A Quick Guide to Knowing Everything About Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz is Poland’s most famous poet. The Romantic poet perished in 1855, but his legacy is everlasting. In countries around the world, as different as Poland, Belarus, France, Turkey, and the United States, there are buildings bearing Adam Mickiewicz’s name.
Point #1:
Adam Mickiewicz was born on 24 December 1798, in Belarus, and he spent most of his childhood in the small town of Nowogródek. Belarus left the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Third Partition of Poland, three years before Mickiewicz’s birth. Mickiewicz spoke Polish, and his parents were Polish, but he was born a Polish immigrant in his own country.
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The reconstructed manor house of Adam Mickiewicz in Nowogródek, Belarus, photo: Dawid Lasociński / Forum
In 1820, Adam Mickiewicz wrote Oda do Młodości (‘Ode to Youth’). Oda do Młodości was Mickiewicz’s ‘OK Boomer’ in verse. Mickiewicz’s poem is characteristically Romantic, and he praises the promises of youth, bright and colourful, in contrast to old age, dark and grey. Youth can bring people into a new land of hope. Mickiewicz’s poem also mentions the hardworking nature of young people. The young can break off Hydra’s head and suffocate the Centaurs: with their idealistic energy, they can achieve anything.
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Philomaths and Philarets: Tomasz Zan, Ignacy Domejko, Adam Mickiewicz, Antoni Edward Odyniec, Jan Czeczot, picture produced in 1899, photo: Wikipedia
While attending Vilnius University, Adam Mickiewicz and his friends created the Society of Philomaths (lovers of learning). The secret society, which was initially open to the founders and their close friends, discussed math, science, and liberal arts. The Philomaths later opened themselves to their student masses by co-opting or sponsoring their own clubs, such as the Philareths (lovers of virtue). Tsar Alexander I did not agree with the concept of seeking knowledge. He punished those singled out by Senator Nikolay Novosiltsev, who led the investigation into Philomath and Philareth activities, finding they were made to ‘spread Polish nationalism’. Mickiewicz was arrested in 1823 and deported to St. Petersburg in 1824, never to return to his homeland.
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The Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle at 612 Fillmore Ave in Buffalo, NY, photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Adam Mickiewicz was a schoolteacher. He received a scholarship for the teacher’s programme at Vilnius University in Lithuania. This type of teacher loan forgiveness programme meant that, in exchange for the scholarship after graduation, Mickiewicz would be assigned to teach at a district school. In 1819, he was sent to teach at a secondary school in Kaunas, Lithuania. He taught students in four grades, across multiple subjects: history, law, literature, grammar, and rhetoric. He also served as the school’s librarian. This intense workload gave Mickiewicz severe burnout, and Mickiewicz went on one medical leave. He had another medical leave planned, but those plans went up in flames when the Russian government arrested him in 1823 for his involvement in the Society of Philomaths.
Point #5:
Adam Mickiewicz was friends with Stefan Garczyński. Stefan was a poet and a veteran of the November Uprising. When Garczyński’s tuberculosis worsened, he sent his poetry to Mickiewicz so that it could be published. Mickiewicz went just beyond getting the poems published: he helped write Garczyński’s legacy. Mickiewicz edited Garczyński’s poems, even adding his own words to them. Mickiewicz also included a poem of his own in Garczyński’s collection, ‘Reduta Ordona’ (Ordon’s Redoubt), which would be their joint copyright. Garczyński lived to see his poems published before he died at the age of 27.
Point #6:
On 29 March 1848, Adam Mickiewicz created a Polish Legion in Rome. He believed that Poland’s independence could start being achieved with the Italian overthrow of the Austrians. The Legion was formed to assist Charles Albert, King of Piedmont and Sardinia, in his war against Austria for Italian independence. The Legion grew to include Polish emigres from Italy and Paris. On 6 August 1846, the Legion saw action against the Austrians in the village of Carzago under Colonel Kamienśki. But three days later, King Charles Albert made an armistice with Austria. The armistice led Mickiewicz’s Legion to start dissolving.
Point #7:
‘Reduta Ordona’ (Ordon’s Redoubt) was about a Polish officer in the November Uprising. Mickiewicz’s poem was inspired by a story about the uprising told to him by Garczyński. In the poem, Konstanty Julian Ordon, an officer of the Polish army, was defending Redoubt (Fort) Number 54 against the Russians. Ordon blew up the entire redoubt, along with himself, to prevent it from falling into Russian hands. The explosive truth appeared when it turned out that Ordon was alive. Ordon’s military career continued, and he was a soldier in Italy for King Charles Albert’s army against Austria. The real Ordon died from suicide at the age of 77 in Florence.
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Photo of the 'The People’s Tribune' newspaper founded by A. Mickiewicz in 1849, photo: public domain
In Paris Adam Mickiewicz founded the French newspaper La Tribune des Peuples (The People’s Tribune). The paper first appeared on 15 March 1849, and its staff of writers hailed from across Europe. La Tribune des Peuples primarily had a progressive bent, championing the causes of Europeans. The paper’s call for an uprising, however, led the French police to raid and close its offices. Mickiewicz did not support his paper’s opposition to French President Louis Napoleon, but he did not back down from the French police. He restarted the paper and retained its staff. The paper started to fade when Count Ksawery Branicki pulled his financial backing after being threatened with deportation by the French police. The final issue of La Tribune des Peuples was published on 10 November 1849.
In September 1855, Adam Mickiewicz arrived in Turkey to help organize General Zamoyski’s military unit of Polish emigres who would fight for the Ottoman Empire against the Russians during the Crimean War. This time, Mickiewicz would fight as a soldier. Seeing that Michał Czajkowski’s mixed unit had more than two hundred Jewish volunteers, Mickiewicz planned on creating a Jewish Legion. This melting pot of Christian and Jewish Legions would fight with the Muslim Ottoman Cossacks to defeat Russia. But Mickiewicz did not live to see his Jewish Legion come to fruition. On 26 November 1855, Mickiewicz died in Istanbul (formerly known as Constantinople) of cholera.
Point #10:
Adam Mickiewicz was also known for science fiction. In an 1829 letter by his friend Antoni Edward Odyniec, Odyniec made the first mention of Mickiewicz’s sci-fi Historia przyszłości (History of the Future), the first version of which has been lost to time. In the manuscript, Odyniec wrote, Mickiewicz predicted that women would be the future leaders of European politics and believed they would make up the entire Pan-European Seym, (the lower house of Europe’s parliament). Mickiewicz also imagined reverse food delivery services, imagining houses on wheels that could travel to a huge fair near Lisbon to get produce from the entire world. A published science fiction work of Mickiewicz’s was Wyjątki Z Listu Do Jednego Z Redaktorów (Excerpts From A Letter To One Of The Editors), published in Pielgrzym Polski (Polish Pilgrim) in 1833. Mickiewicz imagined a new currency called Kościuszków, which was to be revolutionary.
Sources:
Fiećko, Jerzy. ‘Historie Przyszłości Mickiewicza I Kwestia Dystopii.’ Prace Filologiczne Literaturoznawstwo, no. 4(7), 2014, pp. 333–344.
Koropeckyj, Roman. ‘Adam Mickiewicz: The Life of a Romantic.’ Cornell University Press, 2008.
Mickiewicz, Adam. ‘Wyjątki Z Listu Do Jednego Z Redaktorów.’ Pielgrzym Polski Pismo Polityczne I Literackie Część 1 Kwiecień, Maj, Czerwiec 1833, Paryż, pp. 58–60.
Nina.gov.pl. Julian Konstanty Ordon (1810-1887), Uczestnik Powstania 1830/1 R., Internetowy Polski Slownik Biograficzny, https://www.ipsb.nina.gov.pl/a/biografia/julian-konstanty-ordon-1810-1887-uczestnik-powstania-1830-1831.
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