Tombe de Juliusz Slowacki

You are standing before the site of a profound literary absence. Although this plot in the Montmartre Cemetery is marked by a headstone bearing the name of the great Polish Romantic poet Juliusz Slowacki, his remains are no longer here. He was interred in this very spot upon his death from tuberculosis in eighteen forty-nine, but today the grave serves only as a memorial. In nineteen twenty-seven, his remains were exhumed and transported to Poland to be reburied in the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, a site traditionally reserved for royalty and national heroes. By moving him, the Polish government sought to honor his status as one of the three national bards of Poland, effectively bringing a piece of their national identity home from exile.