ADAM MICKIEWICZ

Krakow’s Main Market Square looks so empty nowadays but  it makes Adam Mickiewcz monument  look  even more proud!

Krakow’s main market Square is the largest medieval square in Europe, which measures approximately 200 metres by 200 metres was laid out during the city’s location in 1257. There are many monuments, epitaphs, plates   gathered on its surface  which  tell us  stories about Krakow and its citizens.

Today I’d like to draw your attention  to the  monument of Adam Mickiewicz, one of the most illustrious polish poet of a Romantic era , designed in 1898 by Teodor Rygier and placed at the Main Market Square  on the one hundredth anniversary of the poet’s birth, on 16th June 1898.

The poet’s figure is  cast in bronze and displayed on a high plinth set on a stepped granite base. It is surrounded by  four  allegorical figures representing the Homeland, Poetry Valour and Learning.

In August 1940 when Kraków was under the Nazi occupation , it was decided to  tear it down,  but luckily after the war nearly all the figures were found near Hamburg. After reconstruction, the monument was unveiled in 1955, on the one hundredth anniversary of the poet’s death.

The monument, has  its nickname which is  “Adaś” and is a popular meeting place among people of Krakow.

There is also an interesting tradition related with Adaś,  among students who are about to graduate the secondary school .

Namely right after the graduation party, which is  celebrated 100 days before the  final exam, students come to the Main Square to hop around “Adaś” on one leg. Why? This is the guarantee that they pass their final exam!

Once upon a time I also did it   and I passed  my exam with A grade  so it works !