Wincenty Pol (; 20 April 1807 – 2 December 1872)
/ref> was a Polish poet and

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

Life

Pol was born in

Lublin Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...

(then in Galicia), to Franz Pohl (or Poll), a German in the Austrian service, and his wife Eleonora Longchamps de Berier, from a French family living in Poland. Pol fought in the Polish army in the November 1830 Uprising and participated in the 1848 revolution. In spite of his mixed family background, he considered himself a Pole, so much so that he changed his surname to Pol. He was interned in

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

after the fall of the

November Uprising The November Uprising (1830–31) (), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in Russian Partition, the heartland of Partitions of Poland, partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. ...

in Russian partition of Poland. He enrolled at the University but soon became embroiled in controversy, for his anti-Tsarist agitation. While Pol was defended by German speaking professors, Peter von Bohlen and Friedrich Wilhelm Schubert, he left Prussia and continued his exile in France. While in exile Pol worked on his first poems in tribute to the heroism of the insurgents, issued later in the set of ''"Songs of Janusz"''. Although he had no formal education in geography, during his travels in Polish lands he wrote several books on this subject, and in 1849 was appointed professor at the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

. He wrote a fine descriptive work, ''Obrazy z życia i podróży'' (Pictures of Life and Travel), and also a poem ''Pieśń o ziemi naszej'' (Song of our Land). In 1855 he published ''Mohort'', a poem relating to the times of Stanisław August Poniatowski. His earlier ''Songs of Janusz'' (1836) inspired

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for Piano solo, solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown ...

to write a number of Polish songs, but only one survives. Pol was probably first to introduce into Polish literature the term ''" Kresy"'' to describe the territories lying near the eastern frontiers of the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

. He died in Kraków. Pol was interred in Kraków's historic

Skałka Basilica of Saints Michael the Archangel and Stanislaus the Bishop, also known as Skałka, which means "a small rock" in Polish, is a church situated on a small outcrop in Kraków atop of which a Pauline monastery is also located. The crypt ...

Church, a mini- pantheon of Polish scholars, writers and artists, especially from the Kraków area.

References

External links

A selection of Wincenty Pol's poems, in English, German and Polish

A Poet from Lublin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pol, Wincenty 1807 births 1872 deaths Writers from Lublin Polish male poets Romantic poets Recipients of the Virtuti Militari 19th-century poets Polish people of German descent November Uprising participants