Piotr Załuski
Vilnius friendships of Adam Mickiewicz
The time of studying in Vilnius – which gave Adam Mickiewicz an education and vast knowledge – was also rich in poetic works, constantly developing and very significant for Polish literature. Mickiewicz’s first collection of poems “Ballads and Romances” (1822) was the beginning of the romantic era. One thing (not less important) should be added here, if we are to judge the whole generation of people “in slavery born and bound in swaddling chain” – and these are romantic friendships. In Mickiewicz’s life they were numerous, deep and almost lifelong. They were also of an organic character, thus they simply must have happened. Those bonds of young men were often based on far reaching plans of work for the society and Polish science. Secret and sworn plans, performed with a great ambition and not always – with great possibilities. This was an origin of the Philomath Society (est. 1817). Mickiewicz and his friends treated their plans seriously and conscientiously. Unfortunately they were also victims of the imperial Russian rule. Imprisoned, sentenced to losing their homeland and exile in the depths of Russia, they became politically stigmatized. During an investigation that lasted for over a year, during the imprisonment and after the verdict, those friendship become a great challenge. Mickiewicz and his friends had to pass the most serious exam of social, patriotic and human maturity. A hurtful, but fruitful test.
prof. dr hab. Elżbieta Katarzyna Dzikowska
Uniwersyty of Lodz
Catholics, Uniates, Protestants and Masons. Vilnius teachers of Adam Mickiewicz
“Unity in variety” is a phrase that describes well the peculiar community created throughout centuries by professors and students at Vilnius University. The multiculturalism of the place (both of the city and of historical traditions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), national, ethnic, confessional and state diversity make us think – from one perspective – about the process of inclusion and exlusion, but at the same time about models of respecting dissimilarity, about conceptualization of various borders – which, additionally, should not be discussed separately, but as functioning together.
Starting from the conception of situational ethnicity, the lecture will present persons from the group of professors at the Imperial Vilnius University, who – directly or not – influenced the biography and works of the great Polish and European romantic poet.
