The Russian poet Pushkin has been given a special place in Poland, in Polish literature, culture, and tradition. Thus he is present to most Polish‑speaking readers concerning his personality as a great poet and freedom fighter as well as a gifted poet. Due to history and the rebellion against the tsarist regime in Russia, Pushkin’s reception has been in Poland especially a political one. Pushkin himself did respond generously and openly to Polish culture and lit­erature. But behind Pushkin’s thoughts of Poland there stood first of all the presence of the Polish national poet, Adam Mickiewicz. There has been a no­table mutual impact on their literary works as well as on their political attitudes concerning first of all the significance of the Slavic question for the Russian Empire and Poland’s struggle for national independence. The Polish nation­al uprising of 1830/1831 turned into a vehement dispute between both poets. That’s the reason, why Pushkin transformed Poland into a troublesome younger Slavic cousin, too. Nevertheless the ambivalent friendship of both poets became a symbol for reconciliation and friendship between the two Slavic nations. The poetic friendship of Pushkin and Mickiewicz as well as the literary reflections in some selected literary works of the Polish writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz are presented as expressive and paradigmatic models of literary and artistic inspira­tion and imagination.