Kyiv’s Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Art Museum is hosting an exhibit entitled Adam Mickiewicz’s Crimean Sonnets as part of the cultural program “Year of Poland in Ukraine.”
The organizers say that this exhibit is Mickiewicz’s second visit to Kyiv. The first one took place in early February 1825, when the poet visited the Ukrainian capital on his journey by sled from St. Petersburg to Odesa. Twice Mickiewicz sailed from Odesa to the Crimea. These travels are reflected in a collection of sonnets filled with local coloring. Mickiewicz scholars even describe his stay in Odesa and Crimea as a turning point in the poet’s creativity; in his sonnets he tried to sum up his creative progress, his vision of the surrounding world, and his place in it. According to Jolanta Pol, the curator of Warsaw’s Mickiewicz Museum, the exhibit “Crimean Sonnets” is a juxtaposition of 19th-century Crimean realities with the poetic texts created by that “romantic traveler” and outcast whose impressions and experiences inspired this poetic masterpiece of Polish literature. Crimean landscapes are depicted on special banners of modern design, which reflect contemporary trends in organizing exhibits.
There are two major accents in this exposition, namely two portraits of Mickiewicz. The first is a copy of Valentyn Vankovych’s famous painting Adam Mickiewicz on Ayudag Cliff. This romantic portrait was created in 1827-28 as an illustration to the sonnet “Ayudag.” The poet is depicted in a Byronic pose, leaning on the rock, his shoulders covered by a Crimean highlander’s felt cloak. According to Ms. Pol, this image of Mickiewicz was “an icon of Romanticism” for many generations of Poles. Vankovych’s portrait of the Polish poet was so popular in Russia that the artist was commissioned to make several copies and a number of lithographs. The second portrait is a copy of Mickiewicz Improvising at the Seashore. This work shows the inspired poet garbed in romantic attire, with one hand raised in a dramatic gesture.
The organizers and creators of the Mickiewicz exhibit will present the displayed items to the State Literary-Biographical Museum in Odesa. In other words, Mickiewicz will remain in Ukraine. The exhibit ends on March 1.
