Adam Mickiewicz & Poetry That Acts

Adam Mickiewicz

Like few poets in history, Adam Mickiewicz had an influence on societies and individuals across the world, shaping attitudes and setting in motion great processes that are still underway.

INFLUENCE is an attempt to chart the unacknowledged, often obscured impact the Polish poet has had on global history and our contemporary world.

This influence, often profoundly political, decolonising and emancipatory, has yet to be described in its totality, as it is only fully emerging in our day…

Subversively: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

In many of his works, including those that were published under censorship, Adam Mickiewicz encrypted models of criticism and resistance against a mightier foe. In others he smuggled subversive strategies for carving out national and cultural independence. Yet even his works that seem far from political often had an unpredictable political effect, contributing to the emancipation of neighbouring countries that were once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. How was Mickiewicz read by Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Jews – and by the people of Crimea?

Shevchenko, Mickiewicz & the Birth of Anti-Imperial Poetic Discourse

Though they never met, their fates and works are linked by affinities that run deeper than literature. In their own languages, they both laid the foundations for a pioneering anti-imperial discourse, for which the Ukrainian poet paid the ultimate price.

The Native Poet of Belarus: The Field of Mickiewicz & the Birth of Belarusian Literature

Adam Mickiewicz’s Ballads and Romances and Forefathers’ Eve mark the beginning of a new Romantic epoch in Polish literature. But what if those same works are at the dawn of modern Belarusian literature? What was Mickiewicz’s role and influence on the formation of the Belarusian national consciousness?

‘Lithuania, my homeland…’: Pan Tadeusz & the Origins of Modern Lithuanian Literature

What is the significance of the fact that, in the Invocation to Pan Tadeusz, Mickiewicz does not mention Poland? And what was the impact of the poet’s work on Lithuania’s literature and national identity, with its cult of wild nature and eco-poetics?

A Prophet in a Foreign Land: How the Jews Read Konrad Wallenrod

The subversive strategies of resistance and models of effective action which Mickiewicz forged in literature exerted an influence that went beyond Polish readers. One of the most interesting historical examples of the poet’s impact is the story of the reception of Konrad Wallenrod in Hebrew literature by Polish Jews.

The Tartar Crimean Sonnets: Resistance & Poetry in an Occupied Territory

In Mickiewicz’s Crimean Sonnets, we find no trace of Russia. We do find a multicultural Tartar Crimea with all its dated glory and memory of the recent past. Is this why this work could, in time, become a point of departure for an anti-imperial Crimean cycle written in a variety of languages by poets of Ukraine?

These strongholds, crumbled into shapeless heaps
Were once your pride and safeguard, thankless land!
Today like brittle skulls of giants they stand —
Where only reptile, or man still viler, creeps.
[...]
Today but black-winged vultures wheel about the graves,
Black as the mourning flags which sadly droop
From each home in a town broken by plague.
‘Castle Ruins in Balaklava’ from The Crimean Sonnets
These strongholds, crumbled into shapeless heaps
Were once your pride and safeguard, thankless land!
Today like brittle skulls of giants they stand —
Where only reptile, or man still viler, creeps.
[...]
Today but black-winged vultures wheel about the graves,
Black as the mourning flags which sadly droop
From each home in a town broken by plague.
‘Castle Ruins in Balaklava’ from The Crimean Sonnets

Globally: From Afar

Mickiewicz’s poetry exerted a surprising influence on authors across a range of nations and cultures, often working in similar colonial conditions, subject to an empire or metropole. Mickiewicz’s words travelled to the furthest corners of the globe – adapted to local socio-political conditions, they made an emancipatory mark thousands of kilometres from the poet’s homeland. What did readers from the antipodes, peripheries, and colonies see in Mickiewicz, from the Caucasus to Brazil, from the Near East to China?

‘To the Polish Mother’ in Brazil: The Experience of Slavery in South America

What could a Romantic nineteenth-century poet from Brazil have seen in Adam Mickiewicz’s ‘To the Polish Mother’? And what does his interpretation tell us about the experience of political and colonial oppression on both sides of the Atlantic?

A Promethean Mickiewicz in the Caucasus: Farys & Wallenrod in Georgia & Armenia

Although Adam Mickiewicz himself never made it to the Caucasus, his poetic words and message of freedom did. What role in the history of the nations of the Caucasus did Mickiewicz’s protagonists play, and by what routes did they reach readers in this land where Europe meets Asia?

Farys, A Polish Rider amid the Sands of the Desert – Among the Arabs & Jews

How Mickiewicz’s Orientalising poem written in frosty Saint Petersburg galloped off to the Bedouin desert – and from there, straight into Arab and Hebrew literature.

The Power of Mara Poetry: Mickiewicz’s Voice of Revenge in China

What does Mickiewicz have in common with China? Considering the geographical distance and the historical and cultural differences, it would seem not much. And yet Mickiewicz’s voice reached the Far East as far back as the early twentieth century. How did this happen?

The flame devoureth story’s pictured words,
And thieves with steel wide scatter treasure hoards.
But scatheless is the song the poet sings.
And should vile spirits still refuse to give
Sorrow and hope, whereby the song may live,
Upward she flieth and to ruins clings,
And thence relateth ancient histories
Konrad Wallenrod

Anti-Imperially: Russia

As one of the first intellectuals in modern Europe, Mickiewicz experienced the oppressive force of the police state first-hand – he grappled with the long shadow of the empire throughout his life. He was also among the first to identify the threat despotism posed to the free world. His diagnoses of the Russian Empire, in poetry and elsewhere, were astonishingly insightful, and from today’s perspective, even prescient. By the same token, his approach was a far cry from uncompromising dogmatism: he sought seeds that could sprout into future change or indicate paths to reconciliation. Where are these to be found?

Adam Mickiewicz & the Beginnings of the ‘Petersburg Text’ of Russian Literature

Alexander Pushkin’s fantastical epic The Bronze Horseman marked a whole new epoch in Russian literature, ushering in a movement that created masterworks from Gogol and Dostoyevsky to Blok, Mandelstam, and Akhmatova. What does Mickiewicz have to do with this?

The Poet as an Imperiologist: What Mickiewicz Knew About Russia

The brutal policies of the Russian Empire marked the poet’s entire life, as well as his nation’s history. What did Mickiewicz know about Russia – and how does this knowledge remain relevant?

Alexander Blok in Warsaw: The ‘Polish Poem’ of Russian Literature

How a stay in Warsaw and a father’s funeral became the source of a poem the famous Russian poet wrote for his entire life, in which anti-imperial tones and even Polish messianism rise up from the depths of the unconscious.

Now this cup of venom I pour out in bitter flood
Burning is my speech, and corrosive its every sound.
I distilled this poison from my homeland’s tears and blood.
May it burn — not you — but the chains with which you are bound.

And should it so befall, that you complain of my songs,
I’ll take it as a dog’s barking when, too long resigned
To pinch collar, and the hand that’s yanked it for so long,
Bares his teeth at long last — Come on. Yank it one more time!
‘To My Muscovite Friends’

Politically: Action

Mickiewicz’s poetry was a way of acting and transforming the world. This was indeed its effect, as proven by generations of its readers – Polish conspirators and fighters for ‘our freedom and yours’. Across his whole life, he got involved in a range of activities – through politics, journalism, lecturing – in which he saw potential tools for changing and influencing reality. And although Mickiewicz did not see the fruits of his work in his lifetime – an independent, multicultural Poland or Europe as a federation of sovereign and solidary states – these aims were achieved after some time. What was Mickiewicz’s role in these processes?

‘Hail, dawn of freedom’ – Mickiewicz & the National Uprising

Can poetry inspire a national uprising? How and when literature in Poland began to conspire.

The Only True Wallenrods

Konrad Wallenrod triggered a massive wave of Polish biographies, in which Wallenrod’s ideals of a struggle for the homeland by all means necessary became a credo to live by. Some of those Wallenrods perfectly embodied traits of the original. Were there also any who came close to achieving his primary aim – that of destroying the mighty Empire from within?

‘Let your Spirit descend’ – Mickiewicz & the Church

Mickiewicz’s efforts to influence the politics and outlook of the Catholic Church in his lifetime came to nothing. He himself, during a memorable audience at the Vatican, was silenced by the head of the Church. And yet, albeit with a delayed effect, the poet’s voice was heard by the Church. What has the Catholic Church taken from Mickiewicz?

Books of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People & a United Europe

How a piece of Polish messianism went on to inspire the central work of modern Ukrainian national consciousness. And how the latter work is still relevant in our day – at a moment of existential crisis for the Ukrainian state and the project of the European community.

‘[...] it’s time, my brother, to make poetry’
Adam Mickiewicz in a letter to Aleksander Chodźko
‘[...] it’s time, my brother, to make poetry’
Adam Mickiewicz in a letter to Aleksander Chodźko

Changing the World: Today!

Mickiewicz’s life, work and way of being in the world allow us to pose some vital questions in terms of our present-day global challenges: What does it mean to act? To change and fix the world? To stage resistance against mightier forces and authoritarian powers? And how might this be done effectively – through literature and activism? Where to find the strength for our actions and the faith that our aims can be achieved? Finally: When do we decide that our work has succeeded? Today? In a year? In 200 years?

Adam Mickiewicz
‘We lived only in the soul and we have exerted influence only upon the souls. Can one know how far this influence reaches? Time alone can show its extent.’
Adam Mickiewicz in a letter to Margaret Fuller
Read more about Mickiewicz on Culture.pl
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About the project

INFLUENCE: Adam Mickiewicz and Poetry That Acts is an attempt to carry out a fresh analysis of the work of Poland’s greatest poet. We are trying to look at the history of Mickiewicz’s global impact on nations and societies – above all, outside of Poland and the Polish context.

In over a dozen articles, we investigate the most remarkable cases of Mickiewicz’s influence on the world: on the literary work, societies and attitudes of those peoples who once comprised The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Belarusians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Jews), as well as those in places thousands of kilometres away from Poland (in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Brazil and China). We explore what Mickiewicz meant to authors as varied as Taras Shevchenko, Lu Xun, Yanka Kupala, Shaul Tchernichovsky, Nikloz Baratashvili, Castro Alves and Alexander Blok.

We examine how Mickiewicz’s words were turned into action (political, emancipatory, decolonising) and how his actions have inspired today’s world (such as a united, democratic and solidary Europe). We also attempt to consider the poet’s place in the context of societies and people who are still subjected to oppression, condemned to resistance and struggle against authoritarian power – in contemporary Russia or Crimea.

Our project is being released in 2024, 200 years after the trial and verdict in which the Tsarist authorities exiled Mickiewicz to Central Russia. This is a symbolic moment: a brutal encounter with a modern authoritarian state was also the beginning of the poet’s worldwide career and the story of his global impact.

The poet never returned to his homeland. We, in turn, still live in a world whose political dangers he not only described in theory but also opposed in practice – in the same world he tried to influence. What can we learn from Mickiewicz in our day?

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