[1] Słowacki wrote that he created the poem "full of those feelings and thoughts, which were freshly inspired in me by the Holy Land and a night spent by the tomb of Jesus".

[6] The main plot of the work revolves around the journey through Siberia undertaken by the titular character, a youth named Anhelli, and his guide Shaman, leader of a Siberian tribe.

Anhelli was chosen by Shaman from Polish exiles as the redeemer because of his "purity and sinlessness" and he was to be subjected to an initiation by taking part in a journey to see the suffering of the nation.

[8] Polish exiles are depicted as travelling across a deserted, hostile and hellish country, working hard in mines, suffering in cold dungeons with shackles on their legs and enduring beatings and humiliation.

However, Shaman's death resulting from a fight among the exiles forces Anhelli to embark on another journey to a faraway desert in the north where he dwells in a hut carved out from ice.