Forefather’s Eve, Part II by Adam Mickiewicz

This is a loose and shortened translation of Adam Mickiewicz’s drama Forefathers’ Eve, Part II.

According to George Sand and George Brandes Forefathers’ Eve was the greatest realisation of the Romantic drama theory, among such works as Faust by Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Manfred by George Gordon Byron

The original is written in the elegant thirteen syllables rhyme used by Polish romanticists. I didn’t even attempt imitating it, the translation reflects only on the content. Similarly, I didn’t use the play writing manner of marking who speaks before each sentence. I transformed it into prose instead. It is far from perfect, but to my knowledge no other English translation is available.

Forefathers’ Eve, Dziady in Polish, is a feast performed on the eve of All Saints’. Its equivalent in the Western world is Halloween that is stripped of its original spiritual dimension. Since Poland has always been a multireligious country some pagan traditions were never suppressed, merging with Christianity instead. Forefathers’ Eve was especially popular in the eastern parts of the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth. Today this region is in Belarus, where the tradition is still alive. The people who perform the rites in Mickiewicz’s rendition are Greek-Catholics.

Parts I, II, and IV were influenced by Byron, and are perhaps the most similar to the Gothic style in English literature within the Polish romantic writing.

At the end I added annotations mixed with elements of Mickiewicz’s biography, his views, some people from his acquaintance, and his feminist attitude.

~~~~~

Forefathers’ Eve

Part II

1823

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

The shaman entered the chapel, ordering its doors locked. Hurrying people to quench the candles, shut the windows deaf, cutting out the white beam of the moonlight.

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

The people gathered around a coffin, and the shaman started his rites:

“The souls of Purgatory! In any side of the world: whether you are burning in tar, freezing at the bottom of a brook, or for a severer punishment you are implanted into austere wood, while being bit by embers of a stove you cry mournfully and moan. Each of you hurry to join our herd! Let the herd meet. We are having Forefathers’ Eve!

“Descend into the holy place; where the alms, prayers, food and beverages await.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Give me a fist of the distaff; I fire it, and you, as soon as the small flame shoots up, drive it with your light breaths. Like this. Like this. Go on. Go on. Let it burn in the air.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“First you, with light souls, who at this vale of darkness, storms, misery, pain and crying, shone and burnt just as the fist of distaff. Those of you, who in the windy maze did not fly to heavenly gates, we call with lit gesture, exhort.”

Tell us what is it that you miss. What you want. What you need.

“Look, ah, look up. What is it shining there under the vault? Here two children flutter with their golden feathers. Just as a leaf with a leaf in waft, they spin under the church’s crypt. As a dove with a dove on a tree, just a cherub’s game with his kin.”

One of the angels turned to a peasant woman standing in the crowd.

“To mama, we fly to mama. Why, mom, you do not recognise Joe? It is me, Joe, and my sister Rose. We are now flying in Eden. There is better there than at home. Look, our heads in golden glow, dresses out of the beams of dawn, and butterflies’ wings adorn our shoulders. Everyday we have another toy, wherever we stand grass grow, and wherever we touch a flower blossoms, but though we have everything aplenty, we are bothered by boredom and fears. Mom, the way to Heaven is closed to your dears.”

“What do you need, little soul, to get to heaven’s door? Do you ask for God’s glory? Or perhaps a sweet reward? There are donuts, cake, milk, berries. Whatever is it that you want?”

“Nothing, there is nothing we need. We are unhappy with the earthly sweets. All my life I knew no grief. Caresses, bounties, plays. To sing, jump, run in the fields. All my work was to gather flowers for Rose, and hers to dress her dolls. We came for Forefathers’ Eve. Not for prayers. Not for feast. We ask for two grains of gall, and the deed so small will be enough for all. Listen, and heed the advice, for Godly command says one who never knew bitterness will not know Heavenly happiness.”

“Angel, little soul! What you wanted you have got. And now go away with God. You do not need victuals or drinks. Leave us in peace. Begone, begone!

“The terrible night is coming. Close the door and padlock it. Hold aloft the torches. Place the kettle filled with vodka in the middle of the room and on the signal of my walking stick, let the vodka catch fire.”

It burst, boiled, and went out.

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Now, you, the heaviest souls, chained to this vale of crime together with body and soul. Although the angel of death is calling you, your life cannot tear away from your bodily agony. If such a severe punishment can be eased by people a bit, and save you from the infernal hollow, to which you are so close, come. We call you, we exhort. Come through your element. Through the bonfire!”

Tell us what it is that you miss. What you want. What you need.

Behind the window a voice was heard, “Hey, ravens, owls, eagles! You cursed gluttons! Let me go to the chapel. Let me take at least two steps.”

“What a ghost, what a monster! Can you see the phantom? Pale like an old bone. Smoke and lighting in his mouth. His eyes shine like coals in ashes.”

From behind of the window the voice called again, “Children! Do you not know me? Look at me closely! I am your master. It was my village. Today, hardly the third year is gone since you put me in my tomb. Ah, too heavy is God’s hand! I am in the powers of bad ghosts. I suffer terribly. I am the subject of eternal hungers. And who will feed me? The greedy birds yank my body. There is no end to my tortures!”

“What is needed for you, miserable soul, to spare you this sore fate? Do you ask for Heaven’s glory or the Holy Matrimony? We have food and drink. Pray, what do you need to get to Heaven’s gates?”

“Heaven? Your profanities are absurd. No! I do not want to Heaven. I only want my soul to leave my body. Hell is better than continuous wandering with impure ghosts upon the earth, watching the marks of old joys, memories of old life. From sunrise to sunset and from sunset to sunrise, agonising from hunger and thirst, and feeding the greedy birds.

“Unfortunately my sentence says that till one of you, my serfs, feeds or waters my ragged body, I must carry my condemned soul in it. Please, just one drop of water or two seeds of wheat.”

The night birds interrupted, “In vain he cries and begs. Here, we, owls, ravens and eagles, once your servants, starved to death, will eat the food, will drink the water. Even if you hold it in your teeth we will use our claws to rip. You knew no mercy, master. Today we know no mercy. When we eat all your food we will get to you.”

The raven proceeded, “You do not like starving! Do you remember how one Autumn I came into your garden? The pears were ripe, the apples red. Three days I had no food in my mouth. I took several fruits, but your gardener made havoc and chased me with dogs as if I were a wolf. You made a case. And about what? The fruits that God gave to people free like water and fire? But you wanted to hold a performance. Called people to come and watch. Each of my bones was beaten severely! You knew no mercy, master!”

The owl added, “You do not like starving! Do you remember how during the severest winter I stood with my child at your gates. ‘Master!’ I called out in tears, ‘have mercy on orphans. My husband long dead. Give us allowance!’ You told your servant to drive us away. He pushed me with child to snow. Beaten and cold I could find no shelter, I froze with my child along the road. You knew no mercy, master!”

The birds joined, “Hey, owls, ravens, eagles, let us know no mercy as well! Let us rip the food. And when the food ends, let us rip the body to tatters. Let the bare bones show!”

“There is no help for me,” the phantom said. “You offer the dishes for nothing. Not for me the Forefathers’ Eve. I have to suffer for centuries. Justified God’s sentence is. Who was not a human even once, cannot be helped by humans.”

“Since there is nothing we can do for you, go away, you wretch. You do not take victuals or drink. Leave us in peace. Begone, begone!”

The phantom disappeared, and the shaman held out his stick, “Give me, friends, this wreath on the end of my stick. I fire the blest herbs. Up smoke. Up gleams!”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Now you, the middle ghosts, who at this vale of darkness and storms lived with people together, but free from human flaws. You lived not for us. Not for the world. Just as these savouries and mallows, no fruit from them – not a flower. Weaved into fragrant garlands, they are hanging high on the wall. This high, ladies, you held your eye and bosom. Thee, who till now, with her wing pure, did not pass the Heavenly doorway. With this light and incense, we call you. We exhort.”

Tell us what it is that you miss. What you want. What you need.

“What is it? The icon of Madonna? The angelic form? Just like a gleaming rainbow runs through clouds to a lake’s waters, such is she glowing in the chapel’s space. Her white robe encircles her legs, whips of hair with which breezes toy, bilberries glitter in her smile, but there is a tear of calamity in her eye.

“Flowery wreath on her head, a little twig in her hand, a lamb runs before her, a butterfly flies over her. She calls the lamb endlessly, chases the butterfly with the twig, but they evade her.”

The girl said, “I used to, in the mornings of Spring, wander through forests endlessly. Immersed in my songs and musings, I would not give a thought to the living. Once a boy, for a pair of doves, wanted to kiss my mouth. A gentleman offered me his hand and heart, but I only laughed. Yes, I was a carnal loveliness, but even at my age of twenty years I refused matrimony. I died not knowing the earthly bliss.

“I lived in the world, but not for the world! My thoughts too winged and never touched the common grounds. Chasing the breeze, flowery leaves, never a lover. I enjoyed listening to the men’s words of praise, but I loved none of them.

“Now, after my death, I do not comprehend what is happening to me. I am glowing with strange fire. Though I amuse myself at my will. I fly where the breeze takes me. Nothing saddens me. Nothing pains me. Where does the boredom come from?

“I am longing for someone at every rustle. Ah, and I am always alone! I am sorry, but the wind is endlessly lifting me like a feather, wafting me. I do not know whether I am from this or that world. Wherever I go the wind is always blowing me away. And so, amongst the timid wave, flying the eternal road, either rise up to the heaven or touch the land I cannot.

“What do you need, pretty soul, to get to Heaven’s door? Do you ask for God’s glory? Or perhaps a sweet reward? There are donuts, cake, milk, berries. Whatever is it that you want?”

“Nothing, there is nothing I need. Let the boys come to me. Let them catch my hands. Let them pull me to the ground. Let me frolic with them. Because listen and heed the advice, according to Godly command those who did not touch the ground even once can never go to Heaven.”

The shaman saw the men running to her, “You run in vain. Those are only mere shadows. In vain she offers her hands. The wind carries her away.

“Now I call all the souls together with my last command! For you is the tiny meal. I throw fists of poppy and lentils into every corner of the chapel. Take what you want. What you miss. What you need.

“It is time to open the chapel’s door. Light the candles. Midnight is gone. The rooster crows. The sacrifice is at its end, and the girl needs to go away.

“Stop! One more ghost!”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Look, the floor is falling, the pale wraith arises. He takes steps to the shepherdess, stands at her side. He turns his pale countenance to her, wild and saddened, drowned completely in her eyes. Look, ah, look at his heart! He pointed out his heart to the girl, but did not speak a word.

“What do you need, young soul, to get to Heaven’s door? Do you ask for Heaven’s glory, or the Holy Matrimony? There are donuts, cake, milk, berries. Whatever is it that you want?”

The wraith was silent.

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“Answer me, you pale wraith. Why, he is silent?

“Since you detest the mass and pierogi, go with God. You did not want meal or drink. Let us be. Begone, begone!

“Goodness! What a wraith. He does not go away, he does not speak!

“You soul, damned or blest. Leave the holy rites! Here is the open floor. Take your return road, or I will curse you in the name of God.”

The shaman paused, “Go away. Cross forests. Cross rivers. Begone for ages!”

The wraith did not move.

“Goodness, what is it? He is silent and does not disappear! In vain I ask, in vain I curse. He is not afraid of my words. Give me the sprinkler from the altar… No difference! The tormented soul stays, speechlessly dumb. Immovable, like a stone out of a tomb.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

“This is beyond human understanding! Shepherdess, do you know this person? There is something horrid in it. Who are you mourning? Your husband and kids are well. Why, you do not say a word?! Why are you smiling? Why? What is so joyful about him?

“Give me the stole and the blessed candle. I will light it, I will consecrate… It is no use…

“Take the shepherdess out of the chapel.

“Why are you smiling, why? What is so charming about him?

“Goodness, the wraith follows her. Where we take her he is there.”

Darkness around. Dullness around. What will be now? What will be now?

~~~~~

Some notes:

Forefathers’ Eve is a strongly political drama, and was censured both by the 19th century Russian tsarist government and the communist authorities. An attempt to stage it in 1968 ended with social tumults, expelling of students and professors from universities, arrests of nearly three thousand people, and a purge of Jewish members from the communist party.

The drama, never finished, comprises of four parts usually read in the chronological order rather than the numeral. The second part goes first, followed by fourth, first and third. Each of them centres on another aspect of Mickiewicz’s worldview.

Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)

The Part Two above expresses Mickiewicz’s philosophy of life, based mainly on folk morality and his own thoughts about love and death. The three ghosts summoned to the feast symbolize major moral virtues necessary for salvation.

The angelic children cannot enter heaven because they have never suffered. Since suffering was an inevitable effect of the occupation of Poland it became an important part of Polish romanticism. Till today martyrology is a significant aspect of Polish national identity.

The cruel master, who used to own the village and the serfs, cannot enter hell because he has never shown humanity. In 1791 the government of Poland proclaimed the May 3 Constitution abolishing serfdom. Poland’s neighbours – Austria, Prussia and Russia – used it as a pretext to further partitions of the country, and as soon as they annexed the lands they reverted the law, bringing serfs back under the power of the nobles. The move was supported by those who weren’t happy with the Constitution that expressed the views of the majority of nobles, but not all of them. Mickiewicz addressed his scorn to both the occupants and the cruel Polish lords.

The girl cannot enter heaven because she has never experienced earthly love.

Maryla (Marianna) Wereszczakówna

Mickiewicz was a great poet and thinker, but a weak man. He summed up his own life along these lines:

My tears poured, copious, pure
Onto my childhood, blissful, angelic
Onto my youth, haughty and foolish
My age of mature, age of failure
My tears poured, copious, pure

He had an endless number of lovers, both married and maids, but for the most part he didn’t seem to have reached the emotional maturity necessary to enter marriage. The one woman whom he loved, and who became his early muse, Maryla Wereszczakówna, was already engaged when they met. She wasn’t thought to be a beauty, but she was intelligent and very well educated. The feeling was mutual, and they had an affair soon after her marriage. Yet, Mickiewicz was arrested for his political activity, and exiled to Russia proper. He’d never see Maryla again, nor return to his family site.

Years later, when he finally married, he seemed to have made the worst choice possible. It’s often said about female writers that marriage would end their writing career, in this case, the marriage put an end to his.

Celina nee Szymanowska, emotionally unstable, became mentally ill four years after their marriage. Neither their living conditions (a tiny three room Paris apartment), nor his lukewarm affection for her, seemed to promote happiness early in the union. His wife treated him with derision. She was one of two persons in whom he ever confined and presumably she used his own confidences against him in their domestic quarrels. She spoke to him only to bite. At one point, after six weeks of a continuous nightmare, he was driven to a point when he wanted to hit her. The realisation scared him. He hid in the cook’s room. When Celina found him there he was ready to attempt a suicide.

He brought her to a hospital, and the situation would repeat in the future. Their living conditions would get even worse. In winter, in a cold apartment, with his wife away and even their servant becoming ill from the freezing temperature, Mickiewicz would be left to nurse his kids on his own.

Yet his treatment of her was not better. He was kind. He’d fulfil her various requests or buy her presents, but he wouldn’t befriend her. That place would be eventually taken by Xawera Deybel, a governess to their children, who’d become Mickiewicz’s muse, friend, and sexual partner for years. Unlike Celina she wasn’t pretty, she’s said to be extremely short and perhaps even crooked, but to Mickiewicz she was an endless inspiration.

Both Celina and Mickiewicz would do better if they never married. She was not the strong, energetic, purposed woman with whom he could have been happy. If she were, perhaps she’d divorce him, sparing them both the continuous misery. Celina’s mother divorced her father and began her European career. But maybe that was Celina’s problem, she grew up in the great world, but she was unlike her mother.

No matter how much Mickiewicz failed in his personal life he was a feminist. Women in his works take prominent roles. They’re strong, brave, heroic, intelligent and just.

In 1848 in Rome Margaret Fuller wrote:

The Poles have also made noble manifestations. Their great poet Adam Mickiewicz has been here to enroll the Italian Poles publish the declaration of faith in which they hope to re-enter and re-establish their country and receive the Pope’s benediction on their banner. In their declaration of faith are found these three articles:

1. Every one of the nation a citizen, every citizen equal in rights and before authorities.
2. To the Jew, our elder brother, respect, brotherhood, aid on the way to his eternal and terrestrial good, entire equality in political and civil rights.
3. To the companion of life, woman, citizenship, entire equality of rights.

This last expression of just thought the Poles ought to initiate, for what other nation has had such truly heroic women? Women indeed, – not children, servants, or playthings.¹

However, Mickiewicz’s view on women went further than universal suffrage. In his opinion women should exercise their sexuality in the same way men did.

Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller, an American feminist, was of an opposite opinion when they met in Paris in the 1840s. She viewed her virginity as a necessary condition to keep her independence. Nonetheless, she and Mickiewicz agreed on many other points, and by the time she left France he promised to correspond with her.

Mickiewicz found in Fuller a “true person”, the only “woman to whom it has been given to touch what is decisive in the present world and to have a presentiment of the world of the future.” But that meant to him that she needed still more rooting in the physical present. In his first letter to her he wrote:

For you the first step of your deliverance… is to know whether you are permitted to remain a virgin.²

When she wrote to Mickiewicz about having met Ossoli he urged her to deepen the relationship.

Prolong your good moments. Do not leave those who would like to remain near you. This is in reference to the little Italian you met in the Church.

(…)

Try to bring away from Italy what you will be able to take of it in joy and in health. There is nothing else to take!¹

Ossoli proposed to Fuller early in their acquaintance, but she refused, judging them very unfit. He was ten years younger, and from an aristocratic family. She fled. But Mickiewicz wrote again, telling her she must not limit her life to books and dreams:

You have pleaded the freedom of women in a masculine and frank style. Live and act as you write. … I have seen you, with all your knowledge, and all your imagination, and all your literary reputation, living in a bondage harder than that of a servant. … The relations that are right for you are those which develop and free your spirit while answering the legitimate needs of your body. You are the only judge of those needs.

Mickiewicz argued that if she was to become a woman of the new epoque she must part from her American friends and seek freedom.

A few months later Fuller returned to Ossoli, to soon become his lover. She was happy, she felt freed, but she became pregnant. Her anxiety diminished when she assured herself that Ossoli would remain by her side, but she was conflicted, unable to agree her own views and condition with the restraints of the society.

I’m not sure whether Mickiewicz could fully understand her position. To him it was simpler, but so it was to the women he knew. The situation would cause some gossip within the Polish society, but the woman would retain full respect, she would not become an outcast, she would keep her literary reputation, and her chances on the marriage market would not be threatened. After all Mickiewicz had many affairs with both virgins and married women from the Polish nobility. Chopin lived with George Sand in a free relationship for many years, both attended Mickiewicz’s lectures in College de France regularly. Mickiewicz lived in a threesome for a good part of his marriage, and Xawera Deybel, originally hired by Celina as a governess to their children, became an important persona in the Polish literary circles. She accompanied Mickiewicz everywhere, they had a daughter, and yet she still married afterwards. Maria Szymanowska, a divorcee, Mickiewicz’s mother-in-law, was known to not have a nun’s disposition. Maria Walewska was regarded as a heroine for agreeing to enter into an adulterous affair with Napoleon. Countess Delfina Potocka divorced her husband with whom she had two daughters, and became a friend, muse and lover to Polish romantics. Chopin dedicated his Minute Waltz to her. Her love affair with Krasiński lasted even after he had married Countess Eliza Branicka, and they still remained friends afterwards. Antoni Malczewski (a friend of Byron’s to whom he told the story of Mazeppa) engaged in an ill-fated affair with Zofia Rucińska, the wife of his friend. Countess Ewelina Hańska, who first wrote to Honoré de Balzac accusing him of uncomplimentary portrayal of women, kept her correspondence with him for nearly 10 years until her husband died and they finally met. They went on several voyages together during which she gave birth to a still born child. Afterwards he came to Ukraine to meet her family and marry. Count Aleksander Fredro fought for 10 years for the divorce of his beloved so that he could marry her. Out of female writers Narcyza Żmichowska, considered the first Polish feminist, was gay and never married. She was published even though she was fired from her governess position after the parents of her charge accused her of an affair with their daughter. She was active in the Polish conspiracy and became jailed for some time. Afterwards she went to study at Sorbonne. She argued against the notion of her American colleagues that men use their power over women, but then indeed, Polish men did not. Maria Wirtemberska or actually Maria Anna nee Czartoryska Duches von Württemberg-Montbéliard divorced her husband over politics after he had supported the enemies of Poland.

In England some affairs would happen only within the aristocracy, the USA had no aristocracy, but Poland had no middle class. Everyone was a noble within the Polish society, everyone was welcome in the highest spheres, even the impoverished Mickiewicz and Chopin. Sex was fair game. The only famous virgin of those times was Countess Emilia Plater who died at the age of 25 after having organised her own regiment and joining the Polish army against Russia in the November Insurrection, 1830. She was one of many women who fought for Poland since the late 18th century, but she was the first one promoted to the rank of Captain and given a commanding position in the army.

Emilia Plater and her scythemen (click to enlarge)

For Fuller, with her American background and conservative social links, things weren’t that simple. It’d take a few more years before she and Ossoli would decide to live openly together. During her pregnancy she was scared and depressed.

For several weeks in February and March, Adam Mickiewicz was a comfort to her. He came to Rome to raise a Legion of Polish exiles to join the Italians in their fight for national sovereignty. For him and his idealistic colleagues, Italy’s liberation was only the first step in a world revolution to liberate all oppressed people and inaugurate a new era of human freedom. Mickiewicz took rooms on the Via del Pozzetto, only a few blocks from Fuller’s apartment. He encouraged her to view her condition as a cause for rejoicing instead of guilt and morbid musing. Her depression, he told her, was no more than a fear of the future; a woman who had written so compellingly about the better world ahead should not suffer from melancholia. Pointing out that it was “very natural, very common” to be pregnant, he accused her of carrying on in an “extravagant manner”. Once she regained her morale, her physical sufferings would diminish.¹

Mickiewicz wasn’t a libertine, he never seduced a woman, he avoided lies. Before proposing to Celina he gave her a detailed confession of all of his weaknesses and dealings with women. But he fully believed that woman’s freedom must equal that of man’s in everything, including the sexual sphere, over 100 years before the sexual revolution in the USA. His writings, the most important and the most widely read in Poland, shaped both the Polish national feeling and the self image of Polish women.

The fourth ghost differs from the previous three. He came uninvited, breaking social rules. The people gather to help some ghosts of their former neighbours and family members. They decide who is invited, and offer them food and other ailments that could help their situation. The kind of responsibility for one’s ancestors is still very strong in Polish culture, just as the tradition of mourning is, not whiny, but quiet and full of reflection. The ghost, however, is unsocial. He comes uninvited, refuses to speak, and he doesn’t want anything from them. He refuses to leave either.

This is beyond human understanding!… There is something horrid in it.

Those sentences reflect people’s fear at someone’s daring to break the old established rules of the society.The shaman was about to tell the History of Forefathers, but the entrance of the fourth ghost puts an end to the mysterium and begins a drama.

This is a romantic hero, a Werther-like character. He rejects the society, and the society doesn’t understand him. He suggests to have felt an adulterous love to the shepardness, and he dared to have taken his own life.

From an additional poem, linking parts II and IV we learn that indeed that was the case. Mickiewicz offered a continuation of Werther’s story. The man is punished for suicide, and that means that every year he must return to the living for a month’s time, see the woman again, without the possibility of speaking to her or touching her, and then again he must leave her. The agony that led to his death will repeat over and over.

He resembles Gustaw, the main hero of Part IV.

When Mickiewicz made the acquaintance of Goethe this part was already written. I wonder whether they spoke about it.

Mickiewicz and Goethe shared their admiration for one woman, although certainly with a different feeling. Goethe was rumoured to have fallen deeply in love with Maria Szymanowska, the great European piano virtuoso and a pre-romantic music composer, who became Mickiewicz’s mother in law.

Maria Szymanowska, piano virtuoso and music composer

Wikipedia gives a short summary of the remaining parts of the drama:

Part IV is believed to be Mickiewicz‘s manifesto of his romantic philosophy of life, and also a story about his love to Maryla Wereszczakówna. The main reason for associating the bard’s and his hero’s biography is the resemblance in what Gustaw (the protagonist of the drama) says about his tragic youth. He met a fine girl, with whom he fell in love. Unfortunately, she married a rich duke and, subsequently, Gustaw committed a suicide. A similar situation took place in the poet’s life, but he managed to forgive his lover. When he was depressed, he wrote the fourth part of Forefathers’ Eve, one of the most beautiful Polish poems about love, and also a fascinating example of the romantic poetry. The action of the drama is divided into three episodes – the hour of love, the hour of despair and the hour of admonition. The book shows dangers of people’s romantic nature and reading sentimental masterpieces, which do not show the real world. On the other hand, Gustaw is presented as an owner of the metaphysical knowledge. It is him, not his teacher, who eventually notions to the philosophy of Enlightenment and visualises the true picture of the world, which is the reality conducted by paranormal laws.

Part I, published after Mickiewicz‘s emigration to France, was probably written in the early 1820s, although never finished. Meant to be a picture of “emotion of the 19th century people”, it was immediately given up by the author. It shows a young couple, feeling confused and trying to choose between the sentimental idea of love, adjustment to the society and respect to own nature.

Part III is thought to be the most significant one, or even one of the finest poems in the Polish literature. The main character bears a resemblance to Gustaw from part IV, but he is no longer a ‘romantic lover’. The drama was written after the fall of the November Insurrection, an event that strongly influenced the author. In the Prologue the protagonist of the drama writes on the wall “Gustavus obiit – hic hatus est Conradus” Today Gustaw died, today Conrad is born. Conrad is the name from Mickiewicz‘s earlier novel, Conrad Wallenrod. Wallenrod sacrificed his life and happiness for his own country’s sake. Gustaw transforms from a woman’s lover into his country’s lover.

Mickiewicz dedicated his work to people fighting for the freedom of Poland in the 1830s insurrection and especially to those who were exiled to Siberia by the Russian emperor. The book describes the cruelty of tsar Alexander, and persecutions of Poles. It has many mysterious episodes and, among historical characters, the reader can find ghosts, angels and also the devil. Poland, according to Mickiewicz‘s vision, was meant to become “Christ of Europe” and the national suffering was to result in releasing all of the persecuted people and nationalities, as Christ’s death has brought salvation.

The characters of the drama are chiefly prisoners, accused of conspiracy against the Russian conqueror. The self-named protagonist, Conrad, is a poet. In his vision, commonly known as “Wielka Improwizacja” – Great Improvisation – he talks to God about his patriotic feelings and the intention of becoming a leader of the nation. His love and suffering make him a symbol of the Polish soul. Nevertheless, in God’s opinion he is too proud to free his country. Another character, a priest called Piotr, also has a vision. When he happens to foretell the country’s future, he says one of the most mysterious words of the whole drama. Describing a person who will bring back the freedom of Poland, he says: “The Son of a foreign mother, in his blood old heroes And his name will be forty and four”.

The mysterious numerical name of the hero is easily deciphered with the Hebrew alphabet.

Adam = דמ, where ד Daled = 4, and מ Mem = 40.

(Mickiewicz’s wife, Celina, came from a Frankist family. Frankists were a Christianized Jewish sect. In the 18th century thousands of Frankists were brought to nobility.)

Adam Mickiewicz did not bring Poland’s freedom via his direct actions, but thanks to his writings Poles remained Poles for over 100 years of occupation, and forced russification and germanization. Thanks to him they didn’t forget what it means to be Polish.

Further Wikipedia writes:

The whole drama brings back the hope of Polish independence and gives a great picture of Polish society in so difficult a moment.

Our nation is like lava. On the top it is hard and hideous, but its internal fire cannot be extinguished even in one hundred years of coldness. So let’s spit on the crust and go down, to the profundity!

Great Improvisation and Prisoner’s Return from Part III in professional English translation.

¹ Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller by Joan Von Mehren

² The Woman And The Myth: Margaret Fuller’s Life and Writings by Bell Gale Chevigny

Krzysztof Rutkowski about Xawera Deybel (in Polish)

Polish Six Seasons: A Guide

Kids in Polish schools learn that there are four calendar seasons, those officially marked in a calendar, and six natural ones. That’s true for Poland, the nearby area in Germany, some Baltic States (Latvia and Lithuania), and Belarus.

The seasons, each lasting about two months, are:

1. Zima – winter – January, February

2. Przedwiośnie – pre-spring – March, April

3. Wiosna – spring – May, June

4. Lato – summer – July, August

5. Złota Polska Jesień – Golden Polish Summer – September, October

6. Jesień – autumn – November, December

Why six?

Of course what needs to happen in the Polish weather to go all the way from winter to spring or from summer to autumn is no different than in other countries, however, the clue is in the length of the processes. Since przedwiośnie is so totally different than either winter or spring, and Złota Polska Jesień resembles a cool summer more than autumn, and each of them takes about two months, they deserve recognition.

At the same time both Polish przedwiośnie and autumn may resemble English winter more than anything else, hence people expect snow, since that’s how they think of Polish winter. Nothing more misleading! Przedwiośnie and autumn in Poland are the periods of the ugliest weather, and naturally people complain that this year’s spring is late or winter failed. However, if they compared the weather year by year they’d notice that it’s pretty normal.

For those of weak faith there are always the old folk proverbs that prove the rule. Winter ones:

• Styczeń styczeń wszystko studzi ziemię, bydło, ludzi. – January cools everything: land, animals and people.

• Idzie luty podkuj buty. – Hobnail your boots before February.

Przedwiośnie ones:

• W marcu jak w garncu. – In March it’s like in a pot.

• Kwiecień plecień co przeplata trochę zimy trochę lata. – April entwines bits of winter and summer.

December ones for comparison:

• Grudzień to miesiąc zawiły, czasem srogi, czasem miły. – December is a baffling month, sometimes severe sometimes nice.

• Gdy w dzień Adama i Ewy mróz i pięknie, zima wcześnie pęknie. – If Adam and Eve’s day is frosty and beautiful winter will break soon. (This may not be obvious to English speakers, but the nameday of Adam and Eve is on Christmas Eve). This saying shows that around the time people are only expecting winter to come, not assuming it should be there already.

The pagan year.

In the old good times, when our pagan ancestors weren’t yet aware of the need to observe the calendar seasons, but rather used to look around and notice things as they were, they marked the Polish six seasons correctly, and we still can trace the beginnings of them to their holidays and celebrations. Whenever possible I’ll try to show the correlation between the old Slavic customs and their equivalents in English or generally Western tradition.

Winter in Poland – January and February – means snow and freezing temperature, usually between -20-0C, but it can be around -40C in Suwałki area. It shouldn’t rain at all, unless it’s a mild, ugly and sloppy winter.

A Baby Wisent Playing in Snow. Winter, Białowieża Wilderness.

The beginning of winter was marked by the Festivities of Sun, or Mating Day. Even today in some regions of Poland Christmas is called Gody (wedding). It’s the time when Sun and Moon touch each other, and Sun, the most powerful force, wins over Moon. Styczeń (January) comes from stykać (to touch, contact). The celebrations used to last more than ten days, and today it’s the period from Christmas Eve to the Twelfth Night. Of course, as usually, Christianity imposed their holidays on the pagan ones, but some elements of decoration and food still remained: yuletide, hay and strow – the symbols of the previous fruitful harvest, eggs – the symbol of life and sun. In England Christmas chicken symbolized the same that eggs in Poland – new life.

Przedwiośnie – March and April – means temperature above 0C, with some warm days, many cold ones, snow melting, and timid plants blooming. It’s soggy, grey, and seems to last forever! April can be either warm or cold, with temperature anywhere between 5-20C. There’s no rule. It can be sunny, or hot. Rains are frequent, and sometimes it snows. By the end of April, however, it’s usually green, and we say that spring came (in Poland it comes on foot btw ;-)). Kwiecień (April) literally means blooming.

Young Wisents In Przedwiośnie Scenery, Białowieża Wilderness.

The beginning of przedwiośnie till today is marked by the drowning of Marzanna. A female doll is produced by kids and drown in a river, lake or sea. Marzanna symbolizes Mara, the goddess or demon of death, night, and winter. To pagans winter was a hollow time, not a season of a year, but the period of void in between. In English Mara is still present in the word nightmare, in Polish mara nocna.

Another Przedwiośnie Scenery

Spring – May and June – is usually warm, however, there are burze majowe (May storms), so normally one should expect lots of thunders and rain, but there is also deszczyk majowy (light May rain) that is warm and pleasant. May is also the month of majówka (picnic) that in the Polish mind means a blanket and sandwiches taken to a forest on a fine Saturday or Sunday. June is similar, only a bit warmer and dryer. Spring temperature usually varies between 15-30C.

Spring in Janowski Forest

The beginning of spring was marked by Zielone Świątki (Green Holidays). The name is still used today in reference to Pentecost.

Zielone Świątki were observed by the performance of the so called wiosenne porządki (spring cleaning) when people used to burn all of the unnecessary stuff, old leaves or dry branches uncovered by melted snow, and clean and decorate their houses with fresh green branches. Women painted eggs, now known as Easter eggs, but in the past a part of pagan tradition. The Catholic Church prohibited eggs painting for some 200 years during the medieval era, but in the end they gave up, and now people carry the eggs to church in order to have them sprinkled with holy water before Easter. Ukrainians believe that if they don’t paint eggs the world will end!

Summers – July and August – tend to be hot, however, there is a possibility of a mild summer, when it winds from east. Then it can be pretty cold and wet. But usually they are good solid summers. Sometimes it doesn’t rain for weeks, and I personally suffer, but for those who like it hot the temperature can get up to 40C, with many days above 30C, and hardly ever below 20C.

Summer in Mazury

Summer begins with the pagan Noc Kupały (Coupling Night) or Noc Świętojańska (St. John’s night), and is nothing else but the Midsummer Night – night of love and fertility – as depicted by Shakespeare. Fires were burnt to perish the spring ghosts and water demons that were needed for vegetation during spring but would spoil summer fruits. It’s also when girls plaited their wreaths to attract boys. In the past it was the night in a year when maidens and bachelors could flirt freely. Ukraść wianek (to steal a wreath) means defloration. The reference to flower in English seems obvious.

We still celebrate Midsummer Night in Poland, and in Latvia it’s even a day free from work.

Wreaths Floating on Water on Midsummer Night

Traditionally summer is a good time for beating up the Teutonic Knights. Poland-Lithuania wins every year since 1410, which isn’t without reference to our pagan-weather musings, since it was this victory that allowed us to tell the Church and Holy Roman Emperors to stay away from our pagan customs.

Battle of Grunwald, July 15th, Every Year. The Holy Monks Minutes Before Their Yearly Demise.

Złota Polska Jesień – September and October – takes its name from the colours of the leaves. It’s pretty much like a two months long Indian Summer. September temperatures vary between 20-30C and October ones between 15-25C. It’s usually warm and pleasant, with a reasonable amount of rain. It’s the season I favour.

Złota Polska Jesień in Bieszczady Mountains

The beginning is marked by Babie Lato (Old Widows’ Summer) and Harvest. Yep, people had fun and festivities because of their newly gathered riches. Still celebrated today.

Autumn – November and December – begins around Forefathers’ Eve, the Polish equivalent of Halloween. No doubt the old pagan holiday came from the fact that the weather changes abruptly around that time. Suddenly it’s cold, windy, and sloppy. Temperature drops to around 10C and lower. Days are short and trees bare-branched. Even if the weather was nice the day before one may expect a cold All Saints’ when Poles pilgrim to the graves. Listopad, Polish for November, literally means fall of the leaf, that used to be recognised in English English as well. From the OED:

2. (In early use also more fully fall of the leaf.) That part of the year when leaves fall from the trees; autumn. In N. Amer. the ordinary name for autumn; in England now rare in literary use, though found in some dialects; spring and fall, the fall of the year, are, however, in fairly common use.

Moreover, the particularly fine autumn weather also used to have its recognition:

b. [Summer] Applied, with qualification, to a period of fine dry weather in late autumn; see ALL-HALLOW(S 7, INDIAN SUMMER, MARTIN³ 3c; St. Luke’s (little) summer, little summer of St. Luke, such a period occurring about St. Luke’s Day, 18 Oct. (Cf. Ger. altweibersommer.)

7. All-Hallown Summer: a season of fine weather in the late autumn; also fig. brightness or beauty lingering or reappearing in old age. Apparently Obs., but worthy of revival, as much superior to its equivalents, St. Martin’s Summer (from French), and the Indian Summer of America.

1596 SHAKES. 1 Hen. IV, I. ii. 178 Farwell the latter Spring! Farwell, Alhollown Summer!

In the old pagan beliefs the period of autumn (fall of the leaf) was dead in nature. Hence the conviction that it’s haunted by ghosts. It’s the time when people think of and fear death more, mourn the dead, and connect with them.

Autumn in Bieszczady Mountains

Forefathers’ Eve (Dziady in Polish) is a feast for the ghosts. In the Catholic belief those are those guys whose souls are caught in Purgatory, but obviously our pagan ancestors also had an idea or two about it, and while in the Anglo-Saxon world the old tradition became trivialised into the form of modern Halloween, in the Polish-Ruthenian one (never strongly suppressed by Catholicism and free from Puritans) it merged with Christianity, receiving a feel of gravity.

We don’t observe Forefathers’ Eve in practice any longer. In the past it was a feast, held in cemeteries or old chapels, where the ghosts were invited, and asked what help they expected from the living. The ghosts, as presented by Mickiewicz, could be of various kinds, from innocent children, who could not enter heaven without having experienced grief, to the undead, like vampires. Usually they were offered some kind of food, or some deeds had to be performed for them. Hence ‘trick or treat’ in Halloween.

Fire and candles, still present in the Anglo-Saxon tradition as the candles in pumpkins, used to indicate the direction to the dead, so that they would not wander to the houses of the living. Today Poles continue the tradition by leaving candles on the graves of their ancestors. The special feel of mourning, that can be observed in Poland on Zaduszki (To Ghosts) and All Saints’ Day, that is neither sad nor merry, but resembles a kind of national reflection, is a remnant of the old tradition.

Zaduszki (To Ghosts) in Poland. Communists renamed it to the Day of the Dead.

So that’s when Polish autumn begins, and it’s dark, with the feel of stillness and hollowness in nature. It ends around the end of December or the beginning of January, with the first serious snows. If it snows on Christmas it’s usually an early snow, and not an obligatory one, so don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t, and don’t normally expect it much earlier than that.

If that weren’t enough, December is the month of Advent, that in Polish tradition is observed much more strictly than in the West. Advent is the time of waiting, and again, Poles link waiting to mourning and reflection. A general preparation for the birth of Christ. If you work in a large company, with many workers from outside of Warsaw, and plan a Christmas party, don’t expect many of them to dance or drink. They don’t in Advent. They came because they thought they had to, but it’s not their time for celebration. Likewise, traditionally, Poles decorate their houses for Christmas very late, and there are people who hate all of the Christmas trees in shopping malls starting from Thanksgiving. What Thanksgiving anyway?

Who Are Wars and Sawa?

Wars and Sawa are the legendary characters whom Warsaw took its name from. The legend has so many versions that if we combined them all together we’d come up with twins (one of them a mermaid) in a very insestuous relationship. When seen separately, however, they’re all very proper:

Long time ago, when the Polish countryside was still wild and beautiful, there was a small village on the banks of the Wisła river, inhabited by kind people, who spent all their days occupied with fishing.

One evening, when Wars was collecting his web and fish before going home to retire, he heard a quiet song coming from old willows, the branches of which washed in the river. He sat again and listened. It was a beautiful song. Mysthical. As if not sang by a human being. Wars could not understand the lyrics, but he sensed it was a song about wildness, life, and the beauty of nature. He was mesmerised. So much that he forgot about the world around him.

Suddenly the song stopped. It felt as if a busket of cold water was thrown on his head. Wars realised it was deep night, he had to go back home, across a wild and dangerous forest, to his small house at the end of the village. But anyway, he told himself he would come back the next day. He must hear this song again. And again…

The next evening, when his work was accomplished, Wars sat at the bank of the river and waited.

Suddenly he heard that song. Nearer than the day before. And more beautiful. So beautiful that he had to stand up and go there. Closer to the sound. He must see the owner of the silver voice.

He did not know where he was or how found himself there. Or even what time it was. But finally he saw the singer. It was the most beautiful lady in the world. She had long golden hair, and skin as white as snow. It shined in the moonlight, as did her… fish tail.

When he saw that tail, his first thought was to RUN! But the second one told him to stay.

Unfortunately she heard the rustle of leaves, and disappeared beneath the water.

Wars waited for her every evening, hoping she would come back, but she did not. She must have thought him dangerous.

After several years, when Wars lost all hope and almost forgot his eerie adventure, his ears were reached by the almost forgotten sound. He took his web and hurried to the spot where the song came from. Once more he saw the most beautiful woman in the world. This time he was prepared for her appearance, so he did not move when she exposed her silver tail.
At a convinient moment he caught her into his web. She screamed and cried, trying to escape, but she could not.

Wars took her to his house and began to wonder why actually he caught her. What told him to do that?

Silver tears went down the siren’s face. She looked at him with so much sadness in her blue eyes. “Let me go,” she whispered. “Please, let me go. Why did you do that?”

Wars wondered and wondered, and finally the answer came to him. “Because I love you.”

“If you truly love me, you must let me go. I cannot live without water, without swimming and nature. I will die here, imprisoned.”

“But I cannot live without you.”

“So I will die because you want to have me inside your house? I can come to you and sing every evening, if you want me to. I can defend you and your village so that no harm will come your way. But let me go.”

Wars could not stand her tears anymore. He took her to the river and let her go.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Sawa,” she answered and disappeared in the waters of the Wisła river.

From that day on Sawa sang to Wars and his children, and then their children. And defended them from any danger. Today there is the city of Warsaw in that place, named after the two lovers: WarsSawa.

The city’s coat of arms features a siren with a shield and sword.

The Coat of Arms of Warsaw

Warsaw’s coat of arms includes the order Virtuti Militari, awarded to the city after WWII to honour the bravery of its citizens, and the motto Semper invicta (Always invincible).

For a different and funnier version of the legend, written with expats in mind, go to Warsaw-life.com.