ADAM MICKIEWICZ 
(1798-1855)

Adam Mickiewicz was a native of the Nowogr6dek district in the Lithuanian part of Poland, was educated in the University of Vilna, then a flourishing centre of learning. There he published his first volume of ballads and romances in the Romantic style (i8z2,). Though he was already a secondary school teacher, he became implicated in the trial of Vilna students (1823), and as a result was deported to Russia, where, however, he enjoyed many social and literary successes, Allowed to leave Russia, he travelled through Germany and Italy and finally settled in Paris, The November rising of 18 3 o decided his status as a political exile for life. From 1840 to 1844 he lectured on Slavonic literatures at the College de France. During the Crimean War Mickiewicz went on a mission to the Polish legion in Turkey, but soon died in Constantinople.