The Crimean Sonnets
The Crimean Sonnets (Sonety krymskie) are a series of 18 Polish sonnets by Adam Mickiewicz, constituting an artistic telling of a journey through the Crimea. They were published in 1826, together with a cycle of love poems called the "Odessan Sonnets" ("Sonety Odeskie"), in a collection called Sonety (Sonnets).
The Crimean Sonnets is an expression of Mickiewicz's interest in the Orient, shared by many of the students of the University of Vilnius. Involuntarily residing in Russia, Mickiewicz left Odessa and went on a journey, which turned out to be a trek to another world, his first initiation into "the East". The Crimean Sonnets are romantic descriptions of oriental nature and culture of the East which show the despair of the poet—a pilgrim, an exile longing for the homeland, driven from his home by a violent enemy.
The Crimean Sonnets were published in an English translation by Edna Worthley Underwood in 1917. A classic Russian rendition of one of the sonnets belongs to Mikhail Lermontov.
See also
References
- Edna W. Underwood, "Adam Mickiewicz: A Biographical Sketch", in Sonnets from the Crimea, Paul Elder and Company, San Francisco (1917).