Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) was a Polish poet and the central figure of Polish Romanticism. Born near Navahrudak in what is now Belarus, he studied at Vilnius, was arrested for his part in a patriotic student society and exiled to Russia, and after 1829 lived as an émigré in Dresden, Paris and Switzerland, never returning to his homeland. His works include the ballads and romances that launched Polish Romanticism, the dramatic poem Forefathers' Eve and Pan Tadeusz, the epic of gentry life in Lithuania that Poles regard as their national poem. He died in Constantinople while trying to raise a Polish legion during the Crimean War.