Konrad Wallenrod by Adam Mickiewicz. Short summary

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The foreigner Wallenrod has spent his entire youth in a monastery. The knights want to elect him as their master. In the tower of Marienburg sits a young recluse who asks the hero to destroy them when he becomes master.

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The work is set at a time when pagan Lithuanians were fighting the Teutonic Order. In 1391 the knights gather in the city of Marienburg. They must choose a new head of the order. One of the candidates is the foreigner Wallenrod, who made the Order famous in Europe by his exploits.

He spent his entire youth in a monastery, untouched by temptation and alien to the world. His only friend was the holy monk Halban, who was also his preacher.

From time to time he would sing a sad song in an unknown language. He recalls a young recluse who came to the tower of Marienburg 10 years ago and voluntarily imprisoned herself there.

She looks out of a high window and asks Conrad, when he becomes master, to destroy them. The knights do not understand the unfamiliar language, mistake it for a «direction from heaven» and elect Conrad as master.