Pan Tadeusz
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Pan Tadeusz (full title: Pan Tadeusz, czyli ostatni zajazd na Litwie. Historia szlachecka z roku 1811 i 1812 we dwunastu księgach wierszem: Pan Tadeusz, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: a History of the Nobility in the Years 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse) is an epic poem by the Polish writer Adam Mickiewicz. It was first published in June 1834 in Paris, and is considered by many 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 with the same title was also shot in 1999 by Andrzej Wajda.
Content
The story takes place over the course of five days in the year 1811 and one day in 1812. At that time, Poland had been divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria (see Partitions of Poland) and had disappeared from the political map of Europe, although Napoleon had established the Duchy of Warsaw in the Prussian partition in 1807. The action happens in the Russian partition, in the Lithuanian village of Soplicowo. Pan Tadeusz recounts the story of two feuding noble families, and the love story between Tadeusz Soplica (the title character) and Zosia.
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
The movie
Andrzej Wajda made a film version in 1999, which was a great audience success in Poland. By the time the film was released on video and DVD, one third of the population had seen it at the cinema.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.Belarus
The word Lithuanian is used in the article in the meaning of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, not of contemporary Lithuania. Soplicowo is situated in ethnic Belarus, where szlachta spoke local dialect of Polish and peasants Belarusian language. Settlers from Poland are identified in Pan Tadeusz as foreigners and called Mazur. The peasants don't speak in the poem.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.
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