Mickiewicz is held to have been the greatest Slavic poet, with the exception of Alexander Pushkin. The political situation in Poland in the 19th century was often reflected in Polish literature which, since the days of Poland's partitions took a powerful upward swing and reached its zenith during the period between 1830 and 1850 in the unsurpassed patriotic writings of Mickiewicz, among others. The writings of Mickiewicz have had such a tremendous influence upon the Polish mind that they can not be underestimated.Konrad Wallenrod, a narrative poem describing the battles of the Teutonic Knights with the heathen Lithuanians. In it, under a thin veil, Mickiewicz represented the sanguinary passages of arms and burning hatred which had characterized the long feuds of the Russians and Poles. The objects of the poem, though obvious to many, escaped the Russian censors, and the poem was allowed to be published, complete with the telling motto, adapted from Machiavelli: "Dovete adunque sapere come sono duo generazioni da combattere - bisogna essere volpe e leone" — "Ye shall know that there are two ways of fighting - you must be a fox and a lion." This striking long poem contains at least two revered subsections including Alpuhara Ballad.


When the Crimean War came, he hoped for an invasion of Poland, and even went to Constantinople to form a Polish legion, but died there of cholera. His body was taken to Paris, and thence (1890) to the cathedral of Krakow, where it now reposes.