Adam Mickiewicz

“ It was a resounding, inspired age for his race, and he grew up to take a fitting place in that age and to be called "the immortal hero of Polish poetry." Poland just then was the battle-ground not only for the armies of Europe, but for the diplomats. ”

“ While forest ways within, the wanderers hide.
Night veils the mountains and the valleys wide;
The thunderous brooks are dream-held, dulled, and slow;
Beneath the blackness fragrant flowers blow
And rich leaf-music clothes each valley side. ”

“ This is merely a hasty glimpse of the "mise-en-scene" that preceded the debut in life of the most renowned of Polish poets. The old traditions of absolute and God-created monarchs and princely times were [X] coming to an end, and that democratic modern world, where everything was to change, was close at hand, just over the crest, indeed, of this new century into which Fate was ushering him. He was to see the last of blind power and royal prerogative, and the first dawn of a modern spirit which in time would sweep away forever, the old. ”

“ The last of the eighteenth century was an important period for Russia and Poland, not only politically, but in letters and art. It marked the birth of statesmen, patriots, poets and writers. It was into a Poland of great names and greater activities that Adam Mickiewicz was born in 1798, as son of an impoverished family of the old nobility. ”

“ He entered the Turkish wars in 1855 and died in Stamboul in that same year. It is somewhat peculiar and at the same time no little to his credit that he should have chosen the sonnet as the instrument of his quick sketching of Crimea on the trip of exile, because the sonnet has never been a frequently chosen means of expression of the Slav races, despite the numerous sonnets written later by Vrchlicky, Preseren and others. The sonnet has belonged more to the Latin races, and to the English race. The Crimean Sonnets, however, rank among the famous sequences. ”

“ And with the nineteenth century came the Napoleonic wars with the dramatic entry of Napoleon into Russia, and a new and different mental life began to dawn over Europe.
Mickiewicz was born in Novogrodek in Lithuania. This [VIII] was the birthplace of Count Henry Rzewuski, who wrote the delightful memories of the Polish eighteenth century, under the title of "The Memories of Pan Severin Soplica," [*] and who declared he considered it an honor to be born a "schlazig" (noble) of Lithuania, and of Novogrodek. ”

“ The Crimean Sequence belongs to the period of Mickiewicz's youth, the Vilna period. He joined a society at this [XIII] time which was looked upon with disfavor by the Government. At length, because of his continued participation in it, he was exiled to southern Russia. On that trip, while he was going toward Odessa, he began the Crimean Sonnets. Their success was quick and astonishing. They were translated into every language of Europe. ”

“ To please that bitter race of his he filled his songs with hatred. Of our beloved friend there came to us only revenge and angry thoughts. God grant that peace may come again to his embittered heart!"
Puschkin himself wrote eloquently of these same Crimean scenes that Mickiewicz shows us. He, too, was inspired by the old capital city of the Tartar rulers. We recall his "Fountain of Baktschi Serai." And he, too, brings before our eyes again that gigantic mountain world of southern Russia in "The Prisoner of the Caucasus." ”

“ Her mother was the famous Slav beauty and musician who had so delighted Goethe in her youth.
Among writers of Russia and Poland whose life period somewhat coincided with that of Mickiewicz's are: Korzenowski (born in 1797) , the novelist (a brother of Adam Mickiewicz was fellow-teacher with Korzenowski at Charkov) ; Danilewski (1829) , likewise a novelist—it was he who translated The Crimean Sonnets into Russian; Malzweski, Polish patriot and poet, whose "Maria"—perhaps the most popular poetic story in Poland—appeared at almost the same time as The Crimean Sonnets ”