Konrad Wallenrod

This article deals with the verse epic Konrad Wallenrod. For the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order see Konrad von Wallenrode .

Konrad Wallenrod is an epic poem from the year 1828 by Adam Mickiewicz , which in Lithuania of the 14th century plays. Mickiewicz wrote the verse epic that was supposed to foment Polish-Lithuanian patriotism against the background of the growing resistance of Poles against Russian rule. In November 1830 there was the first Polish uprising since the Congress of Vienna, the so-called November uprising .

Mickiewicz took advantage of the well-known strong historical figure Konrad von Wallenrode , Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in the 14th century, by transforming him into the main character of his patriotic epic. In Mickiewicz's text Konrad Wallenrod is portrayed as a Lithuanian raised by the Teutonic Order . He becomes Grand Master and deliberately leads knights to doom when he becomes aware of his real origin.

Konrad Wallenrod was set to music twice for an opera, as I Lituani (The Lithuanians) by Amilcare Ponchielli (1874); and as Konrad Wallenrod by Władysław Żeleński (1885).

"Wallenrodismus" (patriotic betrayal) entered the Polish national consciousness and was quoted in the Polish uprisings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Because it aroused such radical consciousness in Poland, Mickiewicz abandoned his verse epic and complained that he did not have the financial means to buy back all of his printed verse.