Mickiewicz, Adam Bernard

(1798–1855)

   Renowned Polish nationalist poet, born to a szlachta (noble) family in the Lithuanian province of the Russian Empire. During his studies at the University of Vilnius in the 1820s, Mickiewicz became involved in a secret circle that agitated for Polish-Lithuanian freedom from tsarist rule. In 1823, Mickiewicz was arrested for his political engagement and was banished to Central Russia. Tsarist supervision was loose, however, and in 1825 Mickiewicz visited the Crimea, which inspired a collection of sonnets, the so-called Crimean Sonnets. Three years later he published the narrative poem “Konrad Wallenrod,” which glorified the fights of the Lithuanians against the Teutonic Knights in the Middle Ages. The poem was an indirect attack on any foreign rule over Poland -Lithuania and therefore also of Russian rule. It escaped the Russian censors who allowed the publication. There was much pathos in Mickiewicz’s poems, especially in “Pan Tadeusz,” which described his homeland, Lithuania, on the eve of Napoleon’s intervention into Russia in 1812.

   During the 1830s, Mickiewicz traveled to Germany, Italy, and France. In 1840, he was honored to be appointed to the newly founded chair of Slavonic languages and literature in the College de France in Paris. Mickiewicz’s thinking was deeply influenced by the mystical philosopher Andrzej Towianski. Religious mysticism and patriotic feeling characterized lyrics that had an influential impact on the Polish national movement in the nineteenth century. During the Crimean War of 1853, the poet went to Constantinople to form a Polish regiment fighting against the Russians. Two years later, Mickiewicz suddenly died of cholera.

   FURTHER READING:

    Debska, Anita. Country of the Mind: An Introduction to the Poetry of Adam Mickiewicz . Warsaw: Burchard Edition, 2000.

   EVA-MARIA STOLBERG