Mickiewicz was born on December 24, 1798 in Nowogródek, then in the part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth controlled by the Russian Empire, now in Belarus.
His literary output comprises poetic ballads, romances and dramas that defined the Polish Romantic movement and left an indelible mark on the nation's culture, according to historians.
Mickiewicz's most influential works include the four-part Romantic drama Forefathers' Eve (1823, 1833), Crimean Sonnets (1826) and the epic poem Sir Thaddeus (1834), regarded as his masterpiece.
Fully titled Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse, it portrays the Polish gentry of the period, including their belief that only the French emperor Napoleon could help liberate Poland from Russian rule.
Forced to emigrate after Russia crushed Poland's 1830-31 Cadet Revolution (also known as the November Uprising), Mickiewicz taught Slavic literature at the Collège de France in Paris and edited the radical newspaper La Tribune des Peuples (“People’s Tribune”), among other jobs.
Mickiewicz championed the cause of an independent, democratic Poland and a "federation of free nations and citizens."
He died on November 26, 1855 in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey, where he had gone to organise Polish troops to fight Russia in the Crimean War.
Mickiewicz's remains are buried in the vault of the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, where many Polish kings are laid to rest, according to historians.
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Source: culture.pl, Polish Book Institute, Encyclopaedia Britannica