Mickiewicz, Adam

Mickiewicz, Adam, b 24 December 1798 in Zavosse, Belarus, d 26 November 1855 in Istanbul. Polish poet. In 1823 he was implicated in the trial of an underground students’ society in Vilnius and was exiled to Saint Petersburg (1824) and then Odesa (1825), whence he made brief trips to the Crimea. He traveled to Moscow in 1826 and there met Petro Hulak-Artemovsky and Mykhailo Maksymovych. Mickiewicz’s major works include Ballady i romanse (Ballads and Romances, 1822), Grażyna (1823), Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve, 1822–3), Konrad Wallenrod (1828), Księgi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego (Books of the Polish People and of the Polish Pilgrimage, 1832–3), and Pan Tadeusz (Master Tadeusz, 1834). His works had a marked influence on Ukrainian literature of the 19th century, particularly on Taras Shevchenko. His Księgi influenced the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood (see Knyhy bytiia ukraïns’koho narodu). His works have been translated into Ukrainian by Levko Borovykovsky, Panteleimon Kulish, Mykhailo Starytsky, Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrainka, Pavlo Tychyna, Mykola Bazhan, Andrii Malyshko, Mykola Lukash, and Maksym Rylsky and are included in A. Mitskievich: Vybrani tvory (A. Mickiewicz: Selected Works, 2 vols, 1955).

Ivan Koshelivets

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]