Juliusz Słowacki (; ; 4 September 1809 – 3 April 1849) was a Polish Romantic poet. He is considered one of the "Three Bards" of Polish literature — a major figure in the Polish Romantic period, and the father of modern Polish drama. His works often feature elements of Slavic pagan traditions, Polish history, mysticism and orientalism. His style includes the employment of neologisms and irony. His primary genre was the drama, but he also wrote lyric poetry. His most popular works include the dramas Kordian and Balladyna and the poems Beniowski, Testament mój and Anhelli. Słowacki spent his youth in the "Stolen Lands", in Kremenets (; now in Ukraine) and Vilnius (, in Lithuania). He briefly worked for the government of the Kingdom of Poland. During the November 1830 Uprising, he was a courier for the Polish revolutionary government. When the uprising ended in defeat, he found himself abroad and thereafter, like many compatriots, lived the life of an émigré. He settled briefly in Paris, France, and later in Geneva, Switzerland. He also traveled through Italy, Greece and the Middle East. Eventually he returned to Paris, where he spent the last decade of his life. He briefly returned to Poland when another uprising broke out during the Spring of Nations (1848). Life Youth Słowacki was born on 4 September 1809 at Kremenets (in Polish, Krzemieniec), Volhynia, formerly part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth but then in the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine. His father, Euzebiusz Słowacki, a Polish nobleman of the Leliwa coat of arms, taught rhetoric, poetry, Polish language, and the history of literature at the Krzemieniec Lyceum in Kremenets; from 1811 he held the chair (katedra) of rhetoric and poetry at Vilnius Imperial University. He died in 1814, leaving Juliusz to be raised solely by his mother, Salomea Słowacka (née Januszewska, a noblewoman of disputed descent), who was possibly of Armenian descent. In 1818 she married a professor of medicine, August Bécu. She ran a literary salon where young Juliusz was exposed to diverse influences. It was there in 1822 that the 13-year-old met Adam Mickiewicz, the first of the Three Bards of Polish literature. Two years later, in 1824, Mickiewicz was arrested and exiled by the Russian authorities for his involvement in a secret patriotic Polish student society, the Philomaths; Słowacki likely met with him on Mickiewicz's final day in Wilno. Słowacki was educated at the