Among the students of the inter-war Stefan Batory University, Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980, achieved the greatest international fame. The poet is associated with Vilnius, but he was not a Vilnius native by birth. He was born in Szetejnie on the Niewiaže River in the Kaunas region. He may have visited Vilnius for the first time at the age of two, when he travelled to Krasnoyarsk with his parents in 1913. The Vilnius period in the life of the future artist was 1921-1937 - school and student times. In 1921, he became a student at the Sigismund Augustus State Gymnasium in Vilnius and settled with his family in Vilnius. He began his studies in 1929 with Polish at the Faculty of Humanities, and after a short time moved to law at the Faculty of Social Sciences. He debuted in 1930 in the pages of the university magazine "Alma Mater Vilniensis". He was a member of the poetry group "Żagary" and co-founder of the supplement to "Słowa", bearing the same name. In 1933, his book debut, "Poem on Frozen Time", was published. A year later, the Professional Union of Polish Writers in Vilnius awarded him the Philomath Prize for it. From 1935, he worked at the Vilnius broadcasting station of the Polish Radio, but was dismissed from it after a year's work. In 1936, he published Three Winters on the Neris River, and although it was published in only 300 copies, it gained great acclaim among readers and critics. They also paved the way for Miłosz to return to Warsaw, where he left in 1937.

However, he returned to Vilnius many times. In September 1939, he arrived in the city, which had been handed over to the Lithuanians, and even accepted Lithuanian citizenship, but fled to Warsaw after the annexation of Lithuania by the USSR. It was not until 1992, after 52 years of absence, that the poet returned to the city on the banks of the Vistula River. He frequented Vilnius, returning to his homeland and taking part in the literary life of both nations. The Vilnius period left deep traces in Miłosz's life and work, even the choice of Kraków as his place of residence after his return to Poland in 1993 was allegedly determined by the city's greatest similarity to Vilnius.

Czesław Miłosz lived in Vilnius on Podgórna Street at number 5. The Miłosz family occupied an apartment on the high ground floor to the left. There were gardens at the back of the tenement house. He attended the Sigismund Augustus State Gymnasium, which was located on the corner of Góra Bouffałowa and Mała Pohulanka Streets. In June 2011, a plaque dedicated to the poet was placed on this building. Miłosz recalled that he used to walk to school from his flat in Podgórna Street along Portowa Street, where he met the Rymkiewicz brothers, of whom Aleksander also became a poet, who were also going to the gymnasium. Then they would walk uphill, as the street was called Bouffałowa Mountain, and supposedly they would get out of breath and their tongues would leave their cheeks because they were in such a hurry. They had to be on time for eight o'clock, on time, because the caretaker would close the doors at exactly that hour. The poet recalled that he disliked gymnastics very much, being short and often losing in various competitions to his stronger colleagues, besides it was cold in the gymnasium. He also recalled that every morning all the pupils gathered in the corridor and sang the song "Kiedy ranne wstają zorze". When Miłosz was in the seventh grade, he lived in a hostel with the Biszewski family, near the Tomasz Zan Library, opposite the State Railways Directorate. In the eighth grade, before matriculation, he stayed with Mrs Klecka, near Portowa street. The future poet began his studies in 1929 with a degree in Polish Studies at the Faculty of Humanities, and after two weeks transferred to Law at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences. He did not, however, break off his contacts with Polish Studies. He attended some lectures, for example those given by the literary historian Professor Manfred Kridel and the literary historian and philosopher Marian Zdziechowski. In 1932, the Polish Studies Circle was founded at Stefan Batory University under the scientific supervision of Stanisław Pigoń, also a historian of literature and former rector of the Vilnius University, and which included students from various faculties. Young people discussed and organised meetings with people of letters. The Section of Original Creativity was active at the Polish Studies Circle. One of the leading activists in the Circle was Teodor Bujnicki, besides him: Czesław Miłosz, Leon Szreder, Jerzy Putrament, Jerzy Zagórski and Zbigniew Folejewski. In the academic year 1930/1931, the Intellectuals' Club was established. The group was made up of young Vilnius students, including Czesław Miłosz, Teodor Bujnicki, Henryk Dębiński and Stefan Jędrychowski. The famous "U Rudnickiego" café, located opposite the cathedral, became the meeting place, and the topic of discussion was contemporary Polish literature.

Miłosz debuted in 1930 in the pages of the university magazine "Alma Mater Vilniensis" with the poems "Composition" and "Journey". In 1933, his book debut, "Poem on Frozen Time", was published. A year later, the Professional Union of Polish Writers in Vilnius awarded him the Philomath Prize for it.

As a student, the future Nobel laureate lived in a newly built university dormitory in Bouffalova Gora Street at number 5, first in a double room, then in a single room on the third floor. While living on the Neris River, he also belonged to the Vilnius Vagabond Club. Together they went on hiking expeditions along the Philomath trail, and travelled to nearby Ponary, the Green Lakes, Jaszun or the Rudnice Forest. Perhaps still during his studies, he went on a trip to Trakai with the family of Professor Manfred Kridel and his university friend Irena Sławińska. They also often sailed in canoes on the Neris, meeting at the AZS rowing club in Kościuszki Street.

From 1935, he worked at the Vilnius station of the Polish Radio, which was then located at 22 Mickiewicza Street, but was dismissed after a year's work. At the time, he lived in the Literary Lane, in Puzyna's former house, not far from the tenement where Adam Mickiewicz once lived. Miłosz recalled that in the gate to the right there was an entrance to a staircase, from which you entered a room. The window was in a deep bay window. This is the house at today's 9 Literatų Street, adjacent to the walls of the Bernardine convent at St Michael the Archangel Church. Nowadays, the Nobel Prize winner is commemorated here too, by hanging a plaque with his name among many other writers and poets on the Writers' Wall.

In 2016, the Czesław Miłosz Staircase was also unveiled in Vilnius. This unusual monument is located between the former Basztowa, St Anna and Onos Šimaitės Streets. The place was chosen, as it were, thanks to a 'hint' from Miłosz, who mentioned that it was the first Vilnius place he remembered from his youth.

In 1927, the facilities of the Polish Radio in Vilnius were built - the radio station building in Zwierzyniec and a radio mast in Lipówka. For some time, young Czesław was a radio employee. After leaving for Warsaw, Miłosz worked at the Polish Radio. In 1939, he left for Romania, then made his way to Kaunas, from where he came to Vilnius, which the Russians had already managed to hand over to the Lithuanians. At that time, he settled near the cathedral, on Arsenal Street, in the flat of his relatives - the Pawlikowski family. In July 1940, the poet left for Warsaw.

On Ostrobramska Street, number 6, stands the Gothic Miednicki House, where in 1939-1940, Vilnius writers, including Czesław Miłosz, but also Aleksander Rymkiewicz and Tadeusz Łopalewski, used to meet illegally.

One of the many streets Miłosz recalls is Vilnius Street, where, in one of the tenements, there was a book lending library. It was there that Miłosz's grandmother paid the subscription fee. The future poet, then a teenager, used to go there to borrow books.

In the years 1922-1939, editor Stanisław Cat-Mackiewicz published and was editor-in-chief of the Słowo daily, whose editorial office was located in the house at number 2 on Zamkowa street. It was he who suggested that the young should publish a literary supplement to his magazine, which was also taken up by Miłosz. Żagary" began to appear in the spring of 1931. Thanks to the literary magazine, an avant-garde poetic group was established, which also included Aleksander Rymkiewicz, Antoni Gołubiew and Teodor Bujnicki.

When Czesław Miłosz lived in the town on the banks of the Vistula, he wandered through many of its streets, alleys and backstreets every day. He was no stranger to German Street, with its numerous shops, craftsmen's workshops and - in some places - small restaurants, as well as Zamkowa, Wielka and Ostrobramska Streets, leading from the cathedral to the Gate of Dawn. When he was still a pupil at the Sigismund Augustus State Gymnasium, he and his classmates attended mass at St George's Church. Living outside the Old Town, beyond Zawalna Street, which marked the strict borders of the old part of the city, he would often walk down (Vilnius streets were located on the hills that were numerous in the city, offering panoramic views of other parts of the city) along Ludwisarska Street, which, running lower and lower, descended towards the Church of the Brothers Hospitallers of St. John and Napoleon Square. He used to stay with relatives at 6 Arsenalska Street and spent his last night in Vilnius there.

He often returned to his city in his works. He wrote the poem "City without a name", "Song about porcelain". In 1937, while in Warsaw, he published a poem entitled "In my homeland" - full of catastrophism and premonitions of coming historical events. And in 1967, in Berkeley, he immortalised the image of the town on the banks of the Neris River in the very well-known poem "Never from you, city". He described the Vilnius period in his works: "Family Europe" and "Starting from my streets".

In 1993, on his second visit to Lithuania, he visited the building of the former Sigismund Augustus State Gymnasium in Vilnius. Two years later, when he came to the Neris again, he was awarded the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas Second Class. The last time he visited his homeland was in 2000, together with other Nobel Prize winners for literature - Günter Grass and Wisława Szymborska, accompanied at the time by the Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova.