‘Lithuania, my fatherland…’ is from Poland’s romantic masterpiece Pan Tadeusz . Its Polish author Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855) – muse to Polish nationalists in the 19th century – grew up near Vilnius and studied at the university (1815–19) before being exiled for anti-Russian activities in 1824. The rooms where he wrote the well-known poem Grażyna (Lithuanian: Gražia; a Polish name for a woman with Lithuanian roots meaning ‘beauty’) are now filled with a few of the poet’s letters.
