Three Bards

The Three Bards ( _pl. trzej wieszcze) are the three national poets of Polish literature. "Wieszcz" means "prophet" or "soothsayer", as the poets included in the group by the literary critics and general population were thought to not only describe the national feelings of Polish society, but also foresee the nation's future.

As such the concept was a Polish approximation of the Ancient Latin term "poeta vates", denoting a poet to whom the gods granted the ability to foresee the future. Imported to Poland in the 16th century along with many other Sarmatist ideas, initially the term "wieszcz" was used to denote various poets. However, with the advent of Romanticism in the 19th century, the term started to be applied almost exclusively to denote Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809-1849) and Zygmunt Krasiński (1812-1859). Though the poets did not form a particular poetic group or movement (in fact they did not even meet each other), all of them started to be seen as moral leaders of a nation, deprived of political freedom. They also often used the local folk tradition, which somehow linked the term "wieszcz" with folk wisemen, often found in legends and folk tales.

After the failed January Uprising, and especially in the 1870s, the term was used almost exclusively to denote the three poets. However, in the early 20th century the rediscovery of the works of Cyprian Kamil Norwid (1821-1883) gained him the name of the "fourth bard". Modern literary critics are often skeptical as to the value of Krasiński's work and consider Norwid to be the "Third" bard instead of "Fourth". Some literary critics of the period between the World Wars claimed Stanisław Wyspiański to be the fourth. However, the group referred to as "bards" or "wieszcze" almost always consists of only three out of five candidates.

ee also

*Alexander Pushkin - Mikhail Lermontov - Fyodor Tyutchev - for a similar pantheon of Russian Romantic poets.
*Tymon Zaborowski - also known as "Wieszcz Miodoboru"
* National poets