Bolesław Bierut ([bɔˈlɛswaf ˈbjɛrut] ( listen); 1892–1956; also known under assumed names Jerzy Bolesław Bielak and Bolesław Birkowski) was a Polish Communist leader, NKVD agent, and a hard-line Stalinist who became President of Poland after the Soviet takeover of the country in the aftermath of World War II.

Bierut was born in Rury Jezuickie, now a part of Lublin, as the son of Henryk Rutkowski, a village teacher, and his wife Barbara Biernacka (Wojciech and Maria, according to IPN source). He later adopted the surname "Bierut" combining the first syllables of his parents' surnames. In 1918 he took courses at the Warsaw School of Economics, and in 1924–1930 went to Moscow, to be trained at the school of the Communist International.

In 1930–1931 Bierut was sent by the Comintern to Austria, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. In 1933 he became an agent of Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, and subsequently, was sentenced in Poland to 10 years in prison for his anti-state activities (incarcerated between 1933–1938). The pro-Soviet Communist Party of Poland was dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1938. Bierut was fortunate to avoid being caught in the Great Purge, which led to the execution of most of the leaders of the Communist Party of Poland in the USSR. After an amnesty from the Polish government in 1938 Bierut settled down in Warsaw and worked as a bookkeeper in a cooperative.

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz [mit​͡sˈkʲɛvit​͡ʂ] ( listen)) (Belarusian: Ада́м Берна́рд Міцке́віч; Lithuanian: Adomas Bernardas Mickevičius; 24 December 1798 – 26 November 1855) was a Polish poet, publicist and political writer. A prime representative of the Polish Romantic period, he is one of that country's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all Polish literature. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets. He has been described as a "Slavic bard". He was a leading Romantic dramatist and has been compared in Poland and in western Europe to Byron and Goethe.

He is known primarily as the author of the poetic novel Dziady and national epic Pan Tadeusz, which is considered the last great epic of Polish-Lithuanian noble culture. Mickiewicz's other influential works include Konrad Wallenrod and Grażyna. All served as inspiration during regional uprisings and as foundations for the concept of Poland as "the Christ of Nations."

Mickiewicz was active in the struggle to achieve independence for his homeland, then part of the Russian Empire. Having spent five years in internal exile in central Russia for political activities, he left the Empire in 1829 and spent the rest of his life in emigration, like many of his compatriots. He settled first in Rome, later in Paris, where he became professor of Slavic literature at the Collège de France. He died, probably of cholera, at Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, where he had gone to help organize Polish forces to fight against Russia in the Crimean War. His remains were later moved to Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, Poland.