"Contact Zones"
in Turkish-Polish Relations (1414-2014)
The conference will take place on the occasion of 600th anniversary of Polish-Ottoman/Turkish relations. They date back to the year 1414, when the envoys of the Polish King, Wladyslaw Jagiello, successfully mediated between the Hungarian King and the Roman Emperor, Sigismund of Luxemburg, and the Sultan, Mehmed I Çelebi. Since then, there have been continuous and diverse forms of Polish-Ottoman contacts.
Quite recently, their variety was demonstrated by the exhaustive exhibition of Polish and Ottoman art organized by the National Museum in Warsaw and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul in the years 1999 and 2000. It presented the mutual relations in terms of both: threat and challenge, war and peace. After the Treaty of Carlowitz conflicts between two states left their place to agreement and even alliance projects. Polish refugees were also one of the common points of the relations between two states.
After the First World War, Embassy of Poland and Embassy of Turkey were among the first embassies which were founded in both capitals. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the relations have been expanded especially politically and economically. Presidents and Prime Ministers of both sides made reciprocal visits in last years. The conference does not claim to discuss comprehensively the six-hundred years of Polish-Ottoman/Turkish relations. Rather, using the example of the bilateral contacts, it aims to focus on the crucial issue of communication between individuals or groups belonging to the "Polish" and "Ottoman/Turkish world". The organizers of the conference would invite the contributors to explore a variety of "contact zones" such as diplomacy, trade (including slave trade), war and art. Papers devoted to the role played in this cross-cultural communication by "inter-cultural" people such as the Ottoman dragomans of Polish origins in the Early Modern Period or the Polish exiles converted to Islam in the 19th century are also welcome. Finally, we are interested in the perception of Polish-Ottoman/Turkish relations by the Third Side (e.g. the English, the French, Venetians, Hungarians or Russians). We believe it could offer a promising, new look on the Polish perception and contacts with the Ottomans/Turks and vice-versa.
The organizers of the conference hope that the conference would be a forum to discuss the Polish-Ottoman/Turkish relations in comparison to these between the other European states and the Ottoman Empire/Turkey.
The conference will take place in the Institute of History, Warsaw University (Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, 00-927 Warsaw).
"CONTACT ZONES" CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
The project was partially financed from funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland |