Polish Contributors to the Modern Turkish State

Poles have found a place of refuge in Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) for centuries. For example, there is a village near Istanbul, Polonezköy (former Adampol), which was especially created with the Poles on the search for a second home in mind. When one considers the Polish community in Turkey during and after the Second World War, the contributions made by the Polish engineers to the development and expansion of the Turkish aviation and industry are often forgotten. The assistance that Turkey provided Poles with during the war as a ‘friendly’ neutral country has also been overlooked. Although, there were relatively few Poles living in Turkey during this period, they played a vital role in the development of the country. Nowadays they barely receive a mention. For the most part, their accomplishments have been overlooked. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the shared past and to the period when these two countries came to each other’s assistance once more.

Fellow Citizens or Aliens? Galician Refugees during the First World War in Hungary

The outbreak of the First World War (1914–1918) forced the countless civilians to leave their homes and to become war refugees. This topic has remained largely unexplored by the historians. The number of refugees from the multinational Galicia in the years 1914–1918 was large in many parts of the former Austria-Hungary, which finds its reflection in archival materials scattered over various archives and over an extensive territory. This paper presents the issue of the Galician war refugees who found themselves in the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen. It also outlines the general problem of emigration as well as describes relations between the refugees and the local people. It was not only due to antagonisms but also due to the administrative decisions of the Hungarian authorities that the Galician refugees remained alien to the locals, despite the fact they all were citizens of the same Habsburg Monarchy.

The Political Career of Gáspár Bekes and Ferenc Wesselényi in Poland-Lithuania during the Reign of Stefan Batory

This article is about the career and political positions of Gáspár Bekes and Ferenc Wesselényi in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during Stephen Báthory’s reign. It explains how they both achieved their positions and why they were important for the monarch. It should be emphasised that both of them are a good example of how the elected Polish king could help foreigners in their career in 16th century Poland. On the one hand, Gáspár Bekes achieved his position by serving in the army before and during Báthory’s wars, on the other hand Ferenc Wesselényi played an important role as a holder of a high office at the Polish royal court.

Three Hungarian Diplomats’ Emissary Diaries – A Comparative Analysis of Emissary Diaries of János Rimay, Gáspár Tassy and Mihály Tholdalagi in the Context of the 1627 Peace Treaty of Szőny

The article focuses on the examination of three emissary diaries related to the Peace Treaty of Szőny (1627). These sources differ considerably from the most widespread sources used in the diplomatic history. The diaries were published earlier but have not been systematically compared yet. These diaries approach the treaty from different perspectives even though they touch upon the same affair. The emissaries arrived to the peace talks with various mandates, resided in different places, and exchanged their correspondence with different persons, thus gaining access to the same pieces of information at different times and/or in different places. Therefore, it is reasonable to pose the following questions: what kind of information was known by whom in a given moment; which specific aspect of the peace talks was concerned; who could exert an influence on the process; and, respectively, how and for what purpose the pieces of information were retrieved from a participant; or how these pieces of information were used by those who belonged to the participant’s network of relations.

Transylvania’s and Poland’s Participation in the Struggles between the Moldavian Voivode Family, the Movilăs, and the Wallachian Voivode Radu Şerban

The aim of this article is to analyse the relations of the three Ottoman vassal provinces (Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia) during the last years of the Long Turkish War (1591/93–1606). The provinces rebelled against the Ottomans at the beginning of the war. Then influenced by the policies of their dynasties or due to the military occupation of the neighbouring great powers such as the Habsburg monarchy, Poland and the Ottoman Empire, they changed the sides of the conflict. The Movilăs (or Movilă family) tried to govern two Romanian voivodships, Moldavia and Wallachia simultaneously. They had a good relation with the Ottomans and they supported rule of István Bocskai (r. 1604–1606), who rebelled against the Habsburgs in 1604 and was elected as the Prince of Transylvania and Hungary by the Hungarian rebels. The voivode of Wallachia, Radu Şerban (r. 1601, 1602–1610, 1611), who secretly allied himself with the Habsburgs, while simultaneously being recognised by the Ottoman side also endorsed him. The Prince of Moldavia, Ieremia Movilă (r. 1595–1606), tried to remove him from the Wallachian throne. He wanted to install his younger brother, Simion (r. 1600–1602 in Wallachia, r. 1606–1607 in Moldavia) – who had once held the title of the Prince of Wallachia – on the Wallachian throne after deposing of Radu Şerban. They formed an alliance with the Ottoman military dignitaries as well as with Bocskai to achieve their goal. Although this was an unsuccessful attempt, they strongly supported the Hungarian uprising. After the death of Ieremia Movilă, his sons tried to gain the power over Moldavia with Polish assistance. By contrast, the Hungarians gave military assistance to Simion against Ieremia’s sons.

The “Storms and Turns of History”: Emigration Narratives in the 20th Century in Polish and Hungarian History Textbooks

History textbooks are special sources, reflecting on the era in which they were published. They play a role in formation of national identity and shape students’ perception of the past and their relation to the present. Central Europe’s recent media have given considerable attention to emigration. How do history textbooks narrate migration? This paper explores how the current history textbooks in Hungary and Poland narrate mass emigration. Findings reveal several reasons for the mass migration named by the textbooks, which include a desire for improved economic and living conditions. The treatment of emigrant groups as transnational populations in both Hungarian and Polish narratives suggests that they are separated from their home country’s national history and in a way ‘step out’ of its flow – however, the narratives appearing in the Polish textbooks deal with the overall neglected groups in greater depth. In addition, this research explores how these textbooks treat these transnational populations.

The Habsburg and Transylvanian Aims Related to the Campaign of the Ottomans against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1634)

In 1634 the Ottoman Emperor, Murad IV (r. 1623–1640), decided to lead a campaign against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He wanted to request military support from the Prince of Transylvania, György Rákóczi I (r. 1630–1648), but the prince tried to avoid it, because at that time he had been struggling with his political enemies, who endangered his rule in Transylvania. In the same year, the Habsburgs sent an ambassador (Johann Rudolf von Puchheim) to Constantinople, who tried to dissuade the Sublime Porte from leading a military campaign against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The idea of that mediation came from the former Vizier of Buda and at that time, the commander of the Ottoman army, Pasha Murteza, because he did not want this war either. Prince Rákóczi, Puchheim, Trzebiński (Aleksander, the Polish envoy) and Murteza all wanted to stall for time in relation to that campaign. In this article, the author investigates the aims and the problem-solving strategies of the Habsburg, the Transylvanian, the Polish and also the Ottoman elite in that situation. The war against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not take place in the end, because Murad IV began a campaign against the Safavid Empire.

Serbia and Hungary in Theodore Spandounes’s Work On the Origin of the Ottoman Emperors

Theodore Spandounes was born in the middle of the 15th century to a family of the Greek exiles who had found shelter in Italy after the fall of Constantinople. The Spandounes family had not played any significant role in the history of the Byzantine Empire but his mother Eudotia came from the famous Kantakouzenos family. Members of the Kantakouzenos family played an important political role in Serbia until its annexation by the Ottoman Empire in 1459. Theodore established close relations with popes Clement VII and Paul III, who he advised on the Ottoman affairs. Probably around 1515, Spandounes wrote the first version of the treatise On the Origin of the Ottoman Emperors. In 1538 he dedicated the final version to Henry, Dauphin of France (the future king Henry II).As suggested by the title, the main objective of Spandounes’s treatise was to explain how the Ottomans rose from the humble beginnings to their current mighty status in a relatively short time. In its final version from 1538, the treatise consists of four parts, different in size, composition and content. The most original and creative part, which is also of the greatest importance to the scholars interested in the Ottoman history, is the second part. However, information concerning the history of Serbia and Hungary can only be found in the first part. A detailed analysis of Theodor’s treatise leads to the following conclusions: 1) Spandounes’s remarks concerning Hungary and Serbia are generally infrequent, and the events described were rather accidentally chosen; 2) The author pays more attention to Serbia, with which he was emotionally connected through his ancestors. The information about the genealogy of the ruling family is interesting and reliable; 3) Spandounes is barely credible in his descriptions of events from the 14th and 15th century. His accounts are tendentious and quite often false; 4) Information concerning Hungary becomes more frequent for years 1520–1538, and it is relatively credible.