Antoni Edward Odyniec
Encyclopedia
Filaret Association
The Filaret Association was a secret organization created in 1820 by Tomasz Zan within the Philomates following the dissolution, under pressure from Wilno University authorities, of the Radiant Association...
s".
Himself a mediocre imitator of his friend Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
, Odyniec made his mark as a translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of works by distinguished writers, including Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, Byron, Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
and Pushkin; also, as an organizer of the literary scene, and as the author of colorful memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s that described the private lives of great writers, especially Mickiewicz.
Life
Odyniec was born in Giejstuny, Oszmiana County, now in BelarusBelarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
.
Odyniec was an alumnus of Wilno University, where he was a member of the Filaret Association
Filaret Association
The Filaret Association was a secret organization created in 1820 by Tomasz Zan within the Philomates following the dissolution, under pressure from Wilno University authorities, of the Radiant Association...
and a defendant, along with Mickiewicz and others, in the 1824 trial of Association members.
In 1825 he published his first collection of short works. In 1826–29 he was active in Warsaw.
In 1829–30 he accompanied his fellow poet and ex-Filaret Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
on a tour of Germany, Italy and Switzerland, recounted in somewhat embroidered Listy z podróży (Travel Letters), 4 vols., 1875–78.
In 1831 Odyniec settled in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, in Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, where he translated works by Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, Byron and Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...
, co-edited a "Library of Polish Classics," and wrote for Przyjaciel Ludu (The Friend of the People), published in Leszno
Leszno
Leszno is a town in central Poland with 63,955 inhabitants . Situated in the southern part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999, it was previously the capital of the Leszno Voivodeship . The town has county status.-History:...
.
In 1837 he returned to Wilno (Vilnius), where he edited Gluksberg's Encyklopedia Powszechna (Universal Encyclopedia) and, in 1840–63, Kurier Wileński (The Wilno Courier).
In 1866 Odyniec returned to Warsaw, where he edited Kurier Warszawski (The Warsaw Courier) and published in Kronika Rodzinna (The Family Chronicle) his Travel Letters and Remembrances of the Past, As Told to Deotyma.
He died in Warsaw in 1885.
He penned ballads, songs and legends, published in Poezje (Poems, 2 vols., 1825–26); dramatic works, including Barbara Radziwiłłówna (1858); translations of works by Gottfried August Bürger
Gottfried August Bürger
Gottfried August Bürger was a German poet. His ballads were very popular in Germany. His most noted ballad, Lenore, found an audience beyond readers of the German language in an English adaptation and a French translation.-Biography:He was born in Molmerswende , Principality of Halberstadt, where...
, Byron, Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
(3 vols., 1838–44); and Wspomnienia z przeszłości opowiadane Deotymie (Remembrances of the Past, As Told to Deotyma, 1884).