Lithuania! My homeland! You are health alone.
Your worth can only ever be known by one
Who’s lost you. Today I see and tell anew
Your lovely beauty, as I long for you.

Pan Tadeusz: The Last Forray Into Lithuania by Adam Mickiewicz and the new translation by Bill Johnston is an epic poem about the divided Poland and Lithuania. Mickiewicz was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor of Slavic literature, and political activist. He is regarded as the national poet in Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus. Johnston is a prolific Polish language literary translator and Professor of comparative literature at Indiana University. His work has helped to expose English-speaking readers to classic and contemporary Polish poetry and fiction.

Pan Tadeusz is a poem for those interested in Polish/Lithuanian history or heritage. Most Americans would know little of Polish history except for the opening of World War II. Those who remember the Cold War will recall, despite Gerald Ford's assertion, that Poland was under Communist control and the US does not recognize the incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR. Poland has lived a rather quiet history as a nation for those living today. Poland was a historically a cultural and military territory. Part of the problem also comes with what is Poland. Its size has varied, and it ceased to exist as a nation more than once. My great grandmother's immigration papers said she was born in Russian occupied Poland claiming Polish as her nationality. With borders that changed so often, it is not hard to imagine how one person could be the national poet of three different countries.

Pan Tadeusz is a rather long poem covering five days in 1811 and two days in 1812. It contains a bit of a Shakespeare theme (Romeo and Juliet) and a bit of Les Miserables' to the barricades. Johnston provides a detailed introduction which helps clarify regional realities of the time and a translation that remains true to the original intent including the humor. The verse flows well, and much of the rhyme remains in place, not every line rhymes, but there is enough to keep the read locked into the rhythm of the poetry. There does not seem to be any forced wording in the translation; it is easily readable.

Johnston's translation of Pan Tadeusz brings the Polish classic in an enjoyable form to the English language readers without losing the original intention and form. Both the author and translator include notes characters, locations, as well as translations where words don't seem to have a word for word replacement. An exceptionally well done original work and rendering.

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As Pushkin is to Russia, and Shevchenko is to Ukraine, so Mickiewicz is to Poland, its national poet. The English translation of this book is not easy to find even in Poland, but I was lucky enough to get my hands on this brilliant modern translation from Bill Johnston in the Pan Tadeusz Museum in Wrocław. I have to say that after reading it, it’s criminal to me that it isn’t better known or more highly regarded outside of Poland.

It’s an epic story told in verse, complete with literary references to classic literature, but if that sounds intimidating or dry, nothing could be further from the truth. The book is highly approachable and engaging from beginning to end. The all-too-human characters are cleverly developed, and the story is told with both restraint and concision. There is humor, romance, merriment, and feuding amongst landowners. The rural setting is beautifully evoked throughout the book by Mickiewicz, who had clearly spent time in nature.

Mickiewicz wrote the book from France in 1834 when Poland’s uprisings against its partitioning had failed, but he makes the setting 1811-12, at a time when there was hope that in siding with Napoleon, who had carved out the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw, that they would regain the full independence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and their former glory days. Readers at the time knew how tragically that would turn out, and this combined with Mickiewicz’s childhood memories of a time that was slipping past make the book incredibly poignant. Readers today also know of how partitioning and subjugation in the 18th and 19th centuries would segue to an eerily similar invasion from both Germany and the Soviet Union in the 20th, with outrageous atrocities that are still hard to fathom. It all makes for a very stirring read, particularly at the end with his epilogue, when he laments the fate of his country, as well as cherishes his childhood memories.

This should be required reading for anyone travelling to Poland, and I can’t recommend this edition highly enough. The introduction from Johnston, thoughtful translation, and helpful notes all enhance what is a great book. As he points out with such insight, “Perhaps one of the reasons Pan Tadeusz is so popular is precisely that it beautifully melds two impossible longings – for a future free and independent Poland, and for the lost Poland of the past. The interplay between these two unslaked desires provides a mighty emotional tension at the heart of the poem.”

Just this quote on Poland, which reverberated within me as I toured the country, getting greater insight into such a sad history, and wondering how one could even go on afterwards:

“The blood, though, spilled in Poland lately,
The tears that flood the land completely,
The glory that still echoes quietly –
We had no strength to think of these!
For nations can face such agonies
That, gazing upon their misery,
Even Courage stands helplessly.” ( )

Nic dodać, nic ująć. ( )

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz, född 24 december 1798 i Zaosie nära Nowogródek, då i Ryska imperiet, nu i Vitryssland, död 26 november 1855 vid Konstantinopel, polsk författare, ofta ansedd som Polens nationalskald. Mickiewicz är den polska romantiska poesins främste representant.

1834 utgav han i Paris sitt litterära storverk, verseposet Pan Tadeusz czyli Ostatni zajazd na Litwie (Herr Tadeusz eller Sista fejden i Litauen). Denna verkligt klassiska hjältedikt i homerisk stil återspeglar förträffligt det borttynande polska adelssamhällets inre och yttre liv i början av 1800-talet, då Napoleons tåg till östra Europa väckte nya förhoppningar i de polska sinnena. Många av de tecknade personerna är återgivna efter naturen, stundtals i komisk belysning, men med en djup underström av patriotisk sympati. ( )

Perhaps the translation doesnt render the poetry well, but I still found it enjoyable to read. Like the introduction says it's a cross between Don Quixote and Iliad with some nice pastoral work thrown in. ( )