On this day in 1834, the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz published his masterpiece, Pan Tadeusz. The work is often considered one of the last great epic poems in European literature. Its full title in English is Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray: A Nobleman’s Tale from the Years of 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse.

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.

The poem is 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.”

Pan Tadeusz has been translated into many languages and adapted into TV and film versions, most recently in 1999 by Polish director Andrzej Wajda.

The poet is famed for writing with great feeling, expressing his love and longing for all aspects of Polish life.

Some of his beloved lines describe the landscape, such as: “These fields, painted with various grain, gilded with wheat, silvered with rye”

Others pay tribute to the food: “Mere words cannot tell of its wondrous taste, colour and marvellous smell”).

He even shared his admiration of the wildlife: “No frogs croak as divinely as Polish ones do”.

Mickiewicz was also a political activist, fighting for liberal reform in the 19th Century.

He joined the Philomats’ Society while studying at university, and was later arrested by the czar’s secret police and charged with unlawful Polish nationalist activities.

His work would later reflect a more emboldened sense of Polish identity, including his 1828 Konrad Wallenrod, a long narrative poem about a commander raised as a Lithuanian pagan who later converted to Christianity.

He was ultimately remembered by filmmaker Andrzej Wajda in his 1999 film about the poet’s most famous work: Pan Tadeusz.

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