Sandra Szwarc

We all know the first lines of the invocation opening ‘Pan Tadeusz’. Lithuania is Adam Mickiewicz's homeland, which the poet lost just like one would lose their health. In recalling Lithuania, the first thing that springs to the poet's mind are its beautiful farmlands. But is he at all concerned with the stories of the people who cultivated those fields? ‘Pan Tadeusz’ is clearly focused on the story of the nobility, as its title suggests; after all, it tells the story of the last nobleman's foray. The national epic seems to completely ignore the rest of the world. So who is it written for? What do we, as contemporaries, actually have in common with the story of incessantly bickering nobles; a story that ends with the contractual marriage of a fourteen-year-old girl to the titular ‘Pan’? What does this story really teach us today? And what is it actually about? Are we supposed to admire it or hate it?