Adam Bernard Mickiewicz[a] (24 December 1798 – 26 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded asnational poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He also largely influencedUkrainian literature[1] and affectedRussian literature.[2][3][4] A principal figure inPolish Romanticism, he is one of Poland's "Three Bards" (Polish:trzej wieszcze)[5] and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet.[6][7][8] He is also considered one of the greatestSlavic[9] andEuropean[10] poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard".[11] A leading Romantic dramatist,[12] he has been compared in Poland and Europe toByron andGoethe.[11][12]
Mickiewicz was born in theRussian-partitioned territories of the formerGrand Duchy of Lithuania, which had been part of thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and was active in the struggle to win independence for his home region. After, as a consequence, spending five years exiled to central Russia, in 1829 he succeeded in leaving the Russian Empire and, like many ofhis compatriots, lived out the rest of his life abroad. He settled first in Rome, then in Paris, where for a little over three years he lectured onSlavic literature at theCollège de France. He was an activist, striving for a democratic and independent Poland. He died, probably ofcholera, atIstanbul in theOttoman Empire, where he had gone to help organize Polish forces to fight Russia in theCrimean War.
Mickiewicz spent his childhood in Navahrudak,[13][14] initially taught by his mother and private tutors. From 1807 to 1815 he attended aDominican school following a curriculum that had been designed by the now-defunct PolishCommission of National Education, which had been the world's firstministry of education.[13][14][19] He was a mediocre student, although active in games, theatricals, and the like.[13]
In September 1815, Mickiewicz enrolled at theImperial University of Vilnius, studying to be a teacher.[20] After graduating, under the terms of his government scholarship, he taught secondary school atKaunas from 1819 to 1823.[14]
In 1818, in the Polish-languageTygodnik Wileński [pl] (Wilno Weekly), he published his first poem,Zima miejska [pl] (City Winter).[21] The next few years would see a maturing of his style fromsentimentalism/neoclassicism toromanticism, first in his poetry anthologies published inVilnius in 1822 and 1823; these anthologies included the poemGrażyna and the first-published parts (II and IV) of his major work,Dziady (Forefathers' Eve).[21] By 1820 he had already finished another major romantic poem,Oda do młodości (Ode to Youth), but it was considered to be too patriotic and revolutionary for publication and would not appear officially for many years.[21]
About the summer of 1820, Mickiewicz met the love of his life,Maryla Wereszczakówna [pl]. They were unable to marry due to his family's poverty and relatively low social status; in addition, she was already engaged to CountWawrzyniec Puttkamer [pl], whom she would marry in 1821.[21][22]
In 1817, while still a student, Mickiewicz,Tomasz Zan and other friends had created a secret organization, thePhilomaths.[21] The group focused on self-education but had ties to a more radical, clearly pro-Polish-independence student group, theFilaret Association.[21] An investigation of secret student organizations byNikolay Novosiltsev, begun in early 1823, led to the arrests of a number of students and ex-student activists including Mickiewicz, who was taken into custody and imprisoned atVilnius' Basilian Monastery in late 1823 or early 1824 (sources disagree as to the date).[21] After investigation into his political activities, specifically his membership in the Philomaths, in 1824 Mickiewicz was banished to central Russia.[21] Within a few hours of receiving the decree on 22 October 1824, he penned a poem into an album belonging toSalomea Bécu [pl], the mother ofJuliusz Słowacki.[23] (In 1975 this poem was set to music in Polish and Russian by Soviet composerDavid Tukhmanov.)[24] Mickiewicz crossed the border into Russia about 11 November 1824, arriving inSaint Petersburg later that month.[21] He would spend most of the next five years in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, except for a notable 1824 to 1825 excursion toOdessa, then on toCrimea.[25] That visit, from February to November 1825, inspired a notable collection ofsonnets (some love sonnets, and a series known asCrimean Sonnets, published a year later).[21][25][26]
Mickiewicz was welcomed into the leading literary circles of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, where he became a great favourite for his agreeable manners and an extraordinary talent for poetic improvisation.[26] The year 1828 saw the publication of his poemKonrad Wallenrod.[26] Novosiltsev, who recognized its patriotic and subversive message, which had been missed by the Moscow censors, unsuccessfully attempted to sabotage its publication and to damage Mickiewicz's reputation.[18][26]
In Moscow, Mickiewicz met the Polish journalist and novelistHenryk Rzewuski and the Polish composer and piano virtuosoMaria Szymanowska, whose daughter,Celina Szymanowska, Mickiewicz would later marry in Paris, France. He also befriended the great Russian poetAlexander Pushkin[26] andDecembrist leaders includingKondraty Ryleyev.[25] It was thanks to his friendships with many influential individuals that he was eventually able to obtain a passport and permission to leave Russia for Western Europe.[26]
After serving five years of exile to Russia, Mickiewicz received permission to go abroad in 1829. On 1 June that year, he arrived inWeimar in Germany.[26] By 6 June he was inBerlin, where he attended lectures by the philosopherHegel.[26] In February 1830 he visitedPrague, later returning to Weimar, where he received a cordial reception from the writer and polymathGoethe.[26]
Finally about October 1830 he took up residence in Rome, which he declared "the most amiable of foreign cities."[27] Soon after, he learned about the outbreak of theNovember 1830 Uprising in Poland, but he would not leave Rome until the spring of 1831.[27]
On 19 April 1831 Mickiewicz departed Rome, traveling to Geneva and Paris and later, on a false passport, to Germany, viaDresden andLeipzig arriving about 13 August inPoznań (German name: Posen), then part of theKingdom of Prussia.[27] It is possible that during these travels he carried communications from the ItalianCarbonari to the French underground, and delivered documents or money for the Polish insurgents from the Polish community in Paris, but reliable information on his activities at the time is scarce.[27][28] Ultimately he never crossed intoRussian Poland, where the Uprising was mainly happening; he stayed inGerman Poland (historically known to Poles asWielkopolska, or Greater Poland), where he was well received by members of the local Polish nobility.[27] He had a brief liaison withKonstancja Łubieńska [pl] at her family estate[27] inŚmiełów. Starting in March 1832, Mickiewicz stayed several months in Dresden, inSaxony,[27][29] where he wrote the third part of his poemDziady.[29]
On 31 July 1832, Mickiewicz arrived in Paris, accompanied by a close friend and fellow ex-Philomath, the future geologist and Chilean educatorIgnacy Domeyko.[29] In Paris, he became active inmany Polish émigré groups and published articles inPielgrzym Polski [pl] (The Polish Pilgrim).[29] The fall of 1832 saw the publication, in Paris, of the third part of hisDziady (smuggled into partitioned Poland), as well as ofThe Books of the Polish People and of the Polish Pilgrimage [pl], which Mickiewicz self-published.[29] During this time, he made acquaintances with his compatriot the composerFrederic Chopin who would be one of Mickiewicz's closest friends in Paris. In 1834 he published another masterpiece, hisepic poemPan Tadeusz.[30]
Pan Tadeusz, his longest poetic work, marked the end of his most productive literary period.[30][31] Mickiewicz would create further notable works, such asLausanne Lyrics [pl], 1839–40) andZdania i uwagi (Thoughts and Remarks, 1834–40), but neither would achieve the fame of his earlier works.[30] His relative literary silence, beginning in the mid-1830s, has been variously interpreted: he may have lost his talent; he may have chosen to focus on teaching and on political writing and organizing.[32]
On 22 July 1834, in Paris, he married Celina Szymanowska, daughter of composer and concert pianistMaria Agata Szymanowska.[30] They would have six children (two daughters,Maria [pl] and Helena; and four sons,Władysław [pl], Aleksander, Jan and Józef).[30] Celina later became mentally ill, possibly with amajor depressive disorder.[30] In December 1838, marital problems caused Mickiewicz to attempt suicide.[33] Celina would die on 5 March 1855.[30]
Mickiewicz and his family lived in relative poverty, their major source of income being occasional publication of his work – not a very profitable endeavor.[34] They received support from friends and patrons, but not enough to substantially change their situation.[34] Despite spending most of his remaining years in France, Mickiewicz would never receive French citizenship, nor any support from the French government.[34] By the late 1830s he was less active as a writer, and also less visible on the Polish émigré political scene.[30]
Mickiewicz would, however, hold the Collège de France post for little more than three years, his last lecture being delivered on 28 May 1844.[34] His lectures were popular, drawing many listeners in addition to enrolled students, and receiving reviews in the press.[34] Some would be remembered much later; his sixteenth lecture, on Slavic theater, "was to become a kind of gospel for Polish theater directors of the twentieth century."[36]
Over the years he became increasingly possessed by religiousmysticism as he fell under the influence of the Polish philosopherAndrzej Towiański, whom he met in 1841.[34][37] His lectures became a medley of religion and politics, punctuated by controversial attacks on theCatholic Church, and thus brought him under censure by the French government.[34][37] The messianic element conflicted with Roman Catholic teachings, and some of his works were placed on theChurch's list of prohibited books, though both Mickiewicz and Towiański regularly attended Catholic mass and encouraged their followers to do so.[37][38]
In 1846 Mickiewicz severed his ties with Towiański, following the rise of revolutionary sentiment in Europe, manifested in events such as theKraków Uprising of February 1846.[39] Mickiewicz criticized Towiański's passivity and returned to the traditional Catholic Church.[39] In 1847 Mickiewicz befriended American journalist, critic and women's-rights advocateMargaret Fuller.[40] In March 1848 he was part of a Polish delegation received in audience byPope Pius IX, whom he asked to support the enslaved nations and theFrench Revolution of 1848.[39] Soon after, in April 1848, he organized a military unit, theMickiewicz Legion, to support the insurgents, hoping to liberate the Polish and other Slavic lands.[35][39] The unit never became large enough to be more than symbolic, and in the fall of 1848 Mickiewicz returned to Paris and became more active again on the political scene.[40]
In December 1848 he was offered a post at theJagiellonian University in Austrian-ruledKraków, but the offer was soon withdrawn after pressure from Austrian authorities.[40] In the winter of 1848–49, Polish composerFrédéric Chopin, in the final months of his own life, visited his ailing compatriot soothed the poet's nerves with his piano music.[41] Over a dozen years earlier, Chopin had set two of Mickiewicz's poems to music (seePolish songs by Frédéric Chopin).[42]
In the winter of 1849 Mickiewicz founded a French-language newspaper,La Tribune des Peuples (The Peoples' Tribune), supported by a wealthy Polish émigré activist,Ksawery Branicki [pl].[40] Mickiewicz wrote over 70 articles for theTribune during its short existence: it came out between 15 March and 10 November 1849, when the authorities shut it down.[40][43] His articles supported democracy and socialism and many ideals of theFrench Revolution and of theNapoleonic era, though he held few illusions regarding the idealism of theHouse of Bonaparte.[40] He supported the restoration of theFrench Empire in 1851.[40] In April 1852 he lost his post at the Collège de France, which he had been allowed to keep up to that point (though without the right to lecture).[34][40] On 31 October 1852 he was hired as a librarian at theBibliothèque de l'Arsenal.[40][43] There he was visited by another Polish poet,Cyprian Norwid, who wrote of the meeting in his workCzarne kwiaty. Białe kwiaty [pl]; and there Mickiewicz's wife Celina died.[40]
Mickiewicz welcomed theCrimean War of 1853–1856, which he hoped would lead to a new European order including a restored independent Poland.[40] His last composition, aLatinodeAd Napolionem III Caesarem Augustum Ode in Bomersundum captum, honoredNapoleon III and celebrated the British-French victory over Russia at theBattle of Bomarsund[40] inÅland in August 1854.Polish émigrés associated with the Hôtel Lambert persuaded him to become active again in politics.[40][44] Soon after the Crimean War broke out (October 1853), the French government entrusted him with a diplomatic mission.[44] He left Paris on 11 September 1855, arriving inConstantinople, in theOttoman Empire, on 22 September.[44] There, working withMichał Czajkowski (Sadyk Pasha), he began organizing Polish forces to fight under Ottoman command against Russia.[43][44] With his friendArmand Lévy he also set about organizing a Jewish legion.[43][44] He returned ill from a trip to a military camp to his apartment on Yenişehir Street in thePera (now Beyoğlu) district of Constantinople and died on 26 November 1855.[44][45] ThoughTadeusz Boy-Żeleński and others have speculated that political enemies might have poisoned Mickiewicz, there is no proof of this, and he probably contractedcholera, which claimed other lives there at the time.[43][44][46]
Mickiewicz's remains were transported to France, boarding ship on 31 December 1855, and were buried atMontmorency, Val-d'Oise, on 21 January 1861.[44] In 1890 they were disinterred, moved toAustrian Poland, and on 4 July entombed in theCrypts of the Bards [pl] of Kraków'sWawel Cathedral, a place of final repose for a number of persons important to Poland's political and cultural history.[44]
Mickiewicz's childhood environment exerted a major influence on his literary work.[13][14] His early years were shaped by immersion in folklore[13] and by vivid memories, which he later reworked in his poems, of the ruins ofNavahrudak Castle and of the triumphant entry and disastrous retreat of Polish andNapoleonic troops duringNapoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia, when Mickiewicz was just a teenager.[14] The year 1812 also marked his father's death.[14] Later, the poet's personality and subsequent works were greatly influenced by his four years of living and studying inVilnius.[21] His first poems, such as the 1818Zima miejska (City Winter) and the 1819Kartofla [pl] (Potato), were classical in style, influenced byVoltaire.[22][47] HisBallads and Romances and poetry anthologies published in 1822 (including the opening poemRomantyczność [pl],Romanticism) and 1823 mark the start ofromanticism in Poland.[21][22][48] Mickiewicz's influence popularized the use offolklore, folk literary forms, andhistorism in Polish romantic literature.[21] His exile to Moscow exposed him to a cosmopolitan environment, more international than provincial Vilnius and Kaunas in Lithuania.[26] This period saw a further evolution in his writing style, withSonety (Sonnets, 1826) andKonrad Wallenrod (1828), both published in Russia.[26] TheSonety, mainly comprising hisCrimean Sonnets, highlight the poet's ability and desire to write, and his longing for his homeland.[26]
One of his major works,Dziady (Forefathers' Eve), comprises several parts written over an extended period of time.[29][49] It began with publication of parts II and IV in 1823.[21]Miłosz remarks that it was "Mickiewicz's major theatrical achievement", a work which Mickiewicz saw as ongoing and to be continued in further parts.[28][49] Its title refers to thepagan ancestor commemoration that had been practiced bySlavic andBaltic peoples onAll Souls' Day.[49] The year 1832 saw the publication of part III: much superior to the earlier parts, a "laboratory of innovative genres, styles and forms".[29] Part III was largely written over a few days; the "Great Improvisation" section, a "masterpiece of Polish poetry", is said to have been created during a single inspired night.[29] A long descriptive poem,Ustęp (Digression), accompanying part III and written sometime before it, sums up Mickiewicz's experiences in, and views on, Russia, portrays it as a huge prison, pities the oppressed Russian people, and wonders about their future.[50] Miłosz describes it as a "summation of Polish attitudes towards Russia in the nineteenth century" and notes that it inspired responses from Pushkin (The Bronze Horseman) andJoseph Conrad (Under Western Eyes).[50] The drama was first staged byStanisław Wyspiański in 1901, becoming, in Miłosz's words, "a kind of national sacred play, occasionally forbidden by censorship because of its emotional impact upon the audience." The Polish government's 1968 closing down of a production of the play sparked the1968 Polish political crisis.[36][51]
Mickiewicz'sKonrad Wallenrod (1828), anarrative poem describing battles of the Christian order ofTeutonic Knights against the pagans of Lithuania,[18] is a thinly veiled allusion to the long feud between Russia and Poland.[18][26] The plot involves the use of subterfuge against a stronger enemy, and the poem analyzes moral dilemmas faced by the Polish insurgents who would soon launch theNovember 1830 Uprising.[26] Controversial to an older generation of readers,Konrad Wallenrod was seen by the young as a call to arms and was praised as such by an Uprising leader, poetLudwik Nabielak [pl].[18][26] Miłosz describesKonrad Wallenrod (named for its protagonist) as "the most committed politically of all Mickiewczi's poems."[52] The point of the poem, though obvious to many, escaped the Russian censors, and the poem was allowed to be published, complete with its telling motto drawn fromMachiavelli:"Dovete adunque sapere come sono due generazioni di combattere – bisogna essere volpe e leone." ("Ye shall know that there are two ways of fighting – you must be a fox and a lion.")[18][26][53] On a purely literary level, the poem was notable for incorporating traditional folk elements alongside stylistic innovations.[26]
Similarly noteworthy is Mickiewicz's earlier and longer 1823 poem,Grażyna, depicting the exploits of a Lithuanian chieftainess against the Teutonic Knights.[54][55] Miłosz writes thatGrażyna "combines a metallic beat of lines and syntactical rigor with a plot and motifs dear to the Romantics."[54] It is said by Christien Ostrowski to have inspiredEmilia Plater, a military heroine of theNovember 1830 Uprising.[56] A similar message informs Mickiewicz's "Oda do młodości" ("Ode to Youth").[21]
Mickiewicz'sCrimean Sonnets (1825–26) and poems that he would later write in Rome and Lausanne, Miłosz notes, have been "justly ranked among the highest achievements in Polish [lyric poetry]."[53] His 1830 travels in Italy likely inspired him to consider religious matters, and produced some of his best religiously themed works, such asArcymistrz (The Grand Master) andDo Marceliny Łempickiej (To Marcelina Łempicka).[27] He was an authority to the young insurgents of 1830–31, who expected him to participate in the fighting (the poetMaurycy Gosławski [pl] wrote a dedicated poem urging him to do so).[27] Yet it is likely that Mickiewicz was no longer as idealistic and supportive of military action as he had been a few years earlier, and his new works such asDo Matki Polki [pl] (To a Polish Mother, 1830), while still patriotic, also began to reflect on the tragedy of resistance.[27] His meetings with refugees and escaping insurgents around 1831 resulted in works such asReduta Ordona [pl] (Ordon's Redoubt),Nocleg (Night Bivouac) andŚmierć pułkownika [pl] (Death of the Colonel).[27] Wyka notes the irony that some of the most important literary works about the 1830 Uprising were written by Mickiewicz, who never took part in a battle or even saw a battlefield.[27]
Manuscript ofPan Tadeusz, bearing(bottom right) his autograph signature
HisKsięgi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego [pl] (Books of the Polish Nation and the Polish Pilgrimage, 1832) opens with a historical-philosophical discussion of thehistory of humankind in which Mickiewicz argues that history is the history of now-unrealized freedom that awaits many oppressed nations in the future.[29][30] It is followed by a longer "moralcatechism" aimed at Polish émigrés.[30] The book sets out amessianistmetaphor of Poland as the "Christ of nations".[57] Described by Wyka as a propaganda piece, it was relatively simple, using biblical metaphors and the like to reach less-discriminating readers.[30] It became popular not only among Poles but, in translations, among some other peoples, primarily those which lacked their own sovereign states.[30][31] TheBooks were influential in framing Mickiewicz's image among many not as that of a poet and author but as that of ideologue of freedom.[30]
Pan Tadeusz (Sir Thaddeus, published 1834), another of his masterpieces, is anepic poem that draws a picture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania on the eve ofNapoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia.[30][31] It is written entirely in thirteen-syllablecouplets.[31] Originally intended as an apoliticalidyll, it became, as Miłosz writes, "something unique in world literature, and the problem of how to classify it has remained the crux of a constant quarrel among scholars"; it "has been called 'the last epos' in world literature".[58]Pan Tadeusz was not highly regarded by contemporaries, nor by Mickiewicz himself, but in time it won acclaim as "the highest achievement in all Polish literature."[32]
The occasional poems that Mickiewicz wrote in his final decades have been described as "exquisite, gnomic, extremely short and concise". HisLausanne Lyrics, (1839–40) are, writes Miłosz, "untranslatable masterpieces of metaphysical meditation. In Polish literature, they are examples of that pure poetry that verges on silence."[35]
In the 1830s (as early as 1830; as late as 1837) he worked on afuturist or science-fiction work,A History of the Future [pl]. (Historia przyszłości, orL’histoire d’avenir)[29] It predicted inventions similar to radio and television, and interplanetary communication usingballoons.[29] Written partially in French, it was never completed and was partly destroyed by the author, but parts of its seven versions survive.[29] Other French-language works by Mickiewicz include the dramasKonfederaci barscy [pl] (TheBar Confederates) andJacques Jasiński, ous les deux Polognes [pl] (Jacques Jasiński, or the Two Polands).[30] These would not achieve much recognition, and would not be published till 1866.[30]
Mickiewicz did not write any poems in Lithuanian. However, it is known that he did have some understanding of the Lithuanian language, although some Polish commentators describe it as limited.[59][60][61]
In the poemGrażyna, Mickiewicz quoted one sentence fromKristijonas Donelaitis' Lithuanian-language poemThe Seasons.[62] InPan Tadeusz, there is an un-Polonized Lithuanian name Baublys.[63] Furthermore, due to Mickiewicz's position as lecturer on Lithuanian folklore and mythology in Collège de France, it can be inferred that he must have known the language sufficiently to lecture about it.[64] It is known that Adam Mickiewicz often sang Lithuanian folk songs with theSamogitian Ludmilew Korylski.[65] For example, in the early 1850s when in Paris, Mickiewicz interrupted a Lithuanian folk song sung by Ludmilew Korylski, commenting that he was singing it wrong and hence wrote down on a piece of paper how to sing the song correctly.[65] On the piece of paper, there are fragments of three different Lithuanian folk songs (Ejk Tatuszeli i bytiu darża,Atjo żałnieros par łauka,Ej warneli, jod warneli isz),[66] which are the sole, as of now, known Lithuanian writings by Adam Mickiewicz.[67] The folk songs are known to have been sung inDarbėnai.[68]
Mickiewicz's importance extends beyond literature to the broader spheres of culture and politics; Wyka writes that he was a "singer and epic poet of the Polish people and a pilgrim for the freedom of nations."[44] Scholars have used the expression "cult of Mickiewicz" to describe the reverence in which he is held as a "national prophet."[44][73][74] On hearing of Mickiewicz's death, his fellow bard Krasiński wrote:
For men of my generation, he was milk and honey, gall and life's blood: we all descend from him. He carried us off on the surging billow of his inspiration and cast us into the world.[44][75]
Edward Henry Lewinski Corwin described Mickiewicz's works asPromethean, as "reaching more Polish hearts" than the other Polish Bards, and affirmed Danish criticGeorg Brandes' assessment of Mickiewicz's works as "healthier" than those ofByron,Shakespeare,Homer, and Goethe.[76] Koropeckyi writes that Mickiewicz has "informed the foundations of [many] parties and ideologies" in Poland from the 19th century to this day, "down to the rappers in Poland's post-socialist blocks, who can somehow still declare that 'if Mickiewicz was alive today, he'd be a goodrapper.'"[77] While Mickiewicz's popularity has endured two centuries in Poland, he is less well known abroad, but in the 19th century he had won substantial international fame among "people that dared resist the brutal might of reactionary empires."[77]
Much has been written about Mickiewicz, though the vast majority of this scholarly and popular literature is available only in Polish. Works devoted to him, according to Koropeckyi, author of a 2008 English biography, "could fill a good shelf or two."[77] Koropeckyi notes that, apart from some specialist literature, only five book-length biographies of Mickiewicz have been published in English.[77] He also writes that, though many of Mickiewicz's works have been reprinted numerous times, no language has a "definitive critical edition of his works."[77]
Some sources assert that Mickiewicz's mother was descended from a converted,Frankist Jewish family.[99][100][101] Others view this as improbable.[43][102][103][104] Polish historianKazimierz Wyka, in his biographic entry inPolski Słownik Biograficzny (1975) wrote that this hypothesis, based on the fact that his mother's maiden name, Majewska, was popular amongFrankist Jews, but has not been proven.[14] Wyka states that the poet's mother was the daughter of a noble (szlachta) family ofStarykoń coat of arms, living on an estate at Czombrów inNowogródek Voivodeship (Navahrudak Voivodeship).[14] According to the Belarusian historian Rybczonek, Mickiewicz's mother hadTatar (Lipka Tatars) roots.[105]
Virgil Krapauskas noted that "Lithuanians like to prove that Adam Mickiewicz was Lithuanian"[106] whileTomas Venclova described this attitude as "the story of Mickiewicz's appropriation byLithuanian culture".[15] For example, the Lithuanian scholar of literatureJuozapas Girdzijauskas [lt] writes that Mickiewicz's family was descended from an oldLithuanian noble family (with ancestor's nameRimvydas) with origins predatingLithuania's Christianization,[107] but the Lithuanian nobility in Mickiewicz's time was heavilyPolonized and spoke Polish.[15] Mickiewicz had been brought up inthe 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. To Mickiewicz, a splitting of that multicultural state into separate entities – due to trends such asLithuanian National Revival – was undesirable,[15] if not outright unthinkable.[82] According to Romanucci-Ross, while Mickiewicz called himself aLitvin ("Lithuanian"), in his time the idea of a separate "Lithuanian identity", apart from a "Polish" one, did not exist.[86] This multicultural aspect is evident in his works: his most famous poetic work,Pan Tadeusz, begins with the Polish-language invocation, "Oh Lithuania, my homeland, thou art like health ..." ("Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie ..."). It is generally accepted, however, that Mickiewicz, when referring to Lithuania, meant a historical region rather than a linguistic and cultural entity, and he often applied the term "Lithuanian" to the Slavic inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.[15]
^Czesław Miłosz andKazimierz Wyka each note that Adam Mickiewicz's exact birthplace cannot be ascertained due to conflicting records and missing documentation.[13][14]
^abcdefVenclova, Tomas."Native Realm Revisited: Mickiewicz's Lithuania and Mickiewicz in Lithuania". Lituanus Volume 53, No 3 – Fall 2007.Archived from the original on 22 February 2015. Retrieved24 April 2007.This semantic confusion was amplified by the fact that the Nowogródek region, although inhabited mainly by Belarusian speakers, was for several centuries considered part and parcel ofLithuania Propria—Lithuania in the narrow sense; as different from the 'Ruthenian' regions of the Grand Duchy.
^Muzeum Adama Mickiewicza w Stambule (przewodnik). Ministerstwo Kultury i Turystyki Republiki Turcji – Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, 26 November 2005.
^Digimas, A. (1984).Ar Adomas Mickevičius mokėjo lietuviškai? [Did Adam Mickiewicz know the Lithuanian language?] (Videotape) (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos Kino Studija. 4:30-4:36 minutes in.Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved21 November 2020.
^Digimas, A. (1984).Ar Adomas Mickevičius mokėjo lietuviškai? [Did Adam Mickiewicz know the Lithuanian language?] (Videotape) (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos Kino Studija. 5:58-6:13 minutes in.Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved21 November 2020.
^Digimas, A. (1984).Ar Adomas Mickevičius mokėjo lietuviškai? [Did Adam Mickiewicz know the Lithuanian language?] (Videotape) (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos Kino Studija. 4:44-4:54 minutes in.Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved21 November 2020.
^abDigimas, A. (1984).Ar Adomas Mickevičius mokėjo lietuviškai? [Did Adam Mickiewicz know the Lithuanian language?] (Videotape) (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos Kino Studija. 6:26-7:05 minutes in.Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved21 November 2020.
^Digimas, A. (1984).Ar Adomas Mickevičius mokėjo lietuviškai? [Did Adam Mickiewicz know the Lithuanian language?] (Videotape) (in Lithuanian). Lietuvos Kino Studija. 7:00-7:06 minutes in.Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved21 November 2020.
^Adam Mickiewicz; Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America (1944).Poems by Adam Mickiewicz. The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America. p. 63.ISBN9780940962248.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
^Jabłoński, Rafał (2002).Warsaw and surroundings. Warsaw: Festina. p. 103.OCLC680169225.The Adam Mickiewicz Monument was unveiled in 1898 to mark the 100th anniversary of the great romantic poet's birth. The inscription on the base reads: "To the Poet from the Nation"
^Balaban, Meir,The History of the Frank Movement, 2 vols., 1934–35, pp. 254–259.
^"Mickiewicz's mother, descended from a converted Frankist family": "Mickiewicz, Adam,"Encyclopaedia Judaica. "Mickiewicz's Frankist origins were well-known to the Warsaw Jewish community as early as 1838 (according to evidence in theAZDJ of that year, p. 362). "The parents of the poet's wife also came from Frankist families": "Frank, Jacob, and the Frankists,"Encyclopaedia Judaica.
^Wiktor Weintraub (1954).The poetry of Adam Mickiewicz. Mouton. p. 11.Her (Barbara Mickiewicz) maiden name was Majewska. In old Lithuania, every baptised Jew became ennobled, and there were Majewskis of Jewish origin. That must have been the reason for the rumours, repeated by some of the poet's contemporaries, that Mickiewicz's mother was a Jewess by origin. However, genealogical research makes such an assumption rather improbable
^Czesław Milosz (2000).The Land of Ulro. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 116.ISBN978-0-374-51937-7.The mother's low social status—her father was a land steward—argues against a Frankist origin. The Frankists were usually of the nobility and therefore socially superior to the common gentry.
^Rybczonek, S., "Przodkowie Adama Mickiewicza po kądzieli" ("Adam Mickiewicz's Ancestors on the Distaff Side"),Blok-Notes Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, 1999, no. 12/13.
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