Nad Niemnem


Nad Niemnem is a Positivist novel written by Eliza Orzeszkowa in 1888 during the foreign Partitions of Poland. Its main purpose was to present the Polish society and its own internal dynamics as they were in mid–19th century, in reference to the Polish January Uprising against the Russian occupation. The novel first appeared in installments on the pages of Tygodnik Ilustrowany in 1887 and was published as a book in 1888. In 2014 it was translated into English as On the Niemen by Michelle Granas.
First the author planned to limit the plot to a love story between Jan, a villager from the petty nobility, and Justyna, who comes from a wealthy landed gentry family. However, while writing, the background relating to customs started to develop which made Orzeszkowa give up the original title: Misalliance.
Nad Niemnem is set in and around the city of Grodno after the 1863 January Uprising. At the time, the area had a considerable Polish population. The title means "Upon the Niemen" - the Niemen being a river now situated in modern Belarus and Lithuania.

Main characters

The novel has been adapted twice for film, in 1939 and again in 1986. The 1986 film led to a 1988 television miniseries.