Katastrofizm Czesława Miłosza

This article is an attempt to look at Miłosz’es catastrophism from the side that has usually been ommitted in research so far – Miłosz’es own attitude to catastrophism – his individual characteristic. It the reconstruction I used Miłosz’es statements about catastrophism from The Land of Ulro, The Witness of Poetry, Native Realm, from conversations with Renata Gorczyńska („World Traveler”) as well as from a polemic article „Death to Cassandra” from 1945. According to Miłosz catastrophism has a planetary scale. It is the end of one world and civilization and the beginning of a new unknown, global world. Diagno-sis of XX century in his opus magnum The Land of Ulro indicates it’s decadent critical character. Civilization and society have been deprived of life-giving „onto-logical ground” and last only thanks to a phenomenon called by Miłosz „the law of delay”. Though, as per Miłosz, catastrophism is not a hopeless vision. The catastro-phe is necessary to let the broken down world be reborn and return to order. In the conclusion to The Land of Ulro author admits that from Oscar Miłosz he inherited faith (…) in a distant happy era of humanity reborn. And in his last Harvard lecture On Hope Miłosz announced that humanity will enter a new, regenerating dimen-sion, regaining it’s historical awareness and will begin learning of its past, contem-plating cultural heritage left behind by past civilizations and generations.