De l’exil a «la vie délivrée» - les patries d’Oscar Milosz

Abstract

For a long time, the exiled Milosz was in search of a homeland. The first step of this search was the land of his childhood. He mentions it in contradictory terms. In his novel Les Zborowski there is a decedent and desolate Lithuania. He states: “I am the son of a dead homeland.” Yet in poems written in the same period appears another homeland. Illuminated and consoling, he speaks of a lost paradise. The second part is different. In 1918, Milosz choses to be Lithuanian and becomes the first representative of the independent country. He has at last found the true homeland. In the beginning, since in due time Milosz feels limited in this role, becoming an initiated prophet, and the reality of a country all too relative. He discovers another homeland. The third part is that of spirituality. After the emotional homeland of his youth, after the homeland of politics and diplomacy, Milosz reaches “pure spiritual reality” and discovers a “liberated life”, free of space and time, free from the torments of exile. Now he writes “Homeland” with a capital “H”.