was a Polish poet, writer and art critic. With time he
drifted away from avant-garde poetry and became a notable
screenwriter. Prior to the outbreak of World War II, he authored
more than 30 screenplays for both Polish and foreign films. After
the Invasion of Poland he moved to Soviet-held Lwów, where he
was then arrested by the NKVD and sent to Soviet Gulag.
 Teodor Parnicki: was a Polish writer, notable for his historical
novels. After the Invasion, during the Soviet occupation of Lwów,
he was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to 8 years in a
Gulag for alleged anti-Soviet conspiracy.

8. SZYMBORSKA BACKGROUND
 Wisława Szymborska is a Polish poet, essayist and translator. Many
of her poems feature war and terrorism.
 Although she once remarked in a poem entitled "Some like poetry"
that no more than two out of a thousand people care for the art.
 Szymborska was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for
poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological
context to come to light in fragments of human reality".
 Szymborska's compact poems often conjure large existential
puzzles, touching on issues of ethical import, and reflecting on the
condition of people both as individuals and as members of human
society.
 She has long been cherished by Polish literary contemporaries
(including Czesław Miłosz).

9. SZYMBORSKA & LITERATURE
 Szymborska frequently employs literary devices such
as irony, paradox, contradiction, and understatement,
to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions.
 Her first book was to be published in 1949, but did not
pass censorship as it "did not meet socialist
requirements." Like many other intellectuals in post-
war Poland, however, Szymborska remained loyal to
the People‟s Republic of Poland (PRL) official ideology
early in her career, which was signing political
petitions and praising Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin
and the realities of socialism.

10. „LENIN‟
 He led the oppressed into the battle
He made their victory last for ever
He put a powerful fundament
for the coming epochs.
The grave where he is resting
This Adam of a new mankind
Shall be decorated with flowers
from planets unknown today.

11. „FOR THE YOUTH THAT BUILDS NOWA
HUTA‟
 Who built the house in which I live?
Who put their work on the foundation?
This mason, potter and glazier and carpenter
are missed by the human memory.
Class with a bad memory - dies.
More accurate memory, choose:
same as the book opens
czytywanych most places.
Today for you, with you, from you, young,
the city begins to resume.
Memory of the names of your everyday
zdobnym word recorded in admiration,
gust recorded your standards
and turns into a beautiful plan calculations.
Because it is the working memory
serving the working class.

14. WORKS CITED
 Berdyaev, N. A. "War and the Crisis of the Intelligentsia Consciousness."
Berdyaev (Berdiaev) Online Library and Index. 2001. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.
<http://ww
 Hitchens, Christopher. "The Captive Mind - Magazine - The Atlantic." The
Atlantic — News and Analysis on Politics, Business, Culture, Technology,
National, International, and Life – TheAtlantic.com. May 2009. Web. 20 Nov.
2011. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-captive-
mind/7368/>.
 Judt, Tony. "Captive Minds by Tony Judt | The New York Review of Books."
Home | The New York Review of Books. Web. 21 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/sep/30/captive-
minds/?pagination=false>.w.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1915_201.html>
.
 "Miłosz Czesław." Instytut Książki. Web. 22 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.bookinstitute.pl/en,ik,site,40,78,115.php>.