SOURCE: “Byron and Napoleon in Polish Romantic Myth,” in Lord Byron and His Contemporaries: Essays from the Sixth International Byron Seminar, edited by Charles E. Robinson, University of Delaware Press, 1982, pp. 130-43.

In the following essay, Treugutt analyzes the influence of Byron—as a symbol of individualism, revolt, and the worship of freedom—and of Napoleon—as a “poet of action,” although one who failed to accomplish his mission of liberation—on Mickiewicz in particular and Polish Romanticism in general.

While paying a visit in 1979 to the Institute of Russian Literature in Leningrad, I unexpectedly discovered a copy of The Works of Lord Byron, Complete in One Volume, published in Frankfurt am Main in 1826, and which came to the Institute from Pushkin's library. On the title page is this dedication in Polish: “Bajrona Puszkinowi poświęca wielbiciel obudwóch—A. Michiewicz” (“Here is Byron dedicated to Pushkin...