Polish Romantic poet and writer Adam Mickiewicz,…
1829 CE
While in exile, his stature as a poet has enabled him to publish two of his most important poetic works: “Crimean Sonnets” and the long narrative poem “Konrad Wallenrod.”
In the latter work, a narrative poem describing the battles of the Teutonic Knights with the heathen Lithuanians, Mickiewicz represents the sanguinary passages of arms and burning hatred that has characterized the long feuds of the Russians and Poles.
The thinly veiled subject of the poem, though obvious to many, had escaped the Russian censors, who had allowed the poem’s publication in 1828, complete with the telling motto, adapted from Machiavelli: "Dovete adunque sapere come sono duo generazioni da combattere - bisogna essere volpe e leone"—"Ye shall know that there are two ways of fighting - you must be a fox and a lion."
This striking poem contains beautiful lyrics.
Mickiewicz has secretly made up his mind never to return to Russia, or to his native Poland so long as it remains under the government of Imperial Russia.
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Northeastern Eurasia
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