“Litwo, ojczyzno moja…” starts the most well-known Polish poem by Adam Mickiewicz, while our all-time favourite patriotic song is about the green steppes of… Ukraine. The fact is, for various reasons, most of the classic Polish books were actually not written in modern-day Poland.
Mickiewicz and his Crimea
The Stepy Akermańskie by Mickiewicz that we read at school were actually written in the now-famous Crimea area of modern-day Ukraine. Dziady, Part III, he wrote in Dresden, Germany.
Another famous Polish writer, Zygmunt Krasiński, met Mickiewicz in Geneva, Switzerland, and wrote: “He speaks Polish, French, Italian, German, English, Latin, and Greek.” He died in Istanbul, Turkey. He had to emigrate, like many in 19th-century Poland, due to the political climate.
Słowacki died in Paris
From Paris to Geneva and Paris again was the route that, for similar reasons, took our second great poet, Juliusz Słowacki. Some of his poetry was written in Switzerland, where he became friends with another great author, Zygmunt Krasiński (who started to write his Nie-Boska komedia) while in St. Petersburg, Russia.
After the war, the reasons to emigrate were similar, but now it was communism that brought so many talented Poles to countries all over the world. Gustaw Herling-Grudziński published his Inny Świat in London (1951), Gombrowicz wrote Ferdydurke right before migrating to Buenos Aires, and Trans-Atlantyk was published in Paris in 1953. Leopold Tyrmand published his second book only after reaching Paris.
This is just the beginning of the list of Polish writers who published abroad (and what about the famous Joseph Conrad, or actually Józef Korzeniowski, a famous Polish writer who was born in Ukraine and died in the USA…)?
