The meaning of war experience in pandemic times : a few notes on defining the concept of culture

The paper reflects on the concept of culture from the perspective of those who’ve experienced the cataclysms of the 20th and 21st centuries. The author poses questions about the current experience of the pandemic to verify the "usefulness" of the dominant cultural patterns. The author analyses the particular war experiences of Czesław Miłosz in Warsaw (Legends of Modernity) and Józef Czapski in a prisoner-of-war camp (Proust in Griazowiec). At the center of their traumatic experience is the process of seeking salvation through cultural gestures. The experience of war reveals both the strength and weakness of the fundamental version of culture. The article ends with a question aboutthe topicality of this experience and the upholding power of modern culture.