Kings and Spirits in The Eastern European Tales [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 183-206]

192
BARBARA TORUNCZYK
Faithfulness to the hierarchy of values and a proud discrimination
are Milosz's response to the sceptical and relativistic language of today.
"We who are Easterners believe in the primitive notions of good and
evil.... We believe in good and evil-period" is Milosz's stubborn refrain
when he is asked to define the basic difference between the two words
[Newsweek (international edition), June 6, 1983: "Interview with Czeslaw
Milosz"]. When he cautions against toppling the tablets of values into the
dust, Milosz stresses that this is a path from which there is no turning back.
"The erosion of the scale of values... begins gradually," notes Venclova,
"from abstract theological arguments: the subordination of man to the
laws of determination, his inclusion into nature, deprives life and death
of meaning." Milosz's line is an "attempt to find a moral point of reference
in our world," concludes Venclova. ["Poetry as Atonement"]
The accent Milosz placed on the moral problematic in the struggle
with the reductionist efforts of "European nihilism" has undergone a change
in recent explorations. The sphere of absolute values has come to be a
counterweight to the determinism of history and politics.
For Milosz the matter was not at all obvious. History had its own
rules. The great tragedies of the 20th century demonstrated the enormity
of the obligation it imposed. The Captive Mind shows to what extent Eastern
European intellectuals sacrificed themselves on the altar of history. In his
book, Milosz portrays these intellectuals hypnotized by the Zeitgeist. Reconstructing their reasoning: the belief of the meaning of history and its
logic of development inscribed by the Hegelian scalpel on the minds of
that age-Milosz sketches in the meantime his own likeness.
Gombrowicz, a perceptive reader of Milosz, was dazzled by the latter's
intelligence, talent, and instinctive sense of reality. He fully appreciated
the enormous task Milosz set himself to demonstrate to the West, Anno
Domini 1953, why communist ideology could triumph and win over hearts
and minds. But despite all his respect, Gombrowicz notes that Milosz continues to look upon reality as a manifestation of "the current historical
moment." This marvelous thoroughbred of an artist finds his way blocked
by the "necessities" of politics and Zeitgeist-by "History," "rubbish from
the past," and "scruples to which his former life has attached him." [Witold
Gombrowicz, Dziennik (Diary), vol. 1, 1953, Paris: Instytut Literacki,
1971]
For Milosz history was-and partly remained-a demonic element.
He studies the way it possesses people. The desolation history leaves in
its wake awakens pity and affection for humanity, shows man's fragility.
A gesture of solidarity seems called for-an outstretched hand, a plunge
into the ferment, participation in the pandemonium. Is this pity? Sympathy? Helplessness?
History also discloses another aspect to Milosz. It is the Heraclitean
element of relentless change and transformation. This element inspires