Adam Mickiewicz: A European from Nowogródek
Adam Mickiewicz: A European from Nowogródek

Summary/Abstract: Today's Europe is suffering from the unexpected resurgence of nationalisms and is divided by rival ideologies, one arguing the essential separateness of each nation and the other, constitutional, negotiated citizenship. The choices nineteenth-century writers and ideologues made between the two options-at that time less exclusive-were mainly based in historical circumstances. The writer whose nation had a state was opting for the idea of national citizenship; the stateless one had to build his nation's identity in a different, "extra-legal" way. The comparison of "nation-building" efforts by Adam Mickiewicz and some of his French contemporaries may serve as an illustration of this point. While each of the writers analyzed here is unique, they shared interests, images, and vocabulary and, indeed, were part of the same cultural landscape. This common territory of politics and imagination is the subject of this inquiry. [...]

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