Pan Tadeusz
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Pan Tadeusz, the full title in English: Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: a History of the Nobility in the Years 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse (Polish: Pan Tadeusz, czyli ostatni zajazd na Litwie. Historia szlachecka z roku 1811 i 1812 we dwunastu księgach wierszem) is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. It was first published in June 1834 in Paris, and is considered by many to be the last great epic poem in European literature.
Pan Tadeusz is recognized as the national epic of Poland. It is compulsory reading in Polish schools, and is the most read book in the country. A movie by the same title based on the poem was shot in 1999 by Andrzej Wajda.
Pan Tadeusz translates into English as "Sir Thaddeus."
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[edit] Content
The story takes place over the course of five days in the year 1811 and one day in 1812 at a time, when Poland had been divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria (see Partitions of Poland) and disappeared from the political map of Europe, although Napoleon had established the Duchy of Warsaw in the Prussian partition in 1807.
The place is situated within the Russian partition, in the Lithuanian village of Soplicowo. Pan Tadeusz recounts the story of two feuding noble families, and the love between Tadeusz Soplica (the title character) of one family, and Zosia of the other.
[edit] Fame
Numerous quotations from Pan Tadeusz are known by heart by nearly every Pole, above all its opening lines:
| “ | Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie;
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił. |
” |
- O Lithuania, my country, thou art like good health;
- I never knew till now how precious, till I lost thee
-
- (translation by Kenneth R. Mackenzie)
- Lithuania, my country! You are as good health:
- How much one should prize you, he only can tell
- Who has lost you.
-
- (translation by Marcel Weyland)
The fact, that the Polish national poem begins with words "O Lithuania", is an interesting paradox. The controversy largely stems from the fact that the 19th century concept of nationality had not yet been developed in his time and the term "Lithuania" - as used by Mickiewicz - had a much broader geographic extent.
Mickiewicz had been brought up in the culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a multicultural state that had encompassed most of what today are the separate countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. He is often regarded by Lithuanians to be of Lithuanian origin. Belarusians proclaim Mickiewicz to be one of them. As a matter of fact Mickiewicz was born on the territory of contemporary Belarus.
- Link to a new translation of Pan Tadeusz by Leonard Kress (free PDF download)
[edit] Film adaptations
The first film version of the poem was produced in 1928.
Andrzej Wajda film version made in 1999 was a great success in Poland. By the time the film was released on video and DVD, one third of the Polish audience has seen it in cinemas.
[edit] Other translations
Maude Ashurst Biggs published "Master Thaddeus" in 1885 in London, Watson Kirkconnell "Sir Thaddeus" in 1962. George Rapall Noyes published the poem in 1917 in prose. At least Book Four was published in 2000 by Christopher Adam Zakrzewski. A full version translation by Marcel Weyland, in the original metre, was published in Sydney in 2004, London and New York in 2005.
[edit] Belarus
The word Lithuania is used in the poem to mean the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, not contemporary Lithuania. Soplicowo is situated in ethnic Belarus, where szlachta spoke local dialect of Polish and peasants spoke Belarusian language. Settlers from Poland are identified in Pan Tadeusz as foreigners and called Mazur. The peasants don't speak in the poem, except in the roadside inn scene in Book 4.
The image of Lithuania in Pan Tadeusz might have been influenced by Mickiewicz's trip in 1831 to rich Grand Duchy of Poznań, where the poet visited local nobles.
