Usually, the belief is that poets have their heads up in the clouds and despise everything connected with money. The decision by the Polish Sejm [the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament] to proclaim the year 2022 as the Year of Polish Romanticism offers everybody a good opportunity to verify this stereotype.

Of the four Bards of Polish Romanticism, Adam Mickiewicz, the author of "Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania"[transl. by Bill Johnston, New York, 2018], had the poorest childhood. When his father, a lousy lawyer from Nowogrodek, died, his wife and four young sons were left almost destitute. Adam, used to poverty from a young age, never managed to come into a fortune. He never manage even to get his own residence. He always lived at some friend’s place, or in cheap boarding houses, rented rooms or servants’quarters. While working as a teacher in Kowno [Kaunas], he complained in a letter to a friend: "My money is always tight". During his travels, he used to leave financial matters to his companions. He also gladly took advantage of the hospitality offered by the owners of manors and palaces.

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     His forced departure to the east [in 1823 he was arrested and deported to Russia for illegal patriotic activities] marked the beginning of what proved to be the most luxurious period in the poet's life. Pampered by ladies and cherished by the Russian elites, he held court in their drawing rooms and toured Crimea in the company of loyalists and agents of the secret tsarist police. Influential friends even got him a job in the office of the governor-general of Moscow. However, coming to his senses and having obtained permission to go abroad ("to save his health"), he fled to Europe.

For a year and a half, he was stuck in Rome, where his money ran out. Friends would always come to his rescue, offering him non-refundable loans or supporting fictitious investments that invariably somehow would be forgotten. Of course, the bard earned money by publishing his works, but the cash never stuck to him -- whatever he earned, he immediately handed over the surplus to his countrymen who were in greater need. Moreover, in order to gain permission to enter France as quickly as possible, he even waived his right to a political emigrant’s allowance.

On the Parisian pavement

After the failure of the November Uprising [also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31], Polish patriots flocked westward. More than half of the 10,000 refugees chose France not as a new homeland,but as a place to await the war they were confident would bring the Polish state back to life. Without exagerration, these refugees represented the nation's elite, and poets were the elite of the elite, even though most of them never smelled any gunpowder.

Who could have predicted that the world conflict they all dreamt of would not occur for another 80 years? Malnutrition, poor housing conditions, forced inactivity and the gradual decline of hope for a return to theire home country had an impact on the exiles’ health. Tuberculosis literally decimated their numbers. The former masters had to work physically, which in a way explains their radicalization. With the exception of the group that centered around the Hotel Lambert [the grand Parisian townhouse belonging to Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski wherein the political faction of Polish exiles associated with him used to gather], the rest of the emigres drifted further and further to the left.

A favorable marriage might offer salvation from the downward slide. However, neither youth, the will to fight "for your freedom and ours", nor poetic fame were viewed as advantages in the eyes of potential parents-in-law. Mickiewicz avoided becoming an old bachelor by marrying an orphan without a dowry. His wife Celina was as carefree about finances as he was. "We don't have a penny of fixed income and we don't expect to have it," she informed her friends. Adam wrote plays about the history of Poland, but Parisian theaters were reluctant to put them on. He was the editor of the "Polish Pilgrim" but wasn’t being paid for it. In the end, the bookseller and publisher of his works, Eustachy Januszkiewicz, took on responsibility for overseeing his countryman’s finances.

Prince Czartoryski managed to persuade the French government to grant a one-time allowance for Mickiewicz in the amount of 1,000 francs as well as a monthly benefit of 80 francs. For comparison: veteran generals and former ministers received 200 francs, senior officers -- 60, and simple soldiers -- 22 francs a month (the latter sum was not enough even for a coach ride from Paris to Lyon). The French state spent tens of millions of francs on Polish refugees. Small wonder that it wanted to control them and to persuade them to leave the country by using various pretexts to reduce their benefits .

The bard, struggling to maintain his growing family (he had six children) and a wife who was losing touch with reality, had constant financial problems. Cyprian Kamil Norwid [another penniless Polish Romantic poet], used to joke that "Mr. Adam was parading in a well-worn fur coat, like a nobleman from a deep province". Celina complained to her sister that they only had one maid. To make matters worse, Mickiewicz fell into the mystical circles of the religious sect of Andrzej Towiański [a Polish philosopher and religious leader]. Having acquired a job as a professor of Latin literature at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, he left just after a year to apply for something more prestigious.

The College de France in Paris was looking for a lecturer in a new subject: Slavic literature. Knowing that foreign professors were paid less, Mickiewicz was unsuccessful in his attempt to get French citizenship but did get the job. He persisted in delivering ex cathedra subversive manifestos, something the university authorities could not tolerate in the long run. Eventually, the defiant Pole was sent on vacation, a move marking the beginning of his dismissal. When Napoleon III came to power, the poet's situation stabilized a little. He got a job as a librarian at the The Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal with a small salary but a rent-free apartment. Alas, it did not last long. After the outbreak of the Crimean War, the bard went to Turkey believing that it would lead to a new European order including a restored independent Poland. There he died in Istanbul, killed, it is said, by oriental cuisine and the lack of hygiene.

From scribbler to investor

Mickiewicz's rival, Juliusz Słowacki, might have seemed a mama’s boy and an impractical man, but appearances are deceptive. He had a sheltered upbringing, wanting for nothing as a child other than to play with his same-age peer group.

His mother was determined her only son should have a career as a civil servant and Julek [diminutive for Julian] got used to the idea that he would be a poet after hours of boring work at his desk. He started as a trainee in the Government Revenue and Treasury Commission, swearing an oath of allegiance to the tsar. It was in the offices at Bankowy Square in Warsaw that he acquired the economic knowledge which he was to make use of later in his life. Unlike other emigrants, he knew what credit, stock exchange, deposit and securities were. He learned to live his life with a pencil in his hand, scrupulously noting down his earnings and expenses. Thanks to this, we know that the first volumes of his poetry, published at his own expense in Paris, caused Słowacki a loss of 453 francs.

This, for the author of "Kordian" [transl. by Gerard T. Kapolka, Chicago, 2011] was not a catastrophe, since he had a solid source of income in the professor's pension left by his father. In 1840 alone, he received 12,000 francs from this source. He exchanged cash for bank bonds and lived off interest on the capital. He added to his home budget from his investments. He considered the real estate market risky and bought shares of railway companies, rightly believing that the new mode of transport had a great future. Unfortunately, the political turmoil in France and Europe caused large fluctuations on the Paris stock exchange and Słowacki’s pocket also suffered because of it.

Słowacki dressed like a dandy. He never left the house without white gloves. A socialite, snob and a flirt, he liked to mix with high society. He visited museums, never missed a theatrical premiere, read French and English newspapers. He estimated that in Paris "one can live in a quiet and bachelor style" for two thousand francs a month. However, he himself spent less, putting money aside for worse times. He began 1845 with 14,250 francs in savings.

He traveled a lot. He went to the Alps, Italy, Greece and the Middle East. Bravely enduring the inconvenience, he made it as far as Nubia. Such journeys were cheaper then than today. In Florence, Julius rented an apartment with a piano for only 27 francs a month. He spent a year and a half there.

The obvious jealousy of the author of "Balladyna" [transl. by Marion Moore Coleman and Walter Twardowski, Jr., Cambridge Springs, 1960] for the fame and popularity of Mickiewicz irritated the Great Emigration [as the community of Polish emigrants in Europe was known in the 19th century]. He was accused of impiety and bad taste. Some even claimed he was just a scribbler. When he gave up the ghost, only thirty men (including Norwid), came to the funeral. Nobody spoke over the coffin. According to the wishes of the deceased, the burial was modest and cost 275 francs.

Killer Resorts

One of the very few who believed in Słowacki's talent was Zygmunt Krasiński [another Polish Romantic bard], equally frail and of weak health. Born in Paris, a son of Count Wincenty Krasiński [the commander of the famous First Polish Light Cavalry Lancers Regiment that served as part of Napoleon's Imperial Guard during the Napoleonic Wars], he was baptized Napoleon Stanisław Adam Zygmunt by Bonaparte’s Polish mistress Maria Walewska. Raised in luxury, he was considered a child prodigy, but grew up to be a moody man. As a student, he felt deeply embarrassed by his father, who later in his career was to be as faithful a servant to the Russian tsars as he had been to Bonaparte.

His mother, née Radziwiłłówna [i.e. a member of a powerful magnate family of the Radziwills], bequeathed her dowry and jewels to Zygmuś [dimunitive of Zygmunt] and also obliged her husband to pay him, on achieving his majority, a fixed salary of 20,000 zlotys a year. After he turned thirty, the sum was to be doubled. As a result, the romantic count could afford anything he wanted, but instead of wasting his fortune in casinos, he preferred to sponsor Polish emigrants. Since his youthful encounter with the poet in Geneva, he was under the spell of Mickiewicz. He often helped his idol financially, but he decided against appearing at his funeral, rightly feeling that it would turn into a patriotic manifestation.

The author of "The Undivine Comedy" [transl. by Charles S. Kraszewski, Lehman, 1999] spent his life fighting real and imaginary ailments. He was running away from his overbearing father, intrusive lovers and public opinion that kept on accusing him of lack of patriotism. Regular visits to German health resorts and spas located by the Mediterranean Sea or the Atlantic completely ruined the bard's health. Treatments at that time consisted of making patients drink hectoliters of mineral waters and undergoing ice-cold ablutions. Meanwhile, Zygmunt inherited tuberculosis from his mother and this illness also affected his psychological health. His contemporaries did not know what to make of him. Some regarded him as a melancholic or a spiritual dreamer, others as a narcissist and hysteric.

Health problems aside, Krasiński's greatest worry was about the validity of his passport, so vital to his determination to travel abroad as much as he wanted. In Poland, he felt trapped and forced to perform the duties of a husband, father and heir to the estate established by his father. He fought against it like a lion. He persisted in ceding management of the estate to plenipotentiaries. Denunciations revealing financial abuses by administrators and clerical staff horrified him. In 1857, a Parisian banker, to whom the poet had entrusted a large part of his assets, went bankrupt. Krasiński lost one and a half million francs (three million zlotys). While this was a painful loss, it did not amount to financial ruin. 

Providence was to intervene, saving Zygmunt from becoming a full-fledged estate owner. He outlived his father by less than four months. His memorial service was held in the same church in Paris where Mickiewicz had been bade farewell less than three years before. 

  Dream about America

The fourth of the Polish romantic bards, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, was partly to blame for his own difficult financial situation. Out of false pride, he kept on rejecting offers of support from people who were sympathetic to him. In old age, he landed up in the Paris-based House of Saint Casimir, a shelter run by the Sisters of Mercy that was funded by a Polish philanthropic noblewomen. [The shelter still exists today]. Cyprian's youth did not herald such an ending. He signed himself as "de Norwid" and boasted of his landowning pedigree and his distant kinship with the Sobieski family [another prominent family of Polish noble magnates]. In the early1840s, there was no more popular poet in Warsaw than Norwid. 

He left for the West quite legally in an escapade planned along the lines of the famous Grand Tour. The poet was also a talented artist. In Florence, he attended a sculpture school. In Rome, he held court in the salon of the renowned pianist Maria Kalergis, the Polish noblewoman, and made plans for a great artistic career. The turning point of his life arrived during a visit to the Russian embassy in Berlin. There he was made an offer he could not refuse. However, he did and so, instead of becoming a tsarist spy, he opted to become a political émigré, harassed by his would-be employers. 

While living in Brussels, the Belgian government paid him an allowance for a short period of time, but gradually Norwid's financial situation was deteriorating. Of the four poets in exile, he was the most driven and ambitious. A hyperactive neurotic, he persistently got involved in various quarrels with the Polish emigre community. Those compatriots he criticized were quick to pay him back with the same coin.

At one point, fate smiled on the author of "Promethidion" ["Promethidion", Paris, 1851]. Adam Potocki [a Polish nobleman, married to one of the sisters of Krasiński’s wife] offered to pay him four thousand francs to write a dissertation entitled "Art in the face of history". With such an amount, the poet could have paid off his debts and lived freely for a few years in Paris. In fact, he did take an advance of one-and-a-half thousand francs from Potocki but he never finished the work. All he handed over to the count was a fragment he had written much earlier and, as part of the settlement, he also promised to throw in three drawings that he claimed were by Raphael and other famous painters, the condition being that Potocki donate them to the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow.

After this episode, rich and influential friends finally abandoned Norwid. Even Krasiński stopped sponsoring the acrimonious artist whose works many considered to be vague and incomprehensible. The bard lived off short-term physical work. Apparently, he was employed as a stonemason by one of the cemeteries in Paris. Sometimes he managed to sell a painting or a drawing. By this time, he was suffering from advancing deafness that had started with an ear infection that began during his imprisonment in a Prussian jail. Such was the poet's hearing-impaired state that he had taken to speaking very loudly.

After an unsuccessful attempt to join the Resurrectionist Congregation [a conservative Catholic congregation founded in 1836 in Paris], Norwid then went by ship to New York. Unfortunately, in his case, the American dream did not come true. He worked as a lumberjack, painted cabins on ships, and finally was paid a bit more (five or six dollars a day) for working in a graphic studio. Unfortunately, he lost the latter job and became destitute again, until acquaintances helped get him out of his predicament by buying him a ticket to return to Europe. Then, having tried unsuccessfully to settle in London, he finally returned to Paris after a two-year absence.

The poet could only rely occasionally on royalties from his writings. Even then he was unlucky because one of his publishers committed suicide and another went bankrupt. In desperation, he began to think about moving to his beloved Florence. He hoped for marriage, but the prospect, a longtime friend and correspondent, rejected the pauper's advances.

Finally, his cousin, Michał Kleczkowski, came to his rescue and established a special fund in order to help him. Thanks to this, Norwid was to receive 50 francs a month, ensuring that at least he would not starve. Kleczkowski also paid the same amount (plus a 200-franc entry fee) for the old man to stay in the House of St Casimir [the shelter run by Polish nuns for Polish veterans, invalids and orphans in Paris]. It was here that the bard spent the last six years of his life. In modest but tidy conditions, he remained under the patient care of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy Daughters of Charity, writing: "I live in the convent, like my Maltese grandfathers." At the end, a handful of relatives and friends paid for his modest, cheap burial.

–By Wiesław Chełminiak

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

–Translated by Agnieszka Rakoczy