ABOUT THE STATUE:
"The Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Vilnius, Lithuania is a monument in the vicinity of the Saint Anne's Church and the Bernardine Monastery, by Maironio Street (St. Anne's Street before 1945) along the shores of the Neris River.
History
The first design proposed for a monument of Adam Mickiewicz for Vilnius was promoted by Zbigniew Pronaszko of Vilnius University (then, Stefan Batory University in the Second Polish Republic). However, in May 1925, a contest was declared for the proposed monument. The period for submitting designs was extended a number of times thanks to the deep interest in the project by the artistic scene, with 67 designs ultimately submitted. The jury consisted of Vilnius's Municipal authorities and representatives of the arts scene, with General Lucjan Zeligowski at the helm.
First prize went to Avant-Garde artist Stanislaw Szukalski, Second Prize to Rafal Jachimowicz, with the third prize awarded to Mieczyslaw Lubelski. According to Szukalski's design Mickiewicz was naked, lying upon a sacrificial altar. The artist had the sculpture situated on a large pedestal in the shape of an Aztec pyramid. A White Eagle- Poland's national symbol was perched at the figure's side where it symbolically drank blood from the poet's wound.
Szukalski's design was highly divisive, with strong emotions coming to the surface that were for and against the design, among Poland's intelligentsia, leadership, art ciritics as well as ordinary individuals. The polarized atmosphere led the monument committee to arrange for a new contest, this time consisting of only concepts by artists that were invited. The winner was Henryk Kuna, whose proposal was chosen. However due to a number of problems involving financing as well as a suitable location, the monument's construction dragged on. With the outbreak of World War II and the incorporation of Vilnius into Lithuania, the project was abandoned.
Today's monument
The project was later revived in the 1980s, with a design selected by Gediminas Jokubonis, a Lithuanian sculptor. The monument was unveiled on April 18, 1984. The granite, from which the monument was carved was brought from Volhynia. The monument depicts Adam Mickiewicz leaning against a broken column. The entire composition measure 4.5 meters in height. Around the monument the first patriotic meeting that gave rise to the Independence Movement took place in 1987. In 1996, bas-reliefs from the never completed monument of Adama Mickiewicza by Henryk Kuna were placed around the monument. There are currently 6 bas-reliefs (out of 12 that were originally planned). They depicts scenes from Mickiewicz's work Dziady (Forefather's Eve):
- At the Senator ("U Senatora")
- The shadow of the evil lord ("Widmo zlego pana")
- Konrad's cell ("Cela Konrada")
- At the cemetery ("Na cmentarzu")
- Konrad's meeting with Fr. Peter ("Spotkanie Konrada z ks. Piotrem")
- The road to exile ("Droga na zeslanie")
The bas-reliefs are intended to create one composition with the monument."
--Wikipedia (
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ABOUT THE MAN:
"Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 1798 – 26 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor of Slavic literature, and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is counted one of Poland's "Three Bards" ("Trzej Wieszcze") and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard". A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe.
He is known chiefly for the poetic drama Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) and the national epic poem Pan Tadeusz. His other influential works include Konrad Wallenrod and Grazyna. All these served as inspiration for uprisings against the three imperial powers that had partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth out of existence.
Mickiewicz was born in the Russian-partitioned territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and was active in the struggle to win independence for his home region. After, as a consequence, spending five years exiled to central Russia, in 1829 he succeeded in leaving the Russian Empire and, like many of his compatriots, lived out the rest of his life abroad. He settled first in Rome, then in Paris, where for a little over three years he lectured on Slavic literature at the Collège de France. He died, probably of cholera, at Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire, where he had gone to help organize Polish and Jewish forces to fight Russia in the Crimean War.
In 1890 his remains were repatriated from Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, in France, to Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, Poland."
--Wikipedia (
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