Apollo Korzeniowski (21 February 1820 – 23 May 1869) was a Polish poet, playwright, translator, clandestine political activist, and father of Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad.

Apollo Korzeniowski was born on 21 February 1820 in the Imperial Russian village of Honoratka, then in Lypovets Uyezd, Kiev Governorate, now Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine.

He was the son of Teodor Korzeniowski, an 1831 Polish Army captain, an impoverished nobleman who made a living running leaseholds, and Julia née Dyakiewicz.

On 3 December 1857 the Korzeniowskis welcomed into the world their only child, Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski—who would be referred to by Polish family and friends as Konrad—the future English-language novelist, Joseph Conrad.

In early 1859, after losing all their fortune on the leasehold, the Korzeniowskis moved permanently to Zhytomyr, where Apollo for a time served as secretary of a bookselling and publishing association and became a member of the board of directors of a Polish theatre.

[5] In Comedy, Korzeniowski severely criticized the Polish nobility in Ukraine and opposed it to two positive heroes—Henryk,[6] a revolutionary-conspirator, and the Secretary, a cowed plebeian who, as the action develops, rebels against his employer.

Korzeniowski, however, distanced himself from Majewski due to the latter's contacts with the "Whites" and became close to more radical groups, especially to youth in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych) and to the "Red" representative, Ignacy Chmieleński,[7] who would become the chief of the National Government (Rząd Narodowy) during the January 1863 Uprising.

When this effort failed and martial law was declared in Congress Poland, Korzeniowski was one of the chief initiators in forming (17 October 1861) a Municipal Committee (Komitet Miejski)—the supreme authority of the "Red" conspiracy.

He produced a memoir on "Poland and Muscovy" ("Polska i Moskwa," published in a periodical in 1864); a fragment of a play, No Rescue (Bez ratunku); and a "Study of Drama in the Works of Shakespeare" ("Studia nad dramatycznością w utworach Szekspira").