Mutiny on the Kadırğa

Bitwa pod Cecorą (Battle of Cecora) - Witold Piwnicki

During the early modern period Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire shared a frontier that stretched over 1,000 kilometers through the Pontic Steppe and into the Carpathian Mountains, encompassing territories in modern Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, and Slovakia. Within this deep frontier zone, the Crimean Khanate, vassals of the Ottoman Sultan, engaged in the Black Sea slave trade, which resulted in the disappearance of some 2,000,000 individuals between 1500-1700 from the north Caucasus, Muscovy, and Poland-Lithuania (Kołodzejczyk, 2006). Prisoners of war often supplemented this trade, which funneled an immense body of human chattel south to work on farms, in manufacturing, as house slaves, or as galley slaves. The fates of these individuals are all but unknown.

A swashbuckling tale of enslavement and escape accredited to a Polish nobleman named Marek Jakimowski was published in multiple European languages in the early 17^th century. It serves as a quintessential example of the anti-Ottoman literature that circulated throughout Christendom during periods of conflict with the Padishah. In Poland-Lithuania, the continued popularity of the harrowing tale of nobleman-come-galley slave Marek Jakimowski for several centuries was emblematic of a society whose identity as the antemurale christianitatis (bulwark of Christendom) was tied closely to its shared frontier with the Ottoman Empire.

Marek Jakimowski, a szlachcic (nobleman/citizen) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, who was born near the town of Bar in the province of Podolia, in present-day Ukraine. A participant in the 1620 battle of Cecora on the side of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he was taken prisoner by Ottoman forces, and sold into slavery in Istanbul. His account explains that he was purchased was “Kassem Beg”, the Ottoman governor of Damietta and Rosetta and admiral of a fleet of galleys. Marek Jakimowski was assigned to Kassem Beg’s lead kadırğa (galley), where he was given a position that allowed him freedom of motion on board the craft.

Lepanto - Tommaso Dolabella

While anchored off the shore of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea, Jakimowski purportedly led a successful mutiny on the lead galley of the fleet. At an opportune moment when the bulk of the ship’s soldiers as well as its commander were on land, Jakimowski freed his fellow galley slaves with the help of two other Polish prisoners, Stefan Satanowski and Jan of Tulczyn. The freed slaves then killed or expelled the remaining Ottoman soldiers and commandeered the ship. Several accompanying Ottoman galleys from the same fleet gave chase, but the fugitives managed to lose them in a storm and sail successfully to Messina on the island of Sicily. From there they went to Palermo, where they left the captured galley in the possession of the Viceroy of Naples in exchange for two smaller vessels, which they took to Naples and on to Rome, where they arrived on February, 16^th, 1621. Once there, Jakimowski and his companions left the Ottoman banners taken during their mutiny as votive offerings in several churches.

As the leader of the mutiny, Marek Jakimowski was given a special audience by the new Pope, Gregory XV, during which he made a personal gift of a banner he had taken, in return for which he was decorated with high honors. The former slaves were also received in Rome by Cardinals Cosima de Torresa and Francesco Barberini. While in Rome, Jakimowski married a certain Polish woman named Katarzyna, who he had allegedly freed from slavery and returned to Poland. Jakimowski and his wife made it successfully to Kraków on the 8^th of May, 1628.

There is some debate as to when these events actually occurred; an account of Jakimowski’s adventure was printed in Rome, perhaps as early as 1623, under the title “La conquista della galera di Alessandria nel porto di Metelline, coll’oepra e gran coraggio del Capitano Marco Jakimowski Polacco”. Five years later, the tale was reprinted in Rome, Florence, and Kraków in Italian, German, and Polish. As no original copy of the 1623 publication has survived, it remains unclear whether the mutiny occurred in the year 1621, 1622, or 1627.

Regardless of whether or not Marek Jakimowski’s mutiny on Kassem Beg’s kadırğa actually occurred, the popularity of the tale is evidenced by its publication in Italian, German, and Polish- three of the major languages of the Ottoman/European frontier. The event was commemorated by the Venetian painter Tommaso Dolabella, active in the court of King Sigismund III Vasa (1566-1632) and his son, King Władysław IV Vasa (1595-1648), whose work depicted the marriage of Marek and Katarzyna. The dissemination of the tale and its enshrinement in Polish national consciousness continued into the 20^th century.

In the course the complex evolution of Polish national consciousness, the tale of Marek Jakimowski served multiple purposes over the centuries. In more recent times, the “Turkish Threat” of the 17^th century and the imagery and vocabulary of the antermurale christianitatis was redirected to the struggles of stateless Poles in the 19^th century. In 1858, centuries after the events in question, and after the partition and dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by its neighbors Prussia, Russia, and Austria, playwright and Polish nationalist Alexander Groza wrote a piece based the life of Marek Jakimowski. In the romantic nationalism of the 19^th century, old conflicts and heroic figures were given new life through allegory. By this time, the usefulness of Jakimowski as a symbol of Poland’s role as the antemurale christianitatis vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire had diminished. Instead, Groza portrayed him as a symbol of the defunct Polish nation’s struggle under the bondage and tyranny of the Tsar. Groza epitomized the bravery and sacrifice of Jakimowski, Satanowski, and Jan of Tulczyń, the enslaved veterans of Cecora, in the following manner:

And within the crowd [of captives] newly gathered

with whom should he meet? Jan of Tolczyń

and [a man] of Szatanów, two eagles,

his brothers – Podolians.

At Cecora, that unlucky venture,

they persevered courageously, persevered gloriously...

Oh! If only all [had been] like them,

the Turk would not have watered his horse in the Dniester,

nor would the bones of our knights rot

in the sands of so many riverbanks...

In Groza’s play, the battle of Cecora, where Jakimowski and his fellow Poles were captured, served as a stand-in for more recent Polish defeats at the hands of Russia during the Bar Confederation (1768-1772) and the November Uprising (1830-1831). Marek engages in hand-to-hand combat with “Mustafa Pasha”, though it is clear that Groza’s Turk is in fact the Russian Tsar. In this aspirational tale highlighting the historical sacrifice of Poland on the “altar of nations”, Groza’s “second David” (i.e. Marek Jakimowski), had returned to slay Goliath once again.

Here follows the account of Marek Jakimowski:

"The might of the Turkish state, as well as that of all of its members (clients) began once again to fall upon pious peoples and Christian life through the law of the Council of Trent, bringing in particular much suffering, and weakening the soldier of the sea, who is usually the foremost defense of every province. Through this, much succor was imparted to the heathen, who, in the past, ordinarily would have always taken into slavery young captured Christians.  Their galleys, which in the past [were] a terror [and] were full of Christian prisoners of every nation and ruled the entire sea, in these days are so weakened that, if not for the Tatars alone constantly invading the country[s] of Ruthenia and Muscovy, filling the Turkish armada with people, it is certain that the Turkish Monarchy, though it is so strong, would be without its arms upon the sea; Already [at present] on their galleys, prisoners are not commonly seen aside from the above mentioned nations, who [the Turks] purchase for money, rule over, beat and lacerate [at will] as their personal slaves.

In recent times, Kassymbek, a Turk from Alexandria, governor of Damiata and Rosseto, [who was] very wealthy in his properties, which are large in Egypt, and through various trade, which he undertook constantly in those countries with his brother Mehmed, having become for a period of four years the captain of four galleys, which guarded the port and navigation of Alexandria, filled his own foremost two-masted galley with two hundred Christian prisoners; among them were three Greeks, two Englishmen, an Italian and the rest were from either Ruthenian or Muscovites.

It came to be that the Lord God gave the [favorable] weather and occasion to a Christian to bring low that monstrous pagan, who everyone feared a great deal. This Kassymbek, remained for a while before [friendly] Turkish guns upon the [Black Sea] where the Dniester flows in for the building of a fortress at the orders of the [Turkish] Emperor  [to guard] against the invasion of Cossacks, a people who all Turks greatly fear. After the onset of winter, while returning home, [Kassymbek] took upon his galley in Constantinople Isuph Kadego with his wife and servants, who was a well-known judge from the Porte to Aleksandria. Traveling, then, along that route, they put in at the city of Metellino, which is located on the Aegean Sea; there they were provisioned with necessities at the beginning of the month of November. They put to sea many times, but they always had to return due to great storms and high seas. Aside from this galley there were three other galleys, which, on the last return [to port], remained apart from the lead galley; not far, about a third of a mile. At that point three galleys remained in the port known as Szeroki and in the port of Caramusciali; captain Kassymbek alone remained in the port called Stretto or Scisly. On the 12^th of November he put to shore to refresh himself, having with him around seventy Turks, there being altogether one hundred and fifty soldiers, as well as officials, who he took with him, so that no more than eighty [Turkish soldiers] were left aboard.

Among the Christian prisoners on that galley was Marek Jakimowski of a family from Bar in the region of Podolia. Having trained since youth in the knightly arts, he was at the battle of Cecora, and having been captured there he fell into the hands of the enemy. Seeing at that time that the captain of the galley [had] put ashore with no small portion of the Turks, he placed himself in the care of the Lord and began to think of how he and the crew might free themselves. He therefore entrusted his plan to two others; Stefan Szatanowski and Jan Stolczyn both of whom, along with [Jakimowski], were prisoners, [but] were not fettered, and walked freely about the galley during the daytime in order to [perform] a variety of duties. These two, not trusting that they would be able to escape, doubted him greatly. He said, in brief, that in such brave counsel one must have more faith in God and in the strength of [ones] mighty hand for the protection of ones own health and honor, than in the use of reason and common ability.

Having declared that he [was] absolutely prepared and resolved to do what he could, and having neither arms nor armor, he took three rods from those which the cook used in the fire; and when the cook defended himself, Jakimowski hit him in the head so well that he immediately fell dead. And having given the other two [mutineers] rods, he leapt to the stern, where Turks normally keep numerous cannons; but a soldier, a Turkified Greek, barred his way with a raised saber. Marek, taking the rod from the fire began to struggle with him and, though he was already wounded on the left side of his head and shoulder, [Jakimowski] overcame the soldier and killed him. Entering then the stern of the galley he got weapons, of which there were many, and with great speed distributed them amongst the prisoners, his comrades, who already defended themselves and beat the enemy with whatever they could reach; rods, paddles, barrels, and cooking implements. Captain Marek made his way to the aft of the galley where [there was a certain] Mustafa, [a man] of Naples, who did not know what was happening, because the galley was covered. He only knew that there was some kind of activity amongst the prisoners, which was nothing new.

Seeing, however, that Marek was hurrying towards him with his comrade, he seized two sabers, wanting to defend himself; but the manly Marek, [already] bloody and wounded, struck Mustafa between the ribs, killed him, and dumped him into the sea. At that point the Turks gathered the ropes of the cover [stretching over the length of the vessel] in order to enshroud and entrap the prisoners; at Marek’s order, [the prisoners] rolled up the canvas covering, and already having weapons, fought gallantly with the Turks, killed one and cast the other into the sea. Next they severed the lines and anchors that held the galley near the shore and beat out to sea from the port, at which point thick gunfire erupted behind them from the defensive works of the city and from the port’s fortress, although without [incurring] any damage.

Captain Kassymbek ran to the shore and waded out up to his belt in the sea crying out and cursing, tearing as his beard until he calmed down and returned. But the victorious Christians beat out to the deep sea where they were chased by three other galleys. Beginning at eight o’clock in the evening that day up until the morning of the second day and a few hours after daylight, at which time there came, probably through the will of God, a great and awful storm with winds, rain and thunder until those [pursuing] galleys had to return to Metellina, failing to give [further] chase to the galley commandeered by the Christians."

Select Bibliography:

1. Groza, Alexander. Marek Jakimowski, Duma Historyczna. (Wilno: Drukiem Józefa Zawadzkiego, 1858).
2. Knoll, Paul W. 1974. “Poland as ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’ in the late middle ages,” The Catholic Historical Review 60, (1974): 381-401.
3. Kolodziejczyk, Dariusz. 2006. "Slave hunting and slave redemption as a business enterprise: The northern Black Sea region in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries". Oriente Moderno. 86 (1):
4. Ślaski, Bolesław. 1927. Opanowanie w roku 1627 przez Marka Jakimowskiego okrętu tureckiego. Poznań: Czcionkami Drukarni Sw. Wojciecha
5. Zielinski, Stanisław. Maly Slownik; Pionierow Polskich Kolonjalnych i Morskich; Podroznicy, Odkrywcy, Zdobywcy, Badacze, Eksploratorzy, Emigranci-Pamietnikarze, Dzialacze i Pisarze Migracyjni. Warszawa: Liga Morska i Kolonjalna, 1933.

Polish Seyfeddin, Istanbul Tribune des Peuples and Polish Day in Istanbul: Young Turks utilizing the Polish independence cause on the Bosporus

President Bronisław Komorowski’s visit to Turkey during the first week of March, 2014 officially marked the 600^th anniversary of the Polish – Turkish diplomatic relations. The cultural highlight of this visit was the opening of the exhibition in the Sakip Sabancı Museum entitled “Distant Neighbour, Close Memories - 600 Years of Turkish – Polish Relations” by the presidents of both countries. The exhibition presents pivotal moments in the diplomatic, military, commercial and cultural relations between Poland and Turkey during the past six centuries. Nevertheless, a celebration of historical contact and cooperation between Poles and Turks is not at all a recent phenomenon. During the Young Turk period (1908 – 1918), when Poland did not exist as an independent state, a Polish émigré in the Ottoman Empire, Tadeusz Gasztowtt a.k.a. Seyfeddin Bey (1881 – 1936) prompted the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) to organize on 17 August, 1909 an event that was echoed in the Polish press of the time as “a Polish day in Istanbul”.

Tadeusz Seyfeddin Gasztowtt

Polish presence in the Ottoman Empire is typically associated with a few decades of the nineteenth century (1830-1878), when thousands of Poles fled to the Ottoman Empire hoping for Ottoman support in their efforts to regain national independence. The Ottoman failure in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78 caused disillusion within the émigré community. The Treaty of Berlin which concluded the conflict in 1878 thus represented a symbolic end to activities organized on the Bosphorus that were aimed at Polish independence. Moreover, during the reign of Abdülhamid II (r.1876-1909), which was characterized by political repression, Poles could no longer enjoy the same support they had enjoyed previously during the Tanzimat period when conspiratorial activities and preparations for national insurrections took place within Ottoman borders.

Adam Mickiewicz's house in Tarlabaşı in the 1880s

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to assume that Poles disappeared from the Ottoman landscape in the aftermath of the Treaty of Berlin. One can even say that the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and the coming to power of the Committee of Union and Progress was a watershed event that attracted a number of Polish émigrés from France to come to the Ottoman Empire. Among Poles who were active in the Ottoman public sphere during the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918) was Tadeusz Seyfeddin Gasztowtt, who was born to a family of émigrés that fled to France after the 1830 November Uprising. The Gasztowtts were actively involved in the cultural and academic life of the Polish emigration in Paris. Known by Ottoman society as “Seyfeddin Bey”,  Tadeusz Gasztowtt was an ardent advocate of Polish – Ottoman friendship. He came to Istanbul in 1907 as a French teacher and correspondent of a monthly magazine dedicated to Polish culture called Bulletin Polonais (“Polish Newsletter”). Nevertheless, as soon as the Committee of Union and Progress came to power, he became their outspoken supporter. Gasztowtt spent over a decade in the Ottoman Empire, during which time he joined the Ottoman army as a volunteer during the Tripolitanian War (1911-12) and in February 1914 he was appointed the Secretary of the newly established Ottoman Consulate General in the capital city of Macedonia, Salonika, which was the former political centre of the CUP and had been lost in the Balkan Wars (1912 – 1913). When Poland regained independence in 1918, Gasztowtt was a chief organizer of its diplomatic rapprochement at first with the Ottoman Empire and then with the Kemalist government in Ankara.

Gasztowtt was above all a passionate commentator on the developments taking place in the political scenes of Europe and Middle East. He gave voice to his views in a number of publications. In Istanbul he wrote extensively for newspapers sympathizing with the CUP. In 1910 he published a bilingual newspaper entitled Kürsi-i Milel/La Tribune des Peuples (“The People’s Tribune”). The journal openly sympathized with the contemporary Ottoman regime. The programme of the newspaper was to inform the Ottoman public on the oppressed Muslim nations living beyond the Ottoman borders, and to advise on the international affairs of the empire. The title “The People’s Tribune” was a clear reference to a newspaper with the same title published in 1849 in Paris by Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s chief Romantic poet. Mickiewicz arrived in Istanbul in summer 1855 to end the disagreements among the émigrés that were attempting to organize Polish legions in the Ottoman army during the Crimean War (1853 – 56). Istanbul became the last address of Mickiewicz who died on 26 November, 1855. Gasztowtt introduced his newspaper as the heir to Mickiewicz’s Paris journal. It begins with the most emblematic quote from the poet’s masterpiece Dziady III (“The Forefathers”): “My name is million because I love and suffer for millions” in Ottoman and French. It is a poetic expression of the newspaper’s motto, which had been an imperative for thousands of Poles fighting on different fronts during the post-partition period (1795 – 1918): For our freedom and yours. On numerous pages of his publication Gasztowtt speaks of the Polish poet, his activities aimed at the Polish independence and his days in Istanbul. When he put forward his candidature to the Ottoman army in an open letter addressed to the Minister of War, Mahmud Şevket Pasha, he quoted words that Mickiewicz was reported to have on his deathbed to his friend Iskender Bey: “I told myself that even had I known that I was going to die from cholera somewhere in Turkey, I would still go no matter what because this was my obligation. I would rather die as a poet in a Polish Cossack Legion than as a chancellor of the French Institute”. By quoting these lines Gasztowtt also makes reference to the tradition of organizing Polish legions in the Ottoman army during the post-partition period.

Polish Day in Istanbul

Thanks to Tadeusz Gasztowtt’s close relations with the Ottoman government, on his initiative on 17 August, 1909 the CUP organized celebrations commemorating Adam Mickiewicz and the Polish soldiers who had fought on the Ottoman side in the Crimean War (1853-56). This event has received little attention in the historiography of the Polish-Ottoman relations although it was broadly echoed in the press of the time and portrayed among the Polish intelligentsia as a manifestation of the pro-Polish sentiments of the CUP.

"Polish Day in Istanbul"
featured in Tygodnik Ilustrowany

Celebrations consisted of two parts. First, a mass in the Church of St Mary Draperis was celebrated. Then, the participants walked down towards Tarlabaşı waving Polish and Ottoman flags together. Polish journal Tygodnik Ilustrowany (“Illustrated Magazine”) compared this procession to the completion of Wernyhora’s prophecy, according to which Poland was going to regain independence with Ottoman help. Next, the commemorative plaque on Adam Mickiewicz’s house in Tarlabaşı was unveiled. The house where the poet spent the last days of his life perished in the great fire of Pera in 1870 and the present building was erected shortly after by Istanbul’s Polish community. In 1955 this modest building was converted into the poet’s museum- “Adam Mickiewicz Müzesi”. The street where the building is located was for decades known as Adam Sokağı (“Adam’s street”) and it immediately became a place of pilgrimage for both the local Polish community and Polish travellers in Istanbul.

Unveiling of the commemorative plaque
on Mickiewicz's house in 1933

Among the main guests on the Ottoman side of the 1909 celebration were members of the CUP, Dr. Nazım and Salahaddin Bey and veterans of the Crimean War. The Polish side was represented by the head of the Polish Association in Istanbul, Michał Grabowski, the owner of the house, Marcin Ratyński, Leon Ostroróg, Tadeusz Gasztowtt and a delegation from Adampol. Representatives of some Istanbul minorities, e.g. Tatars, Georgians and Iranians were also present. Salahaddin Bey in his speech admonished the partition of Poland as a “sacrilegious act” and stressed that the Ottoman Empire had never recognized it. He assured the guests of the CUP’s solidarity with the Polish independence cause. In response, Tadeusz Gasztowtt called for the reinforcement of the centuries long Polish-Ottoman friendship. Bulletin Polonais concluded that the event was “a real lesson of tolerance” as numerous Muslims, an imam included, attended the mass and a lamb was sacrificed in front of the building in the memory of fallen Polish soldiers. Celebrations were an opportunity for the Tanin newspaper to commemorate thousands of Poles who not only had fought in the Crimean War in the Ottoman army, but had for decades rendered their services to the Ottoman Empire in various fields, and to stress the historical basis for the Ottoman-Polish cooperation. Tygodnik Ilustrowany concluded that “since the partitions no one had seen a similar celebration for Poland”.

Even if this act of sympathy might have been only symbolic, it still suggests that the partitions of Poland and subsequent engagement of the Polish political émigrés in the late of Ottoman Empire did not go unnoticed by the Ottoman public. Rather, one can speak of a reassertion of cordiality in Polish-Ottoman relations in the Second Constitutional Period. Moreover, given the diversified profile of its attendants and the echo that the events had in the contemporary press, Gasztowtt’s initiative was an opportunity to draw the attention of the Ottoman public and others to the issue of Polish independence.   

Select Bibliography:

1. Kazimierz Dopierała, Emigracja Polska w Turcji w XIX i XX wieku (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Polonia, 

1988)

2. Jerzy S.Łątka, Słownik Polaków w Imperium Osmańskim i w Republice Turcji (Cracow: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2005)

3. Polski Słownik Biograficzny, vol.7 (Cracow: PAU, 1948 – 58)

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Paulina Dominik obtained her Master degree in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. For more on the author see: https://oxford.academia.edu/PaulinaDominik 

Eagles in the Caucasus: Polish-Circassian cooperation against Russia in the 19th century

Although Poles and members of the Circassian diaspora may seem as though they have little in common today, it was not always so. Perhaps one of the most unusual partnerships of the 19^th century was born of the intense collaborative efforts of Poles and Circassians to free themselves from Russian domination. By this time Russian expansion had swallowed up most of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and threatened to engulf the homeland of the Circassian people in the northwest Caucasus. The machinations of stateless Poles in France, England, and the Ottoman Empire became a main source of support for the beleaguered Circassians during their protracted struggle against the Romanov state.

A Polish insurrectionist returns home
after the November Uprising of 1830-31

In their continued fight for national independence following the partition and dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18^th century by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, Polish nationalists perceived that they were quite alone amongst the various minority populations of the Romanov Empire in their efforts to stage large-scale uprisings against Russian rule. In the early 1830s, however, Polish insurrectionists recognized that they shared common goals with the Circassian population of the Caucasus, which was in the throes of a prolonged armed resistance against Romanov expansion.

Historically, Circassian tribes were sometimes-clients of the Crimean Khanate, which was itself a part of the Ottoman Empire. Romanov expansion into the Caucasus beginning in the early 18^th century onwards pushed the Circassian tribes to cooperate more closely with the Ottoman state. The defeat of Ottoman forces by Imperial Russia during the “Leh Seferi” (1768-1774 Russo-Turkish War) and the subsequent treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774 awarded independence to the Crimean Khanate and the Northern Caucasus, which where annexed by the Romanovs in 1787. As a result, Circassia became a sort of front line for the Ottoman Empire in the north Caucasus around the same time that Poland-Lithuania began to be partitioned by its neighbors.

In the end, the Ottoman Empire was unable to keep pace with Imperial Russia, which built lines of fortifications along their Caucasian borders, settled large numbers of Cossacks in the region, and pushed into the southern Caucasus, annexing Georgia in 1801. Concurrent wars between Russia and Persia led to the extension of Romanov power into the Armenian plateau. Russia further consolidated its eastern Caucasian holdings with the treaty of Türkmençay in 1828 after taking Tabriz from ‘Abbas Mirza. The final blow came with the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, which forced the Ottomans to abandon their official claims to Circassia. Despite this, the Circassians managed to hold their ground against the Romanov army until 1864, at which point the bulk of the Circassian population was displaced or killed. It was during this prolonged period of resistance that Polish nationalists lent their support.

Prince Adam Czartoryski

In the early 1830s Prince Adam Czartoryski, a key patron of the Wielka Emigracja (Great Emigration) of polish intelligentsia and nationalists from the defunct Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the cultural and political centers of Paris, London, and Istanbul, sent the first Polish agents to meet with Circassian leaders in their alpine redoubts in the north Caucasus. Elements within the Polish expatriate leadership felt that a free Poland could rise from the smoking battlefields of a great war fought between the Western Powers and the Ottoman Empire against Russia, which controlled most of the former Commonwealth’s territories. The émigrés, therefore, were forced to walk a fine line between the pursuit of their own nationalist aspirations and keeping their French, English, and Ottoman protectors and sometimes-benefactors complacent.

 For thirty-odd years, numerous members of the Polish émigré community in Istanbul became involved in the Circassian cause by volunteering to fight directly alongside the Circassians, or by working to support their cause through diplomacy. The émigrés’ awareness of this issue was strengthened by the experiences of the many Poles who had been forced to serve in the Russian army in the Caucasus. Contemporary accounts of the treatment of Polish deserters and prisoners of war by the Circassian irregular military units are contradictory. It appears, however, that some Polish prisoners were incorporated directly into local guerilla units, and it was claimed that the Circassian Chief Şamil “always, want(ed) to have a host of Polish Ulans before him” (Lewak, 49). An important factor that led to the unlikely involvement of exiled Poles in the affairs of Circassian highlanders was the well-established tradition of the service of Polish Legions in extra-national conflicts. Over the years following the partitioning of Poland-Lithuania, Poles formed their own units and fought in the Napoleonic wars, Haitian Revolution, the 1848 revolutions that took place in Hungary and Italy, the Crimean War, and the American Civil War in conflicts that were politically or philosophically tied to the Polish cause.

In 1836, during the early phases of Polish-Circassian cooperation, the renegade secretary of the British Embassy in Istanbul, a man named David Urquhart, dispatched a British schooner that was filled with arms illegally bound for Circassian resistance forces.  Russian forces seized the “Vixen” after it attempted to run a naval blockade and land its cargo on the Circassian coastline.  The “Vixen Incident”, the result of a lone diplomat’s unsupported desire to help the Circassians, nearly caused a war between Britain and Russia.  This would have served Polish purposes well and, in order to spread awareness of the event, Prince Czartoryski and his agent Władysław Zamojski attempted to bring the issue to the attention Western populaces by casting it in a favorable light in numerous publications disseminated to the British and French publics.

In addition to this, Prince Adam Czartoryski’s Hôtel Lambert and its Eastern Agency were involved in various attempts to create unity among the four main Circassian tribes, who they continued to fund and arm.  Between 1841-1852 the Polish émigrés were the only significant source of foreign support for the Circassian rebels (Lewak, 52). This came to an end during the Crimean War when the Allied Powers of Britain and France began to view the Circassians as potential partners in their fight with Russia and briefly funded their resistance during the conflict. After the war, in 1857, an armed expedition led by Colonel Teofil Lapiński, which was manned almost exclusively by Polish émigrés, reached the beleaguered Circassians and fought a guerilla war at their side until 1860.

In 1858 Colonel Władysław Jordan was appointed by Prince Adam Czartoryski to be his new chief agent of the Eastern Agency.  Through him, and his connections with the powerful Hôtel Lambert, Circassian leaders were able to petitioned for the aid of Queen Victoria and Napoleon III.  When aid was refused, Czartoryski personally sponsored Circassian leaders in a trip to Paris and London in hopes that their physical presence would add weight to their pleas. Ultimately, it did not.

Armoured Circassians, 19th c.

By the 1860s it began to look as though the remaining Circassian forces would succumb to Russian military superiority.  The Hôtel Lambert rallied together the Polish émigré community of Istanbul and attempted to forestall this by petitioning France and England for their support of a joint Polish-Circassian “crusade” (Brock, 407). This call for action occurred just as the 1863 January uprising in the Congress Kingdom of Russian-controlled Poland was coming to a head. Lambert’s main source of support for the Polish/Circassian cause in England was the organizer of the disastrous “Vixen Incident”, David Urquhart, whose enthusiasm for the Circassian cause had not been dampened by a failed diplomatic career. Over the years he had continued to work closely with the Polish émigré community of Britain, making use of their direct contact with the Circassian forces. In their meetings with British officials, Hôtel Lambert agents attempted to cast Circassia as the breakwater upon which the wave of Russian expansion would smash itself to pieces before it could make its way into Persia and India.  Although greater public awareness of the subject was achieved due to the work of the Urquhart and the Polish émigrés, the French and British governments refused to back either the Polish or Circassian causes.

In 1863 David Urquhart was involved in another risky scheme to send a boatload of goods to the Circassian coast in order to force Russia to recognize a pre-existent free trade agreement that was supposed to be in effect in that region.  Instead of harmless trade goods, however, the “Chesapeake” would be full of illegal arms destined for Circassian forces. Władysław Zamoyski and Prince Adam Czartoryski’s son Władysław were amongst the primary benefactors of this ill-fated project. After a lifetime of espionage and secret dealings, Urquhart’s extreme paranoia caused him to accuse his fellow-conspirators of being “Russian spies”, which led to the breakdown of his relationship with Polish and Circassian leaders.  As a result, he soon lost his place as a leading organizer in the scheme. The “Chesapeake Plan” was taken over by the Poles of the Hôtel Lambert. 

 When the ship arrived in Istanbul, it was loaded with a contingent of Polish soldiers who were meant to form the core of a new Polish Legion in Circassia.  Similar to the Polish Legions in the Ottoman army during the Crimean War, their numbers were once again hoped to swell with Polish deserters from the Russian army.  Klemens Przewłocki, who was a main organizer of Michał Czajkowski/Sadık Paşa’s Polish Cossack Legion in the Crimean War (“The Sultan’s Cossacks”), was given control of the unit. Przewłocki’s expedition to Circassia lasted only a few months after which famine and a lack of material support forced the Poles to retreat. The Hôtel Lambert had once again relied too heavily on Polish deserters from the Russian army to fill out the ranks of their Legions. Although they defeated Russian forces in various engagements, in the end their efforts were further hindered because the Ottoman government refused to reinforce the Circassian rebels. The capture of the key fort at Kbaada on 21 May, 1864 ended the Caucasian Wars.  This, in turn, sparked the emigration of some 400,000 Circassians to the Ottoman Empire in the late 1860s and 1870s.

The Ottoman government turned a blind eye towards the involvement of its Polish émigré community in the external affairs of the Circassian insurrectionists.  This attitude proved advantageous for the conspirators; it allowed the Poles to develop and execute numerous plans that were detrimental to Imperial Russia. Ultimately, the unwillingness of the Ottoman government to involve itself openly in the Caucasian Wars stemmed from a desire to avoid another conflict with Russia. By 1864 the influence of the Hôtel Lambert in European politics began to decline as the insurrectionary government responded to shifting political tides by abandoning their policy of seeking help from the English and French and realigned themselves with Hungarian and Italian revolutionary factions. As such, plans to regain Polish independence through direct intervention in the Caucasus were abandoned.

The overall effect that the Polish émigré community had on the Circassians’ struggle for survival may not have been monumental in scope, but the personal sacrifice of combatants and the political influence wielded by their Polish patrons abroad provided new lines of communication through which Circassians could forge relationships with the governments of the Western Powers. The result of these efforts was to keep the “Polish Question” alive amongst the Great Powers of Europe; the Circassians were not as fortunate.

Select Bibliography: 

1. Brock, Peter. 1956. “The fall of Circassia: A study in private diplomacy.” The English Historical Review 71, (280) (Jul.): 401-27.
2. Dziewanowski, M. H. 1948. “1848 and the Hotel Lambert.” The Slavonic and East European Review 26, (67) (Apr.): 361-73.
3. Lewak, Adam. 1935. Dzieje Emigracji Polskiej w Turcji, 1831-1878. Warszawa: Nak. Instytutu Wschodniego.
4. Łątka, Jerzy S. 2005. Słownik Polaków w Imperium Osmańskim i Republice Turcji. Kraków: Księg. Akademicka.
5. Kisluk, Eugene J. 2005. Brothers From the North: The Polish democratic society and the European revolutions of 1848-1849. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Michael Połczyński is a Doctoral Candidate at Georgetown University. For more on the author see: https://georgetown.academia.edu/MichaelPołczyński

Postcard, early 20th century

Where is the Deputy of Lehistan?

The story of the last delegate of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 

to the Sublime Porte

Listen to the Podcast at The Wild Field:

In the Polish collective memory Ottoman Turkey is remembered as the only state that did not recognize the final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795 by Russia, Prussia and Austria. There even exists an anecdote recounting the exchange between the chef de protocol and his aide, which is still often repeated in Poland. According to the tale, whenever the diplomatic corps was received by the Ottoman sultan, on the sight of the empty chair of the Polish deputy, the Ottoman chef de protocol would ostentatiously ask: “Where is the deputy from Lehistan?”. At each occasion he would receive the same reply from his aide: ‘Your Excellency, the deputy of Lehistan could not make it because of vital impediments’ to the annoyance of the diplomats from the partitioning states. The first written record of this story comes from the Polish ambassador to Turkey in the years 1936 – 45, Michał Sokolnicki (1880 – 1967). He heard it from a Turkish officer and statesman, Ali Fuat Cebesoy (1880 – 1968), who was acquainted with the Istanbul Polish community. Cebesoy claimed that this symbolic exchange continued until the end of sultanate and he witnessed it in person as a young officer during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876 – 1909) (Sokolnicki, 1958). The accuracy of this account is widely questioned by the historians of the subject as no record of such a habit from the early nineteenth century has been found. Regardless, it has played, and continues to play a significant role in the Polish collective memory and as a tool of statecraft. Tadeusz Mazowiecki (1927 – 2013) attended the session of the Council of Europe in 1990 as the first non-Communist Prime Minister of Poland since 1945, he began his speech with the story and concluded it saying that the long-awaited deputy from Lehistan had finally arrived, highlighting that Poland was at last a free country (Kołodziejczyk, 2000).

In a similar vein, it can be discussed whether the Ottoman Empire did or did not recognize the partitions of Poland-Lithuania. Or more precisely whether the Ottomans were at all asked for any kind of approval of the status quo.  One of the main resolutions of the Congress of Vienna (1814 – 1815) was a final partition of the Duchy of Warsaw (Księstwo Warszawskie) between Russia and Prussia. The Duchy of Warsaw was an independent Polish state established by Napoleon I in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by Prussia and was allied to France. Although it was created as a satellite state, it was commonly hoped and believed that through it Poles would be able to regain their former status as a fully sovereign state. These hopes were shattered due to Napoleon’s failure in the campaign against Russia (1812) and the decisions of the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon’s defeat. However, the Ottoman Empire was not invited to the Congress. Consequently, it is debatable to what extent the Ottoman state was active in their supposed protest against the partitioning of Poland-Lithuania.

The disappearance of Poland from the map in 1795 did not go unnoticed in the Ottoman Empire. The prominent nineteenth-century Ottoman historian and statesman, Ahmed Cevdet Pasha (1822-1895), remarked in his history of the Ottoman Empire (Tarih-i Cevdet): “When this unfortunate news [the partitioning of Poland-Lithuania] reached the Sublime Porte, it was a warning to us. For this reason the Ottomans chose to complete the essential military and financial reform as soon as possible” (Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, 1270-1301 [1853-1883]). Moreover, some Ottoman statesmen did indeed condemn the partitions. Karolina Suchodolska (ca.1835 – ca.1900), daughter of the chief organizer of the Polish political activities on the Bosphorus, Michał Czaykowski (Mehmed Sadık Pasha, 1804 – 1886), told the Polish traveller Antoni Zaleski (1858 - 1895) that her father’s friend, former commander of the janissary troops and serasker of Sultan Mahmud II, Benderli Hüseyin Pasha, recognized only seven European monarchs: kings of Poland-Lithuania, Bohemia, England, France, Spain, Hungary and the Pope. He regarded the King of Prussia as Poland-Lithuania’s vassal. According to Suchodolska’s account, Czaykowski visited Benderli Hüseyin Pasha in the company of the ambassador of Prussia. The Pasha, persistent in his convictions, did not want to allow at any cost the representative of Prussia to sit next to Czaykowski. Czaykowski did his utmost to ease the situation. As a response to his pleas the Pasha is recorded as having said: “If you are insisting, he can sit down but only on the chair. You, in turn, take a place next to me on the divan. In my household I cannot bear the sight of a vassal sitting next to his lord. No matter what has happened, in my books they are merely your vassals” (Zaleski, 1887). Clearly, the Ottoman dignitary did not only disapprove of the disappearance of Poland-Lithuania but also was aware of the important role that the Ottoman Empire’s northern neighbour once played on the map of Europe.

Moreover, when Witold Jodko-Narkiewicz (1864 – 1924) was appointed in 1919 as the first delegate of the independent Poland to the Ottoman Empire, he remembered that the Grand Vizier of Sultan Selim III, Izzet Mehmed Pasha (1743 – 1812), promised to take care of the keys to the building of the Polish ambassador in Istanbul until Poland-Lithuania regained its independence. (Chmielowska, 2006). The building was located on a side street running from the main avenue Grande Rue de Pera (today’s Istiklâl Caddesi) to the pier in Tophane. In order to commemorate the location of the last Polish legacy to the Sublime Porte, this street, which today bears the name Nur-i Ziya Sokağı, was called Leh Sokağı (Rue de Pologne, Polish Street) throughout the nineteenth century until the 1950s.

Leh Sokağı

In this context, the story of Kajetan Aksak (d. 1824), the last Polish deputy to the Sublime Porte before the partitions, certainly deserves a closer look. Aksak never came to terms with the partitions of Poland-Lithuania. According to a Polish nineteenth century Orientalist, Ignacy Pietraszewski (1796 – 1869), not only did the last deputy never leave the Ottoman Empire but also did his best for years to make the Ottoman statesmen aware of the great injustice that had been done to Poland-Lithuania by its neighbours (Pietraszewski, 1989). Since Aksak was convinced that only the monarch who had appointed him to his function could call him back, he continued his service as an envoy of Poland-Lithuania until the last days of his life in 1824. What is more, he observed the routine of Polish deputies from earlier times. Like his predecessors he spent half of the year in the small flat at Leh Sokağı, which he rented and which was located next to the former embassy. Aksak collected all the documents pertaining to Poland-Lithuania and organized a small archive in that flat. He spent the other half of the year in a house in Ortaköy. Aksak would regularly attend the daily meetings of the Ottoman Divan and like in the pre-partition period he would take a seat in a room for the dragomans (translators). Ottoman dignitaries, who felt sorry for him, continued to pay him the same honours they paid to the dragomans of other states. In the same way Aksak’s kavas (guard) unchangeably served him until his last days. Zaleski recounts in his travelogue that whenever Ottomans saw Aksak’s guard, they would say with pity: “Here is the shadow of a kavas, of a dragoman, of a state that was wiped away from the world map!” (Zaleski, 1887).      

Although the embassy building went up in flames in 1822, Polish travellers recall that in the late 19th century a small chapel commemorating the former embassy could be found next to the building no 8 at Leh Sokağı (Łątka, 2001). It is noteworthy that the street experienced a short renaissance during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Polish émigrés set up a recruitment bureau there for soldiers who volunteered to join a Polish legion that was going to fight in the war on the Ottoman side. For decades the Polish Street was a place of pilgrimage for Polish travellers to Istanbul. Today, however, there are no traces left of the above-mentioned chapel and no commemorative board reminds passersby of the historical importance of that place. Hardly anyone remembers that the street was once called the “Polish Street” and the neighbourhood around it was commonly known as the Polish neighbourhood (leh mahallesi).     

Select Bibliography:

1. Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, Tarih-i Cevdet, v.5 (Istanbul: Matbaa-yi Ümeyre, 1270-1301 [1853-1883])
2. Chmielowska, Danuta, Polsko-tureckie stosunki dyplomatyczne w okresie międzywojennym (Warszawa: Dialog, 2006)
3. Kołodziejczyk, Dariusz, Turcja (Warsaw: Trio, 2000)
4. Łątka, Jerzy S., Odaliski, poturczeńcy i uchodźcy. Z dziejów Polaków w Turcji (Cracow, Universitas, 2001)Pietraszewski, Ignacy, Uroki Orientu (Olsztyn: 1989)
5. Sokolnicki, Michał, “Polityka Piłsudskiego a Turcja”, Niepodległość, v.6 (London: Wydawn. Instytutu Józefa Piłsudskiego Poświęconego Badaniu Najnowszej Historii Polski, 1958.
6. Zaleski, Antoni, Z wycieczki na Wschód (Warsaw: Nakład Gebenthnera i Wolffa, 1887)


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Paulina Dominik obtained her Master degree in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. For more on the author see: https://oxford.academia.edu/PaulinaDominik