Pan Michael: An Historical Novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey
1887
Translated by Jeremiah Curtin
The final novel in Sienkiewicz's legendary Trilogy follows Pan Michael Volodyovski, the celebrated cavalry knight of Polish folklore, through the chaos of the Polish-Turkish War. Set on the eastern borderlands of the 17th-century Commonwealth, the narrative thrusts our hero between the chaos of military campaigns and his long-delayed marriage to Panna Anna Borzobogati. What begins as a quest for the blessing of Princess Griselda becomes a sweeping tale of battles, pursuits, duels, and doomed romance. Sienkiewicz, drawing on the real Jerzy Wołodyjowski who fell defending Kamieniec, crafts a portrait of heroic honor tested to its breaking point: duty to country warring with personal desire, all while the Ottoman threat looms. The novel pulses with the romantic ideal of the Polish szlachcic knight, sword flashing, fighting not for glory but for something older and nobler. This is swashbuckling adventure as national scripture, a thrilling romance that also functions as elegy for a Poland that existed only in memory when Sienkiewicz wrote.
