Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz de Poraj , born the December 24th 1798 in Nowogrodek, in area historical of the Union of Poland-Lithuania, (current Nawahradak in Bielorussia) and died with Constantinople the November 26th 1855, is a Polish poet and writer, wire of Nicolas Mickiewicz, a poor gentleman, and of Majewska Barb.

It made scientific studies and philological with the Université of Vilnius and took part in the foundation of the youth organizations progressist and patriotic, those of the Philomates and the Philarètes with the Polish poet Thomas Zan.

Adam Mickiewicz, it is before all an immense creator, one of the largest European romantic poets, intellectual (its courses with the Collège de France astonish by freshness from their point of view). He is celebrated in his native land like the spiritual father of the modern Polish literature, a role which he shares with the other “bard-prophets” such as Zygmunt Krasiński, Juliusz Słowacki and Cyprian Kamil Norwid.

Contrary to the “cursed poets”, his life was relatively soft. Only imagination that it was allowed, was to stop the pope and to seize it by the sleeve of its cassock. Emigrated in Russia, he knew only benign persecutions. He overcame disappointments in love like his early widowhood without losing the control of itself.

Its life was sober but intense, without excuses between conscience and realization. It sublimates an unhappy love affair by immortalisant “Maryla”. Almost immediate literary success, its political commitment, confers to him the role of moral chief recognized by all the Polish nation.

Its literary work occupies only fifteen years of its life, but that was enough to make recognize one of largest romantic poets the. Its inspiration is always drawn from the Polish and catholic tradition. Ballades and Romances (1822) are folk, Aïeux (1823) leave the Lithuanian ground, and Conrad Wallenrod (1828) reveals a patriotic engagement.

Its participation in patriotic circles was worth to him to be exiled in Russia of 1824 with 1829, year when it left to settle in France. At the time of the insurrection of 1831, it tried without success to join the rebels but could not exceed Dresden. Starting from 1832, and with Conrad Wallenrod in the last part of the Aïeux , it finds its doctrines (enthusiastic patriotism, found religion). He preaches regeneration by the accepted sacrifice, the suffering sublimated in love for his fatherland. The cause of Poland becomes crowned in the history of the world. It signs this engagement by writing the Livres of the Polish pilgrimage (1832). July 22nd 1834, it married with Paris a twenty-two year old compatriot, Félicie Szymanowska, which gave him six children. In 1839 and 1840, it taught with Lausanne the Latin literature before being named in 1840 professor of Slavic literature to a pulpit created for him. However, its courses were suspended in 1844, because one reproached him for being let influence by the opinions of the Towianski mystic. It ends up being revoked (with Jules Michelet and Edgard Quinet) after the coup d'etat of 1851 per decree of March 9th 1852.

He died abruptly of the cholera with Constantinople where he had gone during the Crimean War in the idea to form a Polish Légion there which would fight against the Russian . Its body was brought back to Paris then, in 1890, was transferred to Cracow where it was buried solemnly with the cathedral of Wawel.

Conrad Wallenrod gave rise to two operas, I Lituani of Amilcare Ponchielli and Konrad Wallenrod of Władysław Żeleński. After the publication of the Aïeux ( Dziady ), Mickiewicz sought to convince Frederic Chopin to put it in music. Finally, the cantata Widma ( the Phantoms ) was composed by Stanisław Moniuszko.

Works

Ballades and lovesongs (1822)
Grazyna (1823)
Aïeux (2nd and 4th parts, 1823)
Sonnets of the Crimea (1826)
Conrad Wallenrod (1828)
Book of the Nation and the Polish pilgrimage (1832)
Aïeux (3rd part, 1833)
Lord Thadée (1834)
Slavic Course of literature; The official church and the messianism , (French original text, 1845)
Slavic the , (French original text, 1849)
Aïeux , (1 part 1861, posthumous)
Adam Mickiewicz. Dzieła poetyckie. Wydał I objaśnił Tadeusz Pini. Wydanie zupełne, Z portretami I podobiznami autografów poety. Nakładem Komitetu Mickiewiczowskiego. Nowogródek 1933 . Polish Edition of poetic works of Adam Mickiewicz realized in Nowogródek in 1933 , (482 p.)

Translations

Side Tadeusz Thaddée. Translated from Polish by Paul Cazin. Paris, Garnier, * Sonnets of the Crimea . Translated from Polish by Feliks Konopka. Cracow, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1973

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