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NEXT STORY

No one had an unblemished past

RELATED STORIES

Herbert and Miłosz
Julia Hartwig Poet
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No także, no... ale nie zmienia to postaci rzeczy, że uważam to za wizytę nieudaną i nawet w jakiś sposób sobie wyobraziłam zatarg Miłosza z Herbertem, bo przy takiej gwałtowności różne rzeczy mogły... mogły się okazać. I nawet dosyć szczegółowo znam przebieg tej wizyty, ponieważ państwo... Carpenterowie, którzy tłumaczyli mój... moje dwa tomy, które się ukazały w Stanach, byli... właśnie u nich się to rozgrywało. To była kolacja u państwa... Carpenterów w Kalifornii, zanim ona się przeniosła na północ do innego uniwersytetu. Otóż... otóż ona wyraźnie zaprzecza temu, jakoby Miłosz powiedział coś takiego o przynależności do Związku Radzieckiego, co jest już takim nonsensem, że włożyć to akurat Miłoszowi w usta – który jest człowiekiem tak mądrym i tak znakomicie zorientowanym – no to było po prostu... zła wola, no... wściekłość, no coś takiego. Mianowicie jeśli chodzi o Miłosza to ja myślę, że to były stosunki bardzo bliskie, znam te listy Miłosza i... i Herberta, bo one wyszły i tam jest taki strasznie... uniżony ton Herberta, który mi się właśnie nie spodobał. Bo to... bo można kogoś uważać za mistrza, ale on miał już takie prawo do pewnego, no... równouprawnienia niewątpliwie, a tymczasem mu jakoś tak schlebiał. Natomiast bardzo mi się podobał i zaskoczył mnie stosunek Miłosza do Herberta, który miał do niego stosunek po prostu uczuciowo miłosny. To było, po prostu... on go... był tak szczęśliwy, że spotkał zdolnego poetę, że może go poprzeć, że... że może się z nim zaprzyjaźnić i prowadzić z nim na pewno ciekawe rozmowy. Bo te dwie osoby na pewno ciekawie ze sobą rozmawiały, nie mówiąc, że również ciekawie pewno popijały, ale to już inna sprawa i nas to zupełnie nie obchodzi.

Well, but that doesn't alter the fact that I consider it to have been a disastrous visit, and I can even somehow imagine the conflict between Miłosz and Herbert because with that degree of violence, anything could have happened. I have quite a detailed knowledge of how that visit evolved because the Carpenters, who translated my... two volumes of mine which were published in America, were there, it happened in their home. There was a dinner at the Carpenters in California before she moved to a university up north. She clearly refutes that Miłosz said anything about membership of the Soviet Union – already complete nonsense in itself – but to attribute these words to Miłosz who was such a wise person and was so well informed, that was simply ill will, madness, something along those lines. In the case of Miłosz, I believe they were very close, I'm familiar with the letters that Miłosz and Herbert exchanged because they were published, and Herbert's tone in them is so very servile which I don't like at all because you can regard someone as a master but Herbert had a right to be on an equal footing with Miłosz and yet he was so very sycophantic. Whereas I liked very much and was surprised by the attitude of Miłosz towards Herbert: Miłosz quite simply adored him. It was... simply... he was so happy to have met a talented poet, that he could support and befriend him and hold interesting conversations with him. I'm sure the two of them had very interesting conversations, to say nothing of their interesting drinking sessions, but that's another matter and is none of our business.

Born to a Polish father and a Russian mother, Julia Hartwig (1921-2017) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and author of children's books. She studied at the University of Warsaw, the Catholic University in Lublin and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Czesław Miłosz called her 'the grande dame of Polish poetry'. Julia Hartwig was one of the few poets in Poland who made masterly use of poetic prose. She translated poems by Apollinaire, Rimbaud, Max Jacob, Cendrars and Supervielle, and published monographs on Apollinaire and Gerard de Nerval. She also translated from English, and published a large anthology of American poetry which she co-edited in 1992 with her late husband, the poet Artur Międzyrzecki.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: USA, California, Soviet Union, Czesław Miłosz, Zbigniew Herbert

Duration: 2 minutes, 10 seconds

Date story recorded: June 2010

Date story went live: 15 June 2011