The book of the outstanding Polish poet and thinker Czeslaw Milosz “The Enslaved Mind” - long before Milosz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1980) - made his name widely known in Western countries. Milosz wrote this book in exile. In 1953, it was published in Paris in Polish and French, in the same year a German edition and several English-language editions appeared (in London, New York, Toronto), and soon Italian, Swedish and others. The book was smuggled into Poland for many years, read secretly, and published in Polish samizdat. Having ceased to be a sensation in the West and forbidden fruit in our East, the book became a classic of political and philosophical journalism. The title, theme, genre and style of the book are correlated with the traditions of Swift, Montesquieu, Voltaire, with the traditions of the 18th century, the Age of Reason. Milos calls his book a treatise, or more precisely, a treatise-pamphlet. The depth of thought is combined with the brilliance of wit. Milosz focuses on the fate of intellectuals, especially writers, in the 20th century, the century of totalitarianism, the century of enormous mental pressure on thinking people. The book treats this through the example of the situation of Eastern European intellectuals subjected to the pressure of totalitarian ideology. The fate of the book, read voraciously over the next fifty years in various countries, showed that interest in this book does not wane.