Antropologiczna orientacja słowa prawo w twórczości Adama Mickiewicza
The anthropological orientation of the word law in Adam Mickiewicz’s writings

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses the anthropological orientation of the word law in Adam Mickiewicz’s writings. The author claims that this word is essential for the interpretation of the poet’s historiosophical thought, in the context of legal culture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The citizens of Lithuanian territories recognized the 16th century Statutes as a distinctive feature of the state’s cultural identity, because they were still effective in the judicature under the Russian Partition, and in social awareness they remained a semblance of the independence from the foreign rule. The Romantic understanding of law, state and morality resulted in perceiving these values as “the spirit of the world” of which the image of virtue was born. In the dimension of legal discourse, law as an idea takes a real shape in its definition, in poetic tropes, and in scholarly discussions, but most of all in the actions of literary characters. The metaphorical and symbolic meanings of law manifest themselves in the topos of the court of law, judging what is right and what is wrong; good and bad faith; in family, social and political relations. The analysis of the texts has shown that the poet, by depicting the way of perceiving and understanding the organisation of political life in analogy to family life, enclosed his own personal vision of law and order in the structures of language.

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