Beginning with Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1933 up until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 counts as one of the most brutal, nightmarish periods in history for such Eastern European countries as Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland. The Captive Mind is Polish poet and Nobel prize winner Czeslaw Milosz's astute 1953 work of non-fiction speaking to the attraction of totalitarianism for writers, artists and intellectuals.
In his first chapter Czeslaw Milosz explores how the vision of Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz 's novel Insatiability written during the 1920s became a reality for much of Eastern Europe. In the novel, along with nearly everybody else in Poland, writers and artists start popping Murit-Bing pills that pushers are selling on the street. These Murti-Bing pills completely change an individual - one becomes happy and tranquil and adopts what hippies in the US in the sixties termed a "hang easy, dangle loose" philosophy of life. Transformed by Murti-Bing, men and women raise no objection to the takeover of their civilization by a foreign power.
And why take Murti-Bing pills in the first place? Why would intellectuals and creative artists adapt themselves to invaders and their totalitarian regimes? Czeslaw Milosz goes into much depth here, examining the phenomenon in terms of a longing for harmony and happiness within the specific historical context, a world where religion has lost its power and where people feel isolated and cut off from one another.
However, although there is a measure of contentment when one has swallowed Murti-Bing Marxism, swallowing that turns an individual into no more than "an instrument in an orchestra directed by the muse of History," problems and anxieties remain. For as one young Polish poet admitted to the author, "I can't write as I would like to. . . . I get halfway through a phrase, and already I submit it to Marxist criticism. I imagine what X or Y will say about it, and I change the ending."
There's a lengthy chapter addressing how those engaged in literature and the arts living in Easter Europe under the influence of Marxist Murti-Bing view the West, particularly the United States. Standing as they do shoulder to shoulder with their fellow comrades, producing their poems, essays or visual arts within the context of Soviet dialectics, the culture of the "free" Western countries can appear as either shockingly bad or decidedly appealing, depending upon how you look at it. At one point Mr. Milosz writes: "Fear of the indifference with which the economic system of the West treats its artists and scholars is widespread among Eastern intellectuals. They say it is better to deal with an intelligent devil than with a good-natured idiot."
I can appreciate what an Eastern poet or painter might think living in the US. Unlike back in their home country, the government does not require any adherence to a particular ideology; rather, you can think or believe, write or paint whatever the hell you want. Go for it! However, whatever you create will not even reach the point of being taken seriously since it will not be taken at all; quite the contrary - you will be completely ignored.
Separate chapters are devoted to specific authors: the very racist French diplomat Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Jerzy Andrzejewski (called "Alpha") who worked in close collaboration with Polish Stalinism, Tadeusz Borowski (called "Beta"), a Jew sent to Nazi concentration camps, Jerzy Putrament (called "Gamma"), a Polish politician as well as writer and Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński (called "Delta"), a Polish poet who swallowed the Communist party line.
To share a more specific taste of Czeslaw Milosz's extensive reflections on these authors, here are three quotes along with my comments:
Re Jerzy Andrzejewsk: "We used to feel strangely ashamed, I remember, whenever Alpha read us his stories in that war-contaminated city. He exploited his subject matter too soon, his composition was too smooth. Thousands of people were dying in torture all about us; to transform their sufferings immediately into tragic theater seemed to us indecent." ---------- Bulls-eye, Czeslaw! I know from first-hand experience the truth of your words. Following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, everyone in the US was in a state of shock. I attended a theater/dance performance days after this tragedy. As unbelievable as it might seem, this troupe took the 9/11 attack as the theme of their evening performance. What outrage! Aesthetics in this case can be cast aside - what that theater troupe did was highly immoral.
Re Tadeusz Borowski: "I have read many books about concentration camps, but not one of them is as terrifying as his stories because he never moralizes, he relates." ---------- No question - reading this chapter is an intense, wrenching experience. Borowski is quoted at length. What Czeslaw Milosz has to say about Tadeusz Borowsk and concentration camps is penetrating, one of the most powerful pieces of writing I've come across, ever.
"He is proud to succeed when others, less clever, perish. There is no small amount of plain sadism in his repeated emphasis of the fact that he is well-dressed, well-fed, and healthy." ---------- I included this quote to let readers know that Czeslaw Milosz doesn't pull any punches; it is as if the author has poured his heart and inner fire into every single sentence.
The author concludes The Captive Mind with two chapters featuring his overarching, philosophical observations on what it means to live under the jackboot of totalitarianism. So as to let Czeslaw Milosz speak for himself, I have coupled my personal comments with his actual words:
"Whoever reads the public statements of the four writers discussed in the previous chapters might say that they sold themselves. The truth is, however, more involved. These men are, more or less consciously, victims of a historical situation." ---------- During this period men and women in Eastern Europe have been taken by the scuff of the neck and immersed in the caldron of history. As Czeslaw Milosz points out, even more than physical restraints, the transformation of the inner life was profound. No more are artists and writers and intellectuals able to separate themselves from those over and around them; silence and seclusion have been obliterated.
"Now I am homeless - a just punishment. But perhaps I was born so that the "Eternal Slaves" might speak through my lips. Why should I spare myself? Should I renounce what is probably the sole duty of a poet only in order to make sure that my verse would be printed in an anthology edited by the State Publishing House?" ---------- The Captive Mind is a work of courage.
The three stunning images included here are from the Lithuanian born artist Stasys Eidrigevicius
Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)
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