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The following reflections of Milosz on the cultural and political rips and tears of Europe contain an undisguised disenchantment and significant lucidity. The writer identifies the tensions superposed by the three great polarities of the century on the European continent —north/south, east/west, past/future— and he recognizes the effect they have had on the successive fractures of the European conscience.
Czeslaw Milosz can speak of the matter with infinite authority, not only because he is profoundly committed to European cultural tradition but also because few intellectuals experienced the disintegration of the political and spiritual map of Europe with the violence that he did. Vargas Llosa summarizes that drama in a few words: (Milosz) "was born in Vilna, Lithuania, to a Polish-speaking family. In less than half a century, his native city belonged to the Russians, the Germans, the Lithuanians, the Poles, the Lithuanians again, again to the Germans and, lastly, again to the Russians."