Abstract

The paper examines historical, cultural and political aspects of Polish-Turkish strategic alliance in 18th and 19th century. The idea emerged in 1760s during first military reaction on Russian interference with Polish internal politics. The Polish-Russian war in years 1768-1772 was supported by Turks and tightly coordinated with Russo-Turkish war. In Turkish historiography the conflict is called “a Polish war” [Lehistan savasi] and it gave an impulse for the idea of cooperation between Poles and Turks against Russians, which lasted until the end of Crimean war in 1856. This period was a time of reassessment and reinterpretation of Polish history, especially when it comes to the relations with Ottoman Empire. Although the proposition of forming long term military alliance never entered mainstream of Polish politics, it remained alive and inspiring for various writers, historians and diplomats for around one hundred years, and even today it is a fundament, at least symbolic one, of good relations between modern, republican Turkey and Poland. The concept of alliance between Muslim Ottoman Empire and Catholic Poland-Lithuania was in many ways groundbreaking for European reality, which for centuries was based on unity against Turkish threat for Christianity. It can be interpreted as one of the major shifts in Eastern European politics, which anticipated the new balance between Western Europe and countries which can be without any doubts described as Eurasian (Turkey and Russia). In my paper I plan to present the most important texts from the period, which show evolution of the idea. It will be political texts, historical analysis from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as pieces of literary fiction. As a conclusion, I will try to show how research on this subject may be helpful for understanding Polish and Turkish process of modernisation and entering the European political/diplomatic system. In my research I base on Polish and Turkish historians of Polish-Ottoman relations (e.g. Hacer Topaktas-Ustuner, Władysław Konopczyński, Adam Lewak) and historians of European identity in context of Eastern Europe and Asia such as Larry Wolff.