ADAM MICKIEWICZ. — Polish poet, b. at Zaosie on 24 Dec. 1798, d. at Constantinople on 26 Nov. 1855. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Lithuanian territory, where the memories of Kosciuszko’s insurrection were still alive; in 1812 he saw the Napoleonic army pass through, awakening Polish hopes, and the following year he witnessed its sad retreat. These impressions were to stamp his entire art, inseparably bound to his life.
In 1815 Mickiewicz enrolled at the University of Wilno and there founded, with Tomasz Zan, the Society of the Philomaths (later the Philarets, then the Radiant Ones), with ostensibly literary aims but in reality social and political, linked to the idea of national revival.
In 1819, appointed professor at the gymnasium in Kaunas, he published his first collection of poems, which won him wide renown. His Ode to Youth, publication of which had been forbidden by the censors, circulated in manuscript throughout Poland. His short poem Grażyna, later printed, also met with favor. His love for Maryla Wereszczakówna inspired delicate lyrics and the Ballads and Romances, drawn from popular legends but marked by the unmistakable imprint of his genius. Maryla, however, was married off by her relatives.
ADAM MICKIEWICZ — Portrait. Engraving (c. 1850).
To others; and Mickiewicz poured out his sorrow in a poem: *Dziady* (“The Ancestors”), centered on an ancient Lithuanian folk rite by which, on All Souls’ Day, the dead are summoned in chapels and cemeteries. To the return of the spirit of the beloved woman he linked his own tragic love; the novelty of the subject and the power of his verse aroused the deepest admiration. But the Russian government had already begun the great political trial known as “the Philarets’ case.” Mickiewicz, arrested with his friends, spent a year in prison; then, condemned to exile in Russia, he left his homeland, which he was never to see again.
The Russian period was fruitful in new works: a journey to the Crimea inspired his *Sonety Krymskie* (“Crimean Sonnets”), the most perfect in all Polish literature; he wrote *Farys*, a gazel in the Arabic manner, and the Byronic poem of vengeance and revolt, *Konrad Wallenrod*. In 1829 Mickiewicz obtained permission to leave Russia and traveled through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.
Rome captivated him, not only for its classical memories but because he glimpsed a new world, a new humanity. His spiritual formation had been Enlightenment and Voltairian; in Rome he rediscovered the consciousness of the superior creative power of faith in comparison with mere reason, and this concept henceforth inspired all his poetry. Already in the *Dziady* of Dresden (Eve’s prayer), in the *Ode to a Polish Mother*, translated by Mazzini, and in the *Words of the Blessed Virgin* there were accents of faith; but in *Faith and Reason* and in *Evening Conversation* Mickiewicz’s poetry reached the highest peak of religious lyricism.
In 1831, after vainly attempting to reach the insurgent homeland, Mickiewicz went to Paris. There the Polish exiles gathered, forming what was called the Great Emigration, divided into irreconcilable factions. It was then that from the poet’s spirit burst forth the *Book of the Polish Nation* and the *Book of the Polish Pilgrimage*, with biblical and prophetic tone, containing the sublime appeal to love, sacrifice, and concord on the example of Christ. In Dresden, where he retired with some Polish emigrants, he wrote the third part of *Dziady* and the prologue. As in the *Dziady* of Wilno he had expressed his personal grief, so in those of Dresden he sealed Poland’s martyrdom through his experiences of trial, prison, and condemnation, in passages of tragic power. The work met with acclaim throughout Europe.
In 1834 Mickiewicz published the masterpiece of all Polish literature, *Pan Tadeusz* (Sir Thaddeus), suffused with nostalgia for the beauty of his native land and memories of his early youth. The poem is a vast tableau of Polish life in 1812, revolving around the idyll of two young people, Tadeusz and Zosia, whose feuding families are reconciled in their love; yet this slender plot is barely sketched amid the richness of episodes, the multiplicity of characters, and the magic of the verse. This was his last poetic labor. In 1839 he was called to the chair of Latin literature at the University of Lausanne, and the following year to that of Slavic literatures at the Collège de France. His lectures sought in a fascinating synthesis the common characteristics of all Slavic literatures and the differences arising from the nature of each individual people.
In 1848, at the time of the peoples’ risings, Mickiewicz, who had followed national movements all his life and was a friend of Mazzini and other patriots, formed a legion that fought in the first Italian war of independence. After 1849 he directed in Paris the *Tribune des peuples*, as in 1833 he had collaborated in the *Pielgrzym polski* (Polish Pilgrim). In 1855, entrusted with a political mission, he went to Constantinople and there died. His remains rest today in the Wawel, the national temple of Polish glory. For his lofty personality and his marvelous work, which transcends literary value in the exaltation of patriotic, human, and religious ideals, Mickiewicz is Poland’s greatest poet.