Prorocy i proroctwa Czesława Miłosza

Abstract

The article presents Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell as perceived by Czesław Miłosz. It proves that the controlling of the past is a crucial issue in the analysis of the totalitarian enslavement, carried out by both artists. The author of the article considers Orwell to be among European and Russian experts on Russia. It proves that Miłosz read Nineteen Eighty-Four from the perspective of the works by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Russian religious thinkers. In comparison to them, Orwell’s analysis of totalitarianism, viewed as the rule of one party that for the sake of power controls and forms the minds of the citizenry, does not reach to the heart of Soviet communism which, in the analysis carried out by the Polish Nobel Prize winner, aims at physical annihilation of the subjects rather than their enslavement. The author argues that Miłosz found an explanation to the destructive character of communism not in the works by Orwell but in the works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Berdyaev and Bogumił Jasinowski.