A ‘Family Europe’ in Spite of Everything? - Poland and the West in Miłosz’s Essays

This article is a description of the relation between Polish culture and the West in Czeslaw Milosz’s thought, and an attempt to answer the question of its relevance to the current social situation and the mentality of Poles. Milosz noted that Polish culture is characterized by gentleness. He pointed out the difference between the twentieth century social and political experiences of Poles and of citizens of the West, and for this reason distanced himself from nihilism in post-war France and materialism in the United States in the sixties. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the penetration of Western cultural patterns is visible in Poland. However, despite the change of the political system, the same traits that characterized Poles in the mid-twentieth century are also observable. Poles, being unable to find their identity in the new social and political conditions, are still looking for a model for their culture