Adam Mickiewicz was one of the greatest Polish poets of Belarusian descent, an ardent columnist, political activist and visionary - best known for his epic Pan Tadeusz. A leading Romantic dramatist, and a lifelong apostle of Polish national freedom, he has been compared to Byron and Goethe.
Background
Ethnicity:
Adam Mickiewicz is generally known as a Polish poet, and all his major works are written in Polish. Although his nationality is generally not disputed among serious scholars, it is otherwise an object of endless popular controversy. He is regarded by Lithuanians to be of Lithuanian origin, who render his name in Lithuanian as Adomas Mickevičius. Similarly, many Belarusians claim his descent from a Polonized Belarusian family and call him Ада́м Міцке́віч. The controversy largely stems from the fact that in the nineteenth century, the concept of nationality had not yet been fully developed and the term "Lithuania," as used by Mickiewicz himself, had a much broader geographic extent than it does now. Mickiewicz was raised in the culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a multicultural state that had encompassed most of what today are the separate countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. His most famous poem, Pan Tadeusz, begins with the invocation, "O Lithuania, my country, thou art like good health," yet he was referring to the territory of present-day Belarus. It is generally accepted that in Mickiewicz's time the term "Lithuania" still carried a strong association with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and that Mickiewicz used it in a geographical rather than a national or cultural sense. The resultant confusion is illustrated by a waggish report about a Russian encyclopedia that describes Mickiewicz as a Belarusian poet who wrote about Lithuania in Polish.
Adam Mickiewicz was born on December, 24 1798 in Zaosie village near Navahrudak (now Zavosse), Lithuania Governorate of the Russian Empire, formerly in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and now part of Belarus. His father, Mikolaj Mickiewicz, belonged to the szlachta, the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, and was a lawyer. Mickiewicz's mother was Barbara Mickiewicz, née Majewska. Adam was their second-born son. The family was never rich and fell into difficult financial straits after the father's death. Mickiewicz's childhood in Navahrudak was quiet, but his life began to intersect with world events when Napoleon Bonaparte's troops marched east toward Moscow in 1812, passing through Lithuania. He saw the defeated French army marching back westward after their brutal winter in a hostile country stripped of supplies, and his school was turned into a field hospital.
Education
Adam received good home education, taught by his mother and private tutors. From 1807 to 1815, he attended a Dominican school. He was a mediocre student, although active in games, theatricals, and the like. In September 1815, Mickiewicz enrolled at the Vilnius University. He studied physics and mathematics but also attended literature and other humanities lectures. He applied to a teachers' college there and was given a scholarship that granted him tuition-free education in return for a promise to teach in the area after he graduated. While a student at the university, Mickiewicz joined a literary group called the Philomats' Society that also had a strong interest in liberal reformist politics and discussed such forbidden ideas as self-determination for the peoples of the western part of the Russian empire. Mickiewicz eventually began a thorough study of classical literature (he was able to work later in life as a professor of Latin classics) and of history and language. He graduated from the Vilnius University in 1819.
Career
Mickiewicz’s first poem, "Zima Miejska" (City Winter) was published in 1818. He graduated in 1819 and was sent, according to the terms of his scholarship, to teach at a school in the then majority Polish town of Kowno (now Kaunas, Lithuania). Cut off from his friends in the city, he launched a hopeless romantic pursuit of a local nobleman's daughter and plunged into reading the poetic works of German and English Romantic poets: Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, and George Gordon, known as Lord Byron. Mickiewicz read English well and later translated some of Byron's works into Polish.
In 1822, Mickiewicz published a volume of poetry, Baladi i romanse (Ballads and Romances) that included love poems inspired by his recent romantic debacle. A second book, simply called Poezje II (or Poems II), included more extended poetic works. Grazyna was a long historical narrative poem set in medieval times, about a woman warrior who puts on her sleeping husband's armor and leads Lithuanian fighters into battle against a Teutonic tribe. The poem was among Mickiewicz's first in a strong nationalist vein. The book also included parts two and four of a fantastic and massive four-part poetic drama, Dziady (Forefathers' Eve), that Mickiewicz worked on for 10 years, finishing only the last three parts. The individual parts, only loosely connected, fit into a framework provided by the old Belorussian folk ritual named in the title, a ritual comparable to the Western Days of the Dead, in which ancestral ghosts are summoned. Part Two featured such characters as a the ghost of a heartless landlord, surrounded by predatory birds (the ghosts of his tenants) who quickly snatch away food before he can eat it.
In 1823, after an investigation of Lithuanian student groups by the czar's secret police, Mickiewicz was seized, charged with unlawful Polish nationalist activities, and put under house arrest for six months in a monastery. This was not a disaster; the punishment meted out by Russian courts was simply that Mickiewicz would no longer be permitted to live in the politically volatile western region of Russia's dominions. He was allowed to move freely to St. Petersburg, Russia, in the fall of 1824 and soon moved southward to Odessa (now in Ukraine) and then farther south still to the Crimea region, on the coast of the Black Sea. He published a new volume of poetry,Sonety krymskie (Sonnets from the Crimea, 1825), which used Turkish words and depicted the customs of the region's Tatar and Turkic peoples. His situation in Russia was eased by the musician Karolina Sobanska, a Polish noblewoman with whom he had an affair. She was also an agent of the Russian secret police, and apparently sent word to Moscow that Mickiewicz was not a political threat.
In fact, Mickiewicz did have friends who were participants in the Decembrist conspiracy of 1825, an attempted coup that sought to overthrow the Czar and bring democracy to Russia. After the coup's failure, however, Mickiewicz settled uneventfully in Moscow and gained admirers among the city's intellectuals and literati. He was gifted at improvising poetry—not in Russian but in French, widely spoken and understood by educated Russians. "What a genius!" exclaimed Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, on hearing Mickiewicz's recitations (according to the Books and Writers website). "What sacred fire! What am I compared to him?" The friendship of the two poets cooled after Mickiewicz became more involved with Polish resistance to Russia, but they retained a deep mutual respect.
Mickiewicz's Polish nationalism took shape in his writing. In 1828 in St. Petersburg he published Konrad Wallenrod , one of his most famous long narrative poems. Konrad Wallenrod told the story of a Lithuanian pagan raised and Christianized by a German tribe in which he becomes a commander. But one day he hears a performance by an old Lithuanian minstrel singing in his native tongue. He then intentionally leads the Teutons into a military disaster. Prefaced by a motto from Italian political theorist Machiavelli to the effect that it is necessary to be a fox and a lion at the same time, the poem was widely read by Poles as an allegorical call to arms against Russia. Russian censors, however, were fooled by the remote setting and permitted the work to appear.
After an exile of five years in Russia, the poet obtained leave to travel. He had secretly made up his mind never to return to that country or native land as long as it remained under the government of Imperial Russia. Wending his way to Weimar, he made the acquaintance of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who received him cordially. Pursuing his journey through Germany, he entered Italy, visited Milan, Venice, and Florence, finally taking up residence in Rome. There he wrote the third part of his poem Dziady (Forefathers Eve). The subject of which is the religious commemoration of ancestors practised among the Slavic peoples, and Pan Tadeusz, his longest poem, considered by many to be his masterpiece. The poem consists of a graphic picture of Lithuania on the eve of Napoleon's expedition to Russia in 1812. In this village idyll, as Anton Bruckner calls it, Mickiewicz gives us a picture of the homes of the Commonwealth magnates, with their somewhat boisterous but very genuine hospitality. The story takes place just as the knell of their nationalism, as Bruckner says, seems to be sounding—so that there is something melancholy and dirge-like in the poem in spite of the pretty love story which forms the main narrative.
With the loving eyes of an exile, Mickiewicz turned to Lithuania, firmly declaring it as his Fatherland, while using the Polish term "Litwa". In a sense his native Navahradak area was a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, most of which at the end of the eighteenth century consisted of modern Belarus). He gives us some of the most delightful descriptions of "Lithuanian" skies and "Lithuanian" forests. He describes the weird sounds to be heard in the primeval woods in a country where the trees were sacred.
In 1832, Mickiewicz left Rome for Paris, where his life was, for some time, spent in poverty and unhappiness. He had married a Polish lady, Celina Szymanowska, who eventually became insane and required institutionalization. In 1840, he was appointed to the newly founded chair of Slavic languages and literature at the College de France, a post which he was especially qualified to fill as he was now the chief representative of Slavic literature following the death of Alexander Pushkin in 1837. He was, however, only destined to hold this chair for a little more than three years. During this time Mickiewicz had been on a slow, emotional descent - he had been associating with practitioners of mysiticism and the occult - so that after 1844 he no longer felt fit to give lectures or participate in serious academic work.
Mickiewicz had fallen under the influence of a strange mystical philosopher Andrzej Towiański, who would also have influence over several other major figures of nineteenth century Polish literature. Under Towiański's influence, Mickiewicz's lectures became a medley of religion and politics, and thus brought him under the censure of the radical French government. A selection of these lectures has been published in four volumes. They contain some sound criticism, but Mickiewicz was only vaguely acquainted with any Slavic languages outside of his native Polish.
At a comparatively early period, the Mickiewicz exhibited all the signs of premature old age. Poverty, despair and domestic affliction all took their toll on him. In 1849 he founded a French newspaper, La Tribune des Peuples (Peoples' Tribune), but it only lasted for a year. The restoration of the French Empire seemed to kindle his hopes afresh; his last composition is said to have been a Latin ode in honor of Napoleon III. On the outbreak of the Crimean War he went to Constantinople to assist in raising a regiment of Poles to take service against the Russians. He died suddenly of cholera there in 1855, and his body was removed to France and buried at Montmorency. In 1900, his remains were disinterred and buried in the cathedral of Kraków, where they now rest beside those of many of Poland's kings and dignitaries.
Mickiewicz is a monumental figure in Eastern European literature. His influence cuts as wide a swath as any other major figure of the Romantic Movement. Like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Germany, Samuel Taylor Coleridge in England, Jean-Jacques Rousseau in France, or even Ralph Waldo Emerson in America, Mickiewicz is a father figure to an entire nation's literary history. Mickiewicz is counted as one of Poland's' Three Bards and the greatest poet in all Polish literature. He is known chiefly for the poetic drama Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) and the national epic poem Pan Tadeusz. His other influential works include Konrad Wallenrod and Grażyna. All these served as inspiration for uprisings against the three imperial powers that had partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth out of existence.
In France, Mickiewicz became increasingly possessed by religious mysticism as he fell under the influence of the Polish philosopher Andrzej Towiański, whom he met in 1841. His lectures became a medley of religion and politics, punctuated by controversial attacks on the Catholic Church, and thus brought him under censure by the French government. The messianic element conflicted with Roman Catholic teachings, and some of his works were placed on the Church's list of prohibited books, though both Mickiewicz and Towiański regularly attended Catholic mass and encouraged their followers to do so. Later, Mickiewicz criticized Towiański's passivity and returned to the traditional Catholic Church.
Politics
Mickiewicz often addressed the political situation in nineteenth-century Poland in his poems. His writings are markedly patriotic. In 1817, he joined a secret patriotic student society, which was later incorporated into a larger clandestine student organization. Together with his fellow students in the organization, Mickiewicz was arrested in 1823 and deported to Russia for illegal patriotic activities. Mickiewicz was seized, charged with unlawful Polish nationalist activities, and put under house arrest for six months in a monastery. In fact, Mickiewicz did have friends who were participants in the Decembrist conspiracy of 1825, an attempted coup that sought to overthrow the Czar and bring democracy to Russia.
Mickiewicz's Polish nationalism took shape in his writing. In 1828 in St. Petersburg he published Konrad Wallenrod , one of his most famous long narrative poems. Konrad Wallenrod told the story of a Lithuanian pagan raised and Christianized by a German tribe in which he becomes a commander. But one day he hears a performance by an old Lithuanian minstrel singing in his native tongue. He then intentionally leads the Teutons into a military disaster. Prefaced by a motto from Italian political theorist Machiavelli to the effect that it is necessary to be a fox and a lion at the same time, the poem was widely read by Poles as an allegorical call to arms against Russia. Russian censors, however, were fooled by the remote setting and permitted the work to appear.
In late 1830, Polish military officers launched the November Uprising, an attempt to throw off Russian control of Poland. The rebellion lasted for several months, but by the time Mickiewicz could return north the Russians were back in control. Rather than attempting to cross a Russian-guarded border in Prussia, he joined a flood of Polish refugees in Dresden.
In 1848, revolutions broke out across Europe, as progressive forces attempted to overthrow the old monarchical regimes. Finally given the chance to put his patriotic ideals into direct action, Mickiewicz went to Italy and organized a legion of Polish fighters supporting northern Italy's independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire. His hope was that the empire would dissolve and propel Slavic peoples to freedom, but the rebellions fizzled. Discouraged, Mickiewicz returned to Paris. He supported the restoration of the French Empire in 1851. He welcomed the Crimean War of 1853-1856, which he hoped would lead to a new Europe.
Mickiewicz never gave up his belief that a new order would emerge in Europe, and he sometimes espoused the idea that the Poles, the French, and the Jews would become a group of modern chosen people.
Views
Quotations:
Forefathers' Eve:
"So listen to them, heed them: Who never touch the earth, can never be in heaven."
"My heart stopped, my breast frozen, my lips and eyes barred. Still in the world, but not of the world. Here, yet already departed."
"The spirit of hope gives him life
As a star offers its rays.
Dead, he returns to the country of his youth
searching for his love's face."
Sir Thaddeus:
"Lithuania, my country! You are as good health; How much one should prize you, he only can tell, Who has lost you..."
Crimean Sonnets:
"In spring's own country, where the gardens blow,
You faded, tender rose! For hours now past,
Like butterflies departing, on you're cast
The worms of memories to work you woe."
Membership
Philomath Society
Personality
His love lyrics, succinct and charged with emotion and meaning, raised the image of woman to a level of ideality previously unknown in Polish poetry. With his exalted patriotism, mystical feeling, and passionate appreciation of the positive aspects of Polish life, he came to epitomize the Polish spirit for succeeding generations of Polish writers.
Quotes from others about the person
"What a genius!" exclaimed Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, on hearing Mickiewicz's recitations (according to the Books and Writers website). "What sacred fire! What am I compared to him?"
Connections
In 1834, in Paris, he married Celina Szymanowska, daughter of composer and concert pianist Maria Agata Szymanowska. The pair had six children between 1835 and 1850 (two daughters, Maria and Helena; and four sons, Władysław, Aleksander, Jan and Józef). Mickiewicz and his family lived in relative poverty, their major source of income being occasional publication of his work – not a very profitable endeavor. They received support from friends and patrons, but not enough to substantially change their situation. Celina was afflicted by mental illness. In December 1838, marital problems caused Mickiewicz to attempt suicide. Celina died on 5 March 1855.
Father:
Mikolaj Mickiewicz
Mother:
Barbara Mickiewicz, née Majewska
Wife:
Celina Szymanowska
Celina became mentally ill, possibly with a major depressive disorder.
Friend:
Alexander Pushkin
They met in Saint Petersburg. The friendship of the two poets cooled after Mickiewicz became more involved with Polish resistance to Russia, but they retained a deep mutual respect.
They both were members of the Philomate society in Vilnius University, became close friends. In 1823–1824, during the investigation and trials, Domeyko and Mickiewicz spent months imprisoned at Vilnius Uniate Basilian monastery.
Friend:
Antoni Edward Odyniec
Together they visited Milan, Venice, Florence and Rome.
