Adam Mickiewicz with Sadik Pasha in Turkey

Painted in 1890, this canvas depicts an encounter between the great Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz and Michał Czajkowski — a Polish emigré who converted to Islam and took the name Sadik Pasha, commanding Ottoman irregular cavalry during the Crimean War. Mickiewicz had travelled to Constantinople in 1855 during the Crimean War, hoping to raise a Polish-Jewish legion to fight Russia, and died there the same year, possibly from cholera. Kossak's painting reconstructs their meeting in Ottoman Turkey, a scene saturated with the symbolism of Polish exile and the search for allies against Russian partition. The combination of Poland's national poet and a Polish officer who had crossed religious and cultural boundaries to serve the Ottoman Empire embodied the desperate ingenuity of the emigration. Kossak, known for his historical and equestrian painting, here turned to literary-historical narrative, a genre that allowed him to engage with the Romantic mythology of the Great Emigration. The painting belongs to the broader Polish Romantic tradition of commemorating exile.

The composition balances two distinctly costumed figures — Mickiewicz in European dress and Czajkowski in Ottoman military uniform — to visually embody the cultural encounter that is the painting's subject. Oriental setting details function as authentic historical colour rather than mere exoticism. Kossak's fluid brushwork animates the scene without sacrificing clarity of narrative.