National bard Mickiewicz US biography gets Polish translation

Adam Mickiewicz. Image: wikipedia

When originally published in 2008, Roman Koropeckyj's Adam Mickiewicz: The Life of a Romantic, represented the first full English biography of the bard in close to a hundred years.

Koropeckyj, who lectures at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has reflected that while Polish books on Mickiewicz “could fill a good shelf or two.... for all their merits, most of these biographies remain unsatisfying.”

The US author argues that most of the published work on Mickiewicz focuses on “his significance as a Pole for Poles.

“Precisely because of Mickiewicz's status as a national icon, there has always been a tendency to mythologise and, concomitantly, often downplay or even suppress certain moments in his life – be it for ideological ends or out of a misguided sense of discretion.”

Koropeckyj's book places Mickiewicz in his European context, describing his relations with many of the luminaries of his day, including Goethe, Schlegel and Mendelssohn.

He also does not shy away from claiming that the poet fathered children out of wedlock.

He examines the much-debated question as to whether Mickiewicz's mother was from a family of Frankists – Jews who converted to Christianity in the 18th century.

The author stresses that several of Mickiewicz's contemporaries noted that the bard had often claimed this to be so. However, Koropeckyj finds no conclusive proof.

Mickiewicz, who is best known for his epic Pan Tadeusz (Master Tadeusz) which was written in exile in Paris, died in Constantinople in November 1855.

He died of an illness while trying to raise a Jewish legion to fight in the Crimean War against Tsarist Russia, which together with Austria and Prussia had partitioned Poland in the 18th century. (nh)

Source: PAP