This is a comparative analysis of the key ideas regarding nation-building in the writ-ings of Adam Mickiewicz and Patrick Pearse, who have gone down to history as icons of the Polish and Irish national revival. In the case of Mickiewicz the article focuses on Dziady – Część III (Forefathers’ Eve – Part III), Konrad Wallenrod, Księgi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego (Books of the Polish Nation and Poland’s Pilgrimage); the Irish materials include Pearce’s dramas The King and The Singer as well as Theobald Wolfe Tone’s ‘Speech from the Dock’. A trope common to all of them is the concept of ‘a beauti-ful, awesome voice’ / ‘a traitorous song’: literature as a mighty force that can create a community dedicated to the national cause. A comparison of passages that articulate the messianic idea indicates that, though understood by either writer in his own way, they both envision it as a catalyst turning nation-building literature into an apotheosis of martyrdom and death – a process which could be described as axiological metabolism. The article also examines the paradoxes of the projections of the myth of national unity in the work of both writers, especially in Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz and Pearse’s short story ‘In My Garden’.