possessed by imperialist Russia and later, from
1920 through 1938, by Poland. It was during
these years that Milosz attended secondary
school and then law school in Wilno, the Polish
name for Vilnius. For a brief time, following a
Soviet invasion of Poland, all of Poland and Lith-
uania were under Soviet control. In October 1939
a portion of the region, including Vilnius, was
given to Lithuania by the Soviet Union. In 1941,
Lithuania was occupied by Nazis. Following
World War II, in 1944, both Poland and Lithua-
nia were once again entirely dominated by Soviet
control. Having escaped Soviet-controlled Wilno
in 1940, Milosz landed in Warsaw (in Poland),
which was then occupied by the Nazis, as per the
Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939. Milosz and his wife left
Poland in 1945 for the United States. By this time
the Soviets had driven out the Germans, and
Poland and Lithuania were once again both
under Soviet rule. Milosz lived in exile for the
next several decades, first in the United States
and then for a time in France before his return
to America.
Soviet Communism in the 1970s
Milosz’s painful emotional response to his
estrangement from his countrymen, and to the
suffering that decades of Soviet rule inflicted on
the residents of Poland and Lithuania, colors por-
tions of ‘‘From the Rising of the Sun.’’ When
Milosz wrote the poem in 1974, Lithuania and
Poland were both still ruled by the Soviet Union.
The 1970s in Communist Poland and Lithuania
were years characterized by government attempts
to prop up failing economies. Attempts to mod-
ernize the industries of the countries and to rejuve-
nate the economic structure met with some success,
yet the efforts resulted in massive debts. With Lith-
uanian and Polish writers and artists pushing for
greater freedom of expression, opposition to the
Soviet government often took the form of under-
ground publications, the creators of which had to
avoid detection by the Soviet secret police. Other
Poles and Lithuanians sought to work within the
system rather than against it and subsequently
joined the Communist party in an attempt to trans-
form the country from within the established formCOMPARE
&
CONTRAST 1970s:Milosz, working as a professor at the
University of California, Berkeley, writes
poetry and publishes it in Polish. However,
Polish readers are unable to read his poetry;
Milosz’s works are banned in Poland by the
Soviet Communist party.
Today:Milosz’s poetry has been read in
Poland since the ban on his works was lifted
in 1980, the year Milosz won the Nobel Prize
in Literature. His work is now respected and
emulated by Polish poets.
1970s:In ‘‘From the Rising of the Sun,’’
Milosz comments on the dangers that wild-
life and the environment face from man-
kind. His focus reflects a growing interest
in America on the environment. In April
1970, the United States celebrates its first
Earth Day.Today:With the release of Al Gore’s book
and film titled An Inconvenient Truthin
2006, a renewed interest in the effects of
global warming on the environment is wit-
nessed in America. Gore’s work in this area
wins him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
1970s:American poetry undergoes a surre-
alist revival during the decade, with an
increased focus on the freeing of the mind
and the imagination. Poetry is also an
increasingly academic endeavor, with crea-
tive writing programs growing in many col-
leges and universities.
Today:Contemporary poetry is engaged in
an ongoing debate regarding whether it has
become too academic in nature, with some
poets maintaining that the academic setting
has fostered poetry that is formulaic in its
attempts to challenge conventional forms.FromtheRisingoftheSun