185th Anniversary of the Publication of Pan Tadeusz Poem

On this day in 1834, the Polish Romantic Poet Adam Mickiewicz Published his masterpiece, Pan Tadeusz, often considered one of the last great epic Poems in European literature. Written in Paris, the 12-part saga captures the spirit of Poland at a time when much of its territory was partitioned between Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

Set during the years 1811 and 1812 in a Lithuanian village, the narrative focuses on a feud between two prominent families, complicated by the love between Tadeusz and a daughter of the rival family named Zosia. A revolt against the local Russian garrison brings the families together, inspired by a shared passion to restore Poland to its former glory: “When talk was to raise Poland again from this rubble.”

Required reading in Polish schools, Pan Tadeusz has been translated into many languages and adapted into TV and film versions, most recently in 1999 by Polish director Andrzej Wajda. Mickiewicz writes with great feeling, expressing his love and longing for all aspects of Polish life from the landscape (“These fields, painted with various grain, gilded with wheat, silvered with rye”), to the food (“mere words cannot tell of its wondrous taste, colour and marvellous smell”), to even the wildlife (“No frogs croak as divinely as Polish ones do”).