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The Monk Robak, or Jacek Soplica, and not his commonplace son

Thaddeus, now became the real hero of the poem.(5) Nor was this

hero wholly a product of the writer's invention. There has

recently been discovered a petition by Mikolaj Mickiewicz, the

father of the poet, praying the authorities to grant him

protection from one Jan Soplica, "a man of criminal sort," who

had slain the uncle of the petitioner and was now threatening to

kill the whole Mickiewicz family and burn their house. With the

character of this person the description of Jacek Soplica's early

years agrees as closely as his name. Mickiewicz even mentions his

own kindred as the ancestral enemies of the Soplicas (page 45).

Yet one of that hated family he now made the hero of his greatest

poem. By introducing him in the guise of Father Robak, repentant

and striving to atone for past misdeeds through heroic service to

his country, he infused into his poem a romantic charm.