Censorship Towards Czesław Miłosz in Poland in the Fifties after Having Chosen the Emigration

Abstract

This article shows the outline of problems connected with censoring Czesław Miłosz’s literary output in Poland in the 1950s, when the poet breaks off with the national government and chooses political asylum in France, becoming an émigré. The article looks into (in the space of decade) the periods of particularly tightened control towards Miłosz, shows how the censorship was tightening and relaxing when it came to his name. In the Polish October several poems and an excerpt from the novel The Seizure of Power was published, though – despite publishing advertisements – none of the poet’s books came out.

Keywords

• Czesław Miłosz
• censorship after 1945
• censorship towards literature
• literary life after 1945
• literary criticism