Pan Tadeusz

Pan Tadeusz (full title: Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse) is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. The book, written in Polish alexandrines, was first published by Aleksander Jełowicki on 28 June 1834 in Paris. It is deemed one of the last great epic poems in European literature. Pan Tadeusz, Poland's national epic, is compulsory reading in Polish schools and has been translated into 33 languages. A film version, directed by Andrzej Wajda, was released in 1999. In 2014 Pan Tadeusz was incorporated into Poland's list in the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. Content The story takes place over the course of five days in 1811 and two days in 1812, at a time in history when Poland had been divided between the armies of Russia, Prussia, and Austria (see Partitions of Poland) and erased from the political map of Europe, although in 1807 Napoleon had established a satellite Duchy of Warsaw in the Prussian partition which remained in existence until the Congress of Vienna held after Napoleon's defeat.