Prizes for Adam Mickiewicz: The Life of a Romantic (Book)

Best Book in Literary/Cultural Studies [link]
Date: 11/25/2009 12:00:00 AM
Organization: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages [link]
Abstract: In this first major English-language study of the life of Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s national poet, Roman Koropeckyj provides far more than a simple biography. In impressive detail drawn from his extensive research in Polish materials as well as German, French, Russian, Italian, and English sources, Koropeckyj incisively analyzes the simultaneous development of an extraordinary poetic talent and management of an international celebrity: a displaced Slavic romantic and a political émigré who epitomizes the cult of a national poet. From his early days in the Filaret society of Vilnius to his death in exotic Istanbul in 1855, Mickiewicz was engaged in the production of a Romantic identity linked with that of a semi-mythical Polish nation. As Koropeckyj demonstrates in his sober account, this endeavor was far less self-assured and much more complex than hagiographical accounts of Mickiewicz’s life tend to admit. Koropeckyj’s magisterial Adam Mickiewicz makes a valuable contributio

AAASS/Orbis Books Prize for Polish Studies (Co-Winner) [link]
Date: 10/9/2011 12:00:00 AM
Organization: American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies [link]
Abstract: A poet so deeply identified with romantic nationalism is not easy to introduce to the English-speaking world. Indeed, scholars in Polish Studies have long known that their students and colleagues are unlikely to be able to appreciate the greatness of Mickiewicz’s art or the significance of his life. That is no longer the case. Roman Koropeckyj’s Adam Mickiewicz: The Life of a Romantic is not just the first major biography of the great Polish poet in English, though that would be achievement enough. It is truly a monumental feat for any scholar. Koropeckyj’s biography presents one of Polish history’s most remarkable figures as he has never been seen in English. It is a portrait, indeed, which is as valuable as any we have in any language. Koropeckyj draws on a thorough knowledge of Mickiewicz’s life and times, following the poet from Lithuania to Russia to Paris and, finally, to death in Istanbul. With equal dexterity, he shows us the student revolutionary, the celebrated exile, the acc

Outstanding Academic Title
Date: 4/9/2011 12:00:00 AM
Organization: Choice Magazine [link]

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