Filomatiškasis Vilniaus kodas Czesławo Miłoszo kūryboje
Filomatic Code of Vilnius of Czesław Miłosz

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the theme and the image of Vilnius – the city of Czesław Miłosz’s youth – in his poetry. The image of Vilnius in the Miłosz’s postwar poetry reflect the rejection of nostalgic sentiments and memories (as in “The Bird’s Song on Potomac River”, “The Toast”). In the 60-ies Vilnius becomes the constant theme, “the restoration of property”, as Milosz puts it (“Never from thee, my city…”, “City without a Name”, etc.); the memories become the art’s subject. He feels that he is the only witness and therefore sees his poetic quest in true recreation of the past. That past contains all historic periods; therefore the poet groups his youth friends together with the youth of Mickiewicz and Filomats time. In the 1970–80-ies Miłosz named his method as apokatastasis – “the backward motion”, the recreation of reality in all its details (“The Bells in Winter”, “Long and Away”, etc.). Miłosz saw a salvaging function in word. The poet is the only person who can bring the past to life with words and thereby, to preserve it. In his image of Vilnius Miłosz combined the documental and the artistic, the metaphysic, The narrowing of image to “private topography” actually broadened the limits of knowledge and artistic capability.

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