Theatre
Kordian
Juliusz Słowacki · 1899
Opening lines
Kordian
Zabił się — młody… Zrazu jakaś trwoga
Kładła mi w usta potępienie czynu,
He killed himself, so young… At first a kind of dread
Put condemnation of the deed into my mouth,
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from wolnelektury.pl
Synopsis
On New Year's Eve 1799, in the hut of a sorcerer in the Carpathians, devils fashion the future leaders of an uprising. Then Kordian, fifteen years old, in despair over a friend's suicide and in love with Laura, who is older than he is, searches for a meaning to his life; he travels across Europe, from London to the Vatican, discovers the power of money and, at the summit of Mont Blanc, devotes himself to his homeland. Back in Warsaw, he joins a conspiracy that means to kill the tsar at his coronation.
Context
Written in Geneva and completed on 30 November 1833, the drama appeared without the author's name in Paris in February 1834, from Pinard; some attributed it to Mickiewicz, and its publication went almost unnoticed. It was meant to open a trilogy whose sequels never appeared. The stage welcomed it only sixty-five years later: first performed at the municipal theatre of Kraków on 25 November 1899, it was not staged in Warsaw, under Russian rule, until 1916. Leon Schiller, Erwin Axer and Jerzy Grotowski staged it in the twentieth century.
Who it is for
A prologue and three acts in rhymed verse, with shifting settings peopled by fantastic figures. A French translation in free verse appeared in 1999.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the high points of Polish Romantic drama, it has become a classic of the repertoire and required reading in schools.
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