“My Homeland, Europe”

Abstract This article is dedicated to a poem by Czesław Miłosz from the 1930s, unknown for many years. It was discovered by the author of the article in the archival collection of Miłosz's papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. On the basis of concrete textual elements, the author attempts to determine the date on which the preserved typescript was created; above all he undertakes an analysis of the poem with regard to the inspirations which must have accompanied the coming into being of the work. In the course of interpretation, it turns out that this generally unknown poem, only published posthumously in 2017, originated from, among other things, the poet's fascination at that time with the life and work of Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, and mainly as a result of his study of the writings of Jacques Maritain, then popular in Poland. Moreover, the author of the article discerns in the work elements that allow one to recognize Miłosz's poem as an ode, which, as this analysis demonstrates, also has an influence on the poem's meaning. The last section includes a discussion of the unexpected and poignant relevance of this almost one hundred-year-old poem, which, in 2024, remains an important statement concerning the endangered democratic values.