A trip to the land of Milosz - Lithuania

The Lithuanian poet, Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz (1877-1939), who wrote in the French language, was born in historic Lithuania, nowadays Belarus, an area, which previously formed part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His first poems appeared in 1899. From that time on, he did not stop writing - poetry, novels, plays, translations, political and metaphysical essays. "Milosz - the greatest gift that Europe gave to France", said French poet Paul Fort.

In 1919, Milosz became the first representative of Lithuania to have found his independence. "Come, I will lead you in spirit to a strange land, hazy, misty, murmuring... It is Lietuva, Lithuania, the land of Gedymin and Jagellon". Lecture or poem? The diplomats of the inter-war years quickly noticed these reports from the Lithuanian delegation, written in remarkable French!
In the 1930s, he discovered Fontainebleau and its gardens. It was there that, in the summer of 1931, he was to meet his young cousin, Czeslaw Milosz, a future winner of the Nobel prize for literature, who said of him: "He literally changed my life by forcing me to look for an answer to the questions, that are prompted by consideration of mystery, which were, for him, the very essence of poetry." (Extracts from a biography of the poet Milosz by Janine Kohler).

From April 1939, a month after the poet's death, the association of the friends of Milosz was formed and published four almanacs up to 1941. It all started again in March 1966, thanks to Andre Silvaire, as editor, who published the complete works of Milosz in 13 volumes. Since 1966, the association has published an almanac, printed with the help of the National Centre of Letters and published by Rocher, which has bought the Milosz collection. In August 2008, the Friends of Milosz made a trip to Lithuania for the first time in its history.

Here are the names of the 14 participants : Luc Coste-Sarguet, Joséphine Ferrari, Jean-Louis and Elisabeth Gindensperger, Christine Hantush, Marie-Hélène and Jean-Pierre Joyeux, Janine and Rodolphe Kohler, Andrée Multon, Bernadette and Jacques Nizard, Michelle et Olivier Piveteau.

Luc Coste-Sarguet has put together and presented some notes and impressions gathered during the course of this trip to the Lithuanian countryside, as well as a presentation about Oscar Milosz in 2007 in Bize-Minervois, on the occasion of the cultural event "Spring of the Poets", of which the interlacing retraces as far as possible the "garden of solitude and water", the poetic home of Oscar Milosz.

This is a few months from 2009, which will be a time of international recognition for Vilnius. The towns of Linz in Austria and Vilnius in Lithuania will then be the European capitals of culture. 2009 will be the 1,000th anniversary of the first mention of the name Lithuania, which appeared in the year 1009 in the annals of Quedlinburg.
In the summer of 2008, we live in troubled times, and we sensed how many people feel about the new threat to their way of life. You will see that Lithuania, an ex-soviet republic, has regained its independence recently. This happened in 1991. Today, one can visit the underground offices of the KGB in Vilnius and see the park with demolished statues. One can still meet witnesses of the past, people who were deported to Siberia and others, whose uncle, aunt, father, mother ... disappeared one day and were never seen again.

Last Updated (Wednesday, 18 March 2009 10:38)