In recent decades, scholarly interest in the phenomenon of Polish Sarmatism as well as in the impact of Middle Eastern art on early modern Polish culture has grown significantly. However, these studies still lack a comprehensive interdisciplinary focus.1 Art historians focus on the object itself, usually disregarding luxury as a social phenomenon, while intellectual historians consider Sarmatism as part of the humanist tradition and as a political doctrine, and generally neglect its material implications. For economic historians, Ottoman and Persian luxury goods are just some of the many factors that caused the efflux of money from Poland. Hence, they are not interested in public discourse on Ottomanized fashion, or its connections with Sarmatism and the disputes between royalists and noble republicans. Overall, the existing scholarship has overlooked subjects such as: the multiple reinterpretations of Middle Eastern luxury by social estates; sumptuary legislation; the various aspects of transporting Ottoman and Persian commodities from the Middle East and supplying them to consumers (e.g., commissioning of certain goods, logistics, legal conditions of transcultural trade, or merchant networks); attitudes toward the intermediaries or social agents of cultural transfer in the host societies; and the impact of Ottoman and Persian luxury goods on local manufacturers.
Generally, scholars consider Sarmatian fashion to be a noncontentious sociocultural phenomenon that contributed to the making of premodern Polish national identity. For instance, in his brilliant essay on Ottomanizing fashion in early modern Eastern-Central Europe, Adam JasieÅski focuses his attention on the self-representation of Poles in Western Europe and their perceptions of the Ottomans in the context of diplomatic relations.2 While rightly pointing to the Middle Eastern attire of the Polish and Hungarian nobility as an expression of their anti-absolutist political commitments, JasieÅski does not give a voice to the royalist camp. Thus, by leaving aside alternative attitudes, JasieÅski presents Polish society as allegedly homogeneous and constant in its perception of Ottoman and Persian luxury goods.
Another missing topic is the role of Armenian traders and merchants in the circulation of goods and culture between Eastern and Western territories. Indeed, Armenians were the principal suppliers of patterns and materials from abroad, as well as producers of high-quality objects in local workshops. Despite a large body of scholarship on trade by Armenian merchants between the Middle East and Poland,3 it was ZdzisÅaw Å»ygulski (1921â2015) who emphasized the role of Armenians in shaping Polish Sarmatian culture, albeit in an introductory manner.4
By uniting the history of goods with the history of ideas, this essay examines processes of early modern cultural exchange. Specifically, it combines an analysis of cultural transfer with the history of consumption and mobility studies and considers controversial attitudes to luxury, Middle Eastern trade, and its intermediaries, the sociocultural phenomena of Polish Sarmatism and its implications for the political allegiances, and social advancement in the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The principal aim of this essay is, therefore, to study how Ottoman and Persian luxury goods influenced the social, political, and cultural dynamics in the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. How were objects divested of their original meanings and to what reinterpretations were they subject in the host culture? This essay starts with a discussion of how the consumption of Ottoman and Persian luxury goods shaped the development of the Polish Sarmatian political identity. It explores how Ottoman and Persian luxury was perceived by different social groups in Poland-Lithuania before and after the interregnum of 1572â76, as well as before and after the political crisis of 1648â60. In particular, it highlights how certain goods penetrated the public discourse in Poland-Lithuania and how they became metaphors. Finally, it examines how a perception of the Armenian diaspora was reflected in competing discourses on luxury consumption, social advancement, and the moral or economic decline of the Commonwealth.
1 Oriental Luxury and the Making of Sarmatian Identity
The American social anthropologist Arjun Appadurai proposed that luxury goods should be regarded
ânot so much in contrast to necessities (a contrast filled with problems), but as goods whose principal use is rhetorical and social, or goods that are simply incarnated signs. The necessity to which they respond is fundamentally political. Better still, since most luxury goods are used (though in special ways and at special cost), it might make more sense to regard luxury as a special âregisterâ of consumption (by analogy to the linguistic model) than to regard them as a special class of things.â5
According to Appadurai,
âthe signs of this register, in relation to commodities, have some or all of the following attributes: (1) restriction, either by price or by law, to elites; (2) complexity of acquisition, which may or may not be a function of real âscarcityâ; (3) semiotic virtuosity, that is, the capacity to signal fairly complex social messages (as do pepper in cuisine, silk in dress, jewels in adornment, and relics in worship); (4) specialized knowledge as a prerequisite for their âappropriateâ consumption, that is regulation by fashion; and (5) a high degree of linkage of their consumption to body, person, and personality.â6
In addition to Appaduraiâs definition of luxury, some of the ideas employed in this paper were inspired by Ina Baghdiantz McCabeâs work on exoticism in early modern France. According to Baghdiantz McCabe, between the reigns of Francis I and Louis XIV in France, âthe consumption of silk, cotton cloth, spices, coffee, tea, china, gems, flowers and other luxury goods transformed daily life and gave rise to a new discourse about the âOrientâ which in turn shaped ideas about economy and politics, specifically absolutism and the monarchy.â7
In this same period, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ottoman and Persian goodsâimported mostly by Armenian merchantsâwere used by the nobility (szlachta) in a different way: to reduce the kingâs power, which in turn led to the establishment of the so-called âRepublic of Nobles.â
This republic was based on the ideology of Sarmatism. Initially, Sarmatism emerged as a response to the expansion of the Holy Roman Empire and was subsequently used to legitimize the nobilityâs dominance over the serfs. The nobility was believed to have originated from the Sarmatians, ancient nomad warriors who invaded the Danubian provinces of the Roman Empire, whereas the serfs were thought to be the descendants of the conquered natives. In the late sixteenth century, in reaction to the unsuccessful efforts of the Habsburgs to be elected as Polish kings, Sarmatism acquired two new features: xenophobia and the rejection of absolutism. Finally, after the Zebrzydowski mutiny of 1606â8, Sarmatism was transformed into a conservative aristocratic republican ideology.8 The myth of a Sarmatian origin was also employed to unite multiethnic (Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, and Prussians) and multiconfessional (Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox) noble elites of the Commonwealth.9 Ottoman and Persian luxury goods were used by the nobility to enforce their Sarmatian Polish identity as non-Western in order to maintain their âGolden Libertyâ and to reject any efforts to establish a Western absolutist monarchy. A more Middle Eastern appearance10 was seen as more Sarmatian, and therefore more republican. Thus, a taste for a hybrid aesthetic was shaped. Thanks to the humanistsâ publications of Herodotus, Strabo, and Ovid, it was already known in the sixteenth century that the Sarmatians were relatives of other nomadsâthe Scythians. Since the Turks were considered by the humanists as the peoples of Scythian stock,11 the Ottoman attire, arms, carpets, and horses were retrospectively attributed to the legendary Sarmatian ancestors of Polish nobility.
In sixteenth-century Poland, Ottomanizing fashion was just one sartorial option available among many, and more a matter of taste than of politics.12 However, by the late sixteenth century, the clothes and armory of Polish nobility were largely Ottomanized (Fig. 15.1). One can connect the rise of this fashion mania to the new political model introduced in Poland-Lithuania after the extinction of the Jagellonian dynasty in 1572, an elective monarchy wherein the kingâs power was checked by the nobility. In contrast to Western Europe, where absolutism was successfully established and the aristocracy gradually lost its old privileges, the Polish nobility escaped what they saw as a âdespotic trap.â The military invasions by the HabsburgsâEmperor Maximilian II in 1576 and Archduke Maximilian III in 1587â88âwho were candidates to sit on the Polish throne, affirmed the Polish nobilityâs anti-absolutist stance. The Western garments worn at the royal court in Poland promoted Sarmatian fashion among republican noblemen, who came to associate Western fashion with the absolutist aspirations of some of the elected kings. Middle Eastern attire, thus, became an expression of loyalty to the republican values and Sarmatismâif one employs Appaduraiâs terminologyâa âspecialized knowledgeâ necessary for the âappropriate consumptionâ of Ottoman and Persian clothes, armory, carpets, tents, harnesses, and horses.
Unknoqwn artist, portrait of Åukasz OpaliÅski, ca. 1640
National Museum in Kraków, Poland
Contemporary observers were attuned to the importance of these sartorial expressions of loyalty. When traveling to the West for personal purposes, Polish noblemen commissioned Western attire, while Polish ambassadors to European courts dressed in the ânativeâ Sarmatian style. Young aristocrats ordinarily traveled to Western Europe to gain experience at the royal courts, universities, and battlefields, which was necessary for their future careers (a form of peregrinatio academica, or the Grand Tour). For instance, a powerful Lithuanian magnate, Prince Janusz RadziwiÅÅ (1612â55), in September 1628 departed on a four-year voyage spent in Germany and the Netherlands. In 1632, he commissioned his portrait from David Bailly (1584â1657), a Dutch painter, who painted RadziwiÅÅ in European attire. Another portrait of RadziwiÅÅ, commissioned in 1654 at the height of his career on the occasion of his appointment as commander in chief (hetman) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, depicts RadziwiÅÅ dressed in accordance with the ânativeâ Sarmatian style. Prince WÅadysÅaw Dominik ZasÅawski-Ostrogski (ca. 1616â56) provides another example: after his return from the Grand Tour across Italy, France, and the Netherlands in 1632, ZasÅawski-Ostrogski commissioned his portrait from the German painter Bartholomäus Strobel the Younger (1591â1650), who depicted the prince in accordance with contemporary European fashions. In a copy of another portrait, the elderly ZasÅawski-Ostrogski is dressed as a Sarmatian, thus demonstrating that early portraits that were executed following Grand Tour voyages manifested the new experiences and sensibilities acquired abroad, while later ceremonial Sarmatian portraits expressed loyalty to the political order of the Commonwealth.
The princes from different parts of Europe who were elected Polish kings adopted the rules of the game. First in this line was French Prince Henry of Valois, who ruled Poland from February to June of 1574. Upon learning of the death of his brother, King Charles IX (1550â74), Henry left Poland and returned to France, preferring to be the ruler of an absolutist monarchy (as Henry III) rather than of the freedom-loving Sarmatians. Nevertheless, in a commemorative engraved portrait executed much later by the Flemish painter and engraver Peter de Jode II (1606â74), Henry was represented dressed in a Polish Sarmatian costume consisting of a żupan (a long robe-like garment), with a soft silk sash and a delia (an overcoat worn over the żupan) lined with ermine fur, which was buttoned in the center with a splendid brooch.13
This French âblack sheepâ was followed by Transylvanian Prince István Báthory, who was elected king of Poland in 1576 and came to be known as Stefan Batory (1576â86). He gave preference to military campaigns over court life and was later regarded by the Polish nobility as the ideal mercenary king. As the prince of Transylvania, he was accustomed to the Ottomanized style of dress, in which he was depicted by Martin Kober (ca. 1550â98) in 1582. The elected kings of the Swedish Vasa dynasty, Sigismund III (1587â1632) and his sons WÅadysÅaw IV (1633â48) and Jan Kazimierz (1648â68), were sometimes condemned by the nobility for their absolutist aspirations. In order to calm their Polish subjects, the Vasa kings commissioned portraits in which they were depicted in European attireâa nod to their status as the titular kings of Swedenâas well as portraits in Sarmatian dress. Thus, the wearing of Sarmatian dress by the elected kings was seen by the Polish nobility as a sign of the adoption of the Polish political system and an eschewal of absolutism.
In later years, this appropriated and reinterpreted Middle Eastern attire was perceived as the Polish national costume by both Poles and by foreigners alike. When King MichaÅ WiÅniowiecki (1669â73), a native of Poland-Lithuania, dressed constantly in accordance with European fashions, he was criticized in the Polish Diet (Sejm): âWhy [does] His Royal Majesty, being of our flesh and blood, shuns the clothing of the Polish nation, and favors foreign fashion that was abhorred by our ancestors; it is as if he disgraces the Polish nation?â14 Given that MichaÅ WiÅniowiecki married Eleanor Habsburg in 1670, his Western attire might naturally have been interpreted by his political opponents as an expression of his absolutist aspirations.
The Sarmatian mode reached its peak during the rule of Jan III Sobieski (1674â96), famous for his victories in the Polish-Ottoman Wars of 1672â76 and 1683â99. The kings of the Wettin/Saxon dynastyâAugust II (1696â1733) and August III (1733â64)âalso commissioned portraits in the Sarmatian mode. By the late eighteenth century, however, Sarmatism was burdened with negative associations, designating the uneducated and unenlightened, and was understood as a derogatory term for those conservatives who opposed the reforms of the âprogressivesâ (pro-Enlightenment) led by King StanisÅaw Poniatowski (1764â95).15
2 âThe Redundant Extravaganciesâ: Alternative Attitudes to âSarmatianâ Opulence
The perception of Sarmatism in Polish society was not homogenous well before the Enlightenment. Criticism of the âredundant extravaganciesâ of the flamboyant âSarmatiansâ had in fact already taken place in the late sixteenth century. In that context, anti-Sarmatian attitudes were tied to a number of factors, including the Counter-Reformation, the introduction of an elective monarchy, the active involvement of Poland in a globalized economy, and the growing activity of trading diasporas in the Polish market. What shape did this anti-Sarmatism take? To find alternative attitudes to âSarmatianâ opulence, it is necessary to look beyond the nobility. The Catholic clergy and some intellectualsâmostly professors at Kraków Universityâradically criticized Ottoman and Persian luxury, along with the nobilityâs social egoism and its economic cooperation with non-Catholic trading diasporas. In doing so, these polemists also expressed the grievances of the Catholic townspeople, who disapproved of the growing competition with foreign merchants protected by the aristocracy.
The antiluxury alliance between the Church and the burghers was not a uniquely Polish phenomenon. In 1614, there was a similar âmeeting of the mindsâ between the clergy and the Third Estate in Paris to ban luxury; they asked the king to repress luxury and to reduce the efflux of money from the kingdom to pay for foreign commodities.16 Around the same time, a large number of anonymous pamphlets appeared, which urged the widespread prohibition of foreign goods. An anonymous pamphlet, entitled Avis au roy en lâoccurrence des états généraux, advocated a complete ban on luxury goods imported from the Levant and the establishment of French manufacturers to prevent the efflux of five out of the seven million écus in gold exported yearly to Ottoman markets.17 However, Cardinal Richelieu saw no reason to avoid Ottoman and Persian luxuries if they were bought by French merchants. Richelieu accordingly approved previous sumptuary legislation and levied further limitations, including stipulations that Middle Eastern goods were forbidden to all but the nobles. As the exclusive prerogative of the aristocracy, foreign goods became synonymous with these upper echelons of society.18
In Poland, attacks on Ottoman and Persian luxury, excessive consumption, and the selfishness of the nobility were part of a more cautious criticism of âthe republic of nobles,â since the Catholic Church and townspeople had aligned themselves in opposition, on the side of the royalist camp.
In his Preaching to the Diet (1597), Piotr Skarga, a Polish Jesuit and court preacher of King Sigismund III, criticized the nobilityâs display of luxury (zbytek). Specifically, in a sermon entitled âThe tyrants for themselvesâ (Sami sobie tyranowie), Skarga argues that the nobility abused its wealth (zbytek z dostatku), creating rifts and rivalries within the noble estate that resulted in the oppression of certain noblemen by their more powerful counterparts. Skarga expressed his devotion to the monarchy with a quotation from Homerâs Iliad: âA host of leaders is no wise thing; let us have but the one king.â19 The concept of âtyrannyâ was frequently used by the Sarmatian republicans in order to attack the real or imagined absolutist aspirations of the kings. Thus, in this rhetorical reading of luxury, Skarga set the concept of âtyrannyâ on its head and used it to criticize the nobility itself. According to Skarga, the noblemen should put their wealth to more appropriate use than ostentatious luxury: to make donations to the Church and to strengthen Polandâs defenses in order to defend the Commonwealth from its foreign enemies.20
In his 1632 description of Poland, which was devoted to Pope Urban VIII (1623â1644), the Polish intellectual and Catholic priest Szymon Starowolski (1588â1656) complained that the Polish nobility easily fell prey to foreign habits.21 Starowolski condemned the nobility in particular for the excessive consumption of Western and Middle Eastern commodities.22 Their engagement in trade was considered by Starowolski to be especially harmful to the royal cities. Along with innkeeping and criminal offenses, commerce was, he argued, one of the main grounds on which to deprive a nobleman of his privileged social status.23
3 Crisis and Identity: Challenges and Responses
The political and military crisis of 1648â60, during which Poland-Lithuania was attacked by Ukrainian Cossacks, Crimean Tatars, Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and Transylvaniaâin alliance with different factions of the Polish nobilityâfueled debates over luxury consumption and moral decline. For Starowolski, the extreme social and political egoism of the Polish nobility was the main cause of the Commonwealthâs general decline and recent military losses. In a pamphlet entitled âPoland is ruled by the Private [interest]â (1649), Starowolski cast his main characterâSir Private (Pan Prywat)âas an average nobleman endowed with many negative features: âI am Sir Private, Privation is my father, Avarice is my mother, Stubbornness is my brother, and my sisters are Hate, Envy, and Practice.â24 In his treatise, âReformation of the Corrupted Contemporary Polish Habitsâ (ca. 1653), Starowolski criticized the Polish nobility for âthe new habits, not just foreign, but heathen, Tatar, Muslim.â25 He also mentions the âbuzzed head with Tatar-style fuzzâ (wygolona ordynska czupryna)26 as among the attributes of contemporary Polish noblemen, thus pointing out the janissary-style hairstyle then fashionable among the nobility.
Following the crisis in the mid-seventeenth century, some noblemen also sought to reframe their positions on oriental luxury. In 1674 Wespazjan Kochowski (1633â1700), a nobleman and historian of the time, published a volume of poems under the meaningful title âNot idling idlenessâ (NiepróżnujÄ ce próżnowanie). Included in the compendium was âHussarâ (Husarz),27 a poem written in 1655 when Kochowski himself was a twenty-two year-old hussar in the royal army. The main character of the poem is a young nobleman going into military service. When describing a hussar, Kochowski paid more attention to his appearance than to his personal qualities. The verse could be studied as a brief encyclopedia of his sartorial splendorâMiddle Eastern clothes, armory and harnessâwhich characterized his Sarmatian identity. Among the nineteen features Kochowski highlighted in the hussarâs attire, twelve could be identified as Middle Eastern, and at least seven had names borrowed from Ottoman Turkish: the saber,28 dagger,29 battle hammer,30 horsecloth,31 saddle,32 overcoat,33 silk sash,34 boot,35 and big boot.36 Egret feathers are attached to the hussarâs cap, his helmet is edged with sable fur, his coat is lined with lynx or sable, he wears a golden chain, his armor is gilded, and even his horse is lavishly decorated with gold.
Although Kochowski finished the poem by concluding that âTemper, appearance and horse make a hussar so attractive [as] to enamour Bellona and even Venus,â37 he nevertheless considered all the luxury he described as redundantâa hussar needs only arms and ammunition to defeat his enemies. In another verse addressed to âthe waster youthâ (nikczemna mÅodzież), which was probably inspired by the Polish-Ottoman War of 1672â76, Kochowski attacked sybaritic young noblemen. Here, the Ottomanized attire is used rhetorically to blame those who prefer to spend their time banqueting and dancing rather than fighting the Ottomans. The very title of the poem, âWasted expenditures of Polish youth on burkaâ (Marnotractwo MÅodźi Polskiey na Burku), includes a reference to Ottoman dress. The burka, a hooded greatcoat, was worn by warriors during incursions as protection from cold weather; instead, the âthe waster youthâ wore the burka on dates with urban women. Burka is a Turkish/Tatar loanword, and Kochowski evidently plays with its etymology, since in Polish âburkliwyâ means âchurlishâ: âBurka is not churlishness but, rather, it could be snatched off a Turk defeated in combat or taken from his Tatar brother.â38
Nevertheless, being a moderate royalist, Kochowski did not blame the Sarmatian mode and Sarmatian way of life as such;39 instead, he attacked irresponsible republicans in a verse entitled âA Curse on the Sons of the Crown who Break Sejmy [Polish Diet].â40 Kochowski offered no solution other than moral exhortation and prayer after the first two parliaments were broken by the veto of a single deputy in 1652 and 1654.
Interestingly, neither Kochowski nor the Catholic polemists blamed the nobility for using Ottoman and Persian goods that were manufactured by Muslim artisans for their infidel compatriots rather than for good Catholics. Conversely, the Catholic hierarchs in Poland- Lithuania, Hungary, and Transylvania frequently used Ottoman and Persian textiles woven by Muslim tailors for making liturgical garments (chasubles), as communion kerchiefs, and as covers for communion tables, pulpits, and lecterns.41 Rugs were used by Muslims for prayer inside or outside the mosque. Each rug of the so-called namazlik type was embroidered with a stylized arch (mihrÄb) and a lamp, both of which were intended to direct prayers to the qibla. These highly decorated rugs of various types were imported by Armenian merchants to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where they were used to decorate walls in houses and palaces, and were even donated to churches.
Moreover, the Catholic clergy followed the patterns of the appropriation of Ottoman and Persian luxuries practiced by their noble compatriots. For instance, Polish kings and aristocrats commissioned Armenian merchants to procure Middle Eastern carpets produced in Ottoman and Persian workshops emblazoned with their personal coats of arms (Fig. 15.2). Shortly thereafter, this trend was adopted by the Catholic bishops. For instance, Jan Zamoyski, the Catholic archbishop of Lviv (1604â14), commissioned twenty carpets decorated with his coat of arms from workshops in Istanbul in order to display them in the nave of the Lviv Cathedral. The next Catholic archbishop of Lviv, Jan-Andrzej Próchnicki (1614â33), similarly ordered the so-called âcarpet with birdsâ42 from a certain Ottoman workshop.43 Ordinarily, expensive carpets of this type were commissioned by kings and aristocracy.44 Próchnickiâs coat of arms with a bishopâs crosier and forked cap was put at the center of the carpet along with the Latin inscription âIll(ustrissimus) Andreas de Prochnii Arheaep(iscopus) Leopoliiâ (Fig. 15.3). The fact that some letters appear reversed provides further evidence that this carpet was made by artisans unfamiliar with the Latin alphabet.
In the late seventeenth century, the painter Åukasz Ziemecki introduced depictions of rugs of the so-called âTransylvanianâ type in his depictions of biblical scenes in the frescoes in the Piarist monastery in Rzeszów. For instance, one fresco depicts Jesus Christ âbreaking breadâ with his two disciples in Emmaus (Luke 24:30â31) at a table covered with a double-niche rug (Fig. 15.4). Another fresco represents the twelve wise men dressed as contemporary Polish noblemen and sitting at a round table covered with a similar double-niche rug (Fig. 15.5).45
Thus, the notion that goods made and used by âinfidelsâ are incompatible with true Christian faith was absent from public discourses in Polish society as well as elsewhere in Europe. It also means that the critics of extensive luxury consumption took for granted the fact that the nobility must be distinguished in appearance from the lower classes. By the mid-seventeenth century, Ottoman and Persian arms, clothes, harnesses, carpets, and other objects were so deeply embedded in Polish Sarmatian identity that it was impossible to abandon or uproot Middle Eastern luxury goods without harming the identity of the nobility.
4 The Armenian Merchant Network and Its Trade in the Middle East
Of course, cultural transfer could not be performed without mediators, as objectsâlike ideas or customsâcould not travel by themselves. As Stephen Greenblatt points out, âa specialized group of âmobilizersââagents, go-betweens, translators, or intermediariesâoften emerges to facilitate contact, and this group, along with the institutions that they serve, should form a key part of the analysis.â46 Mediators must have special skills in order to exercise their function. Armenian merchants possessed those skills, as well as networks of partners and fellow believers across Europe and Asia.47 Moreover, by transporting certain goods, they not only stimulated cultural changes in the host society, but were themselves equally affected by those changes, as well as by their mobile transcultural way of life more broadly.
In the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth, some Armenian merchants settled in the multiethnic city of Lviv, in the territory of the Galicia Principality (modern-day western Ukraine). After the Polish conquest of Galicia in 1349, the local German townspeople (cives catholici) became the dominant community. The rights of other urban ânationsâ were guaranteed and confirmed by the Polish King Casimir/Kazimierz III in 1356, when the city was granted the German lawâthe so-called Magdeburger Recht. Thus, Lviv was transformed into Lemberg (also known as Lemburga or Leopolis). By the late fourteenth century, an Armenian community was also established in the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi.48 Armenian merchants were used as royal interpreters, diplomats, or spies, and were protected by the Polish kings. These merchants frequented the markets of the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia and provided the Polish nobility with the Middle Eastern luxuries fashionable at the time. Following the end of the Jagiellonian dynasty in 1572 and the attendant decline of the kingâs power, the trading diasporasâJews, Armenians, and Scotsâgradually established closer ties with the dignitaries as their new protectors and business partners. Polish dignitaries invited foreign merchants to their private towns, where they were granted many privileges.49 By the 1670s, a dozen new Armenian communities existed in their domains.
So-called âWiesioÅowski carpet,â ca. 1635â37
Zamek Królewski na Wawelu, Kraków, Poland
âRug with birdsâ with the coat of arms of Archbishop Jan-Andrzej Próchnicki, early seventeenth century
Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities (Medelhavsmuseet), Stockholm, Sweden
Jesus Christ âbreaking bread,â Piarist monastery in Rzeszów, Poland
The biblical wise men, Piarist monastery in Rzeszów, Poland
Armenian merchants from the Polish kingdom, organized into big, well-armed parties or convoys (caravans), regularly traveled as far as Adrianople (present-day Edirne) and Constantinople (Istanbul). The caravans also engaged in trade in Ankara, Tokat, Erzurum, and GümüÅhane, and some individuals even reached as far as the Persian capital city of Isfahan.
Caravanserais dotted the main trade routes in both the Ottoman domains and Persia, providing merchants with lodging and food. Nonetheless, travel in these regions remained unsafe due to the presence of gangs and thieves who ambushed caravans, especially in the mountains. According to Martin Gruneweg, the Danzig-born young German who served as a scribe and secretary for Armenian caravans in 1582â88, before the Armenian merchants set off on a journey, they fasted for a week, confessed, and took communion as if preparing for death.50
Both merchants and their property were protected by treaties between the Ottoman sultans and the Polish kings. These treaties also emphasized the particular role and significance of the Armenian merchants in the trade between the two states. For instance, the capitulations, sent in 1577 by Sultan Murad III to Polish King Stefan Batory, read: â[â¦] when Armenians and other infidel merchants living under the royal hand [i.e., the subjects of the Polish king] want to come to Moldavia and my other well-protected dominions and practice trade, they should not travel through deserted and wild areas or use hidden roads, but they should come by the direct public road which has been customarily traveled by merchants.â51 By openly requiring that the merchants use the public roads, Ottoman authorities ensured that the merchants would not evade the payment of custom duties. Secondly, the public roads were safer from robbers, as they were frequently traveled and patrolled.52
In the 1580s, Martin Gruneweg wrote in his diary that the Armenian merchants had at their disposal the charters for free and safe passage (salvum conductum) granted to them by the Ottoman sultan, the Polish king, and the city of their permanent residence or citizenship.53 Every new sultan granted the Armenian merchants the privileges for free and safe passage. These charters were then kept in the Armenian civil courts in Kamianets and Lviv. Before a caravan left for the Ottoman Empire, the elected leader of the caravan, known as the caravanbashi54 (karban baÅi or kervan baÅi in Ottoman), went to the Armenian city hallâratuszâand requested these charters to assure his group a safe journey. The wójt, the mayor of the autonomous Armenian community in Kamianets, would then give him these so-called âTurkish privilegesâ on eight sheets in one carrying case. The caravanbashi was obligated to use these privileges to defend his companions during the course of the journey and then return the documents upon its conclusion.55
The caravanbashi had authority over cases concerned with trade, the inheritance of dead merchantsâ property, and certain criminal issues. Polish and German merchants who joined the caravan, as well as other travelers, were also under the jurisdiction of the caravanbashi.56
Each caravan consisted of several dozen merchants and servicemen at their disposal. Every merchant had his merchandise loaded on several carts. As a rule, merchants recruited cart drivers, generally Poles who were residents of suburbs in Lviv and Kamianets. All of the caravan members were armed with guns and sabers. In order to protect themselves from robbersâ attacks and the fiscal abuses of customs officers, caravans also joined Polish embassies going to and from Constantinople. An ordinary embassy consisted of several dozen or hundreds of people, even up to 1,200, as in the case of Prince Zbarazskiâs embassy in 1622. On the other hand, the Armenian merchants were helpful fellow travelers. They were bearers of indispensable practical experience in how to deal with the Ottoman authorities and the local Muslim population, how to arrange travel in different segments of the route, how to travel through the mountains, where to find pasture for horses, and many other issues. The Polish ambassadors lacked this knowledge, because their journeys tended to be their firstâand lastâ missions to the sultanâs court. Travelogues and diplomatic reports reveal many examples of services provided by Armenian merchants to Polish ambassadors. The Polish nobleman Erasm Otwinowski recorded an unofficial diary of the embassy led by Andrzej Bzicki in 1557. According to Otwinowski, Polish nobles traveling through Ottoman territories provoked a conflict with a Turkish shepherd, which escalated into a big altercation. The shepherd was killed and several Poles were arrested by the Ottoman judge (kadi). When crossing a river in the Balkans, the Poles were not careful enough and the precious jerid of the ambassador was stolen by two Ottoman horsemen. In both cases, Otwinowski describes the active deeds of brave Armenian merchants at arms,57 who were accustomed to dealing with such conflicts as they shuttled between Lviv and Constantinople.
Moreover, Poland had no permanent representative at the Ottoman court, while Armenian caravans traveled from Poland to Istanbul on a regular basis. Because of that, the caravanbashi also performed the function of a royal courier. Indeed, some Armenian caravanbashis were appointed as royal envoys and even as so-called âlittle ambassadors.â58 In 1601, Sigismund III commissioned the Armenian merchant Sefer Muratowicz as a private royal envoy to the court of the Persian Shah Abbas I to resume a dialogue with a potential ally against the Ottomans.59 The parliament of the Commonwealth, which had the exclusive right to determine the nationâs foreign policy, consistently avoided open war with its powerful Ottoman neighbor. For this reason, the pro-Habsburg Sigismund III did not send an official ambassador, but rather an Armenian merchant under the pretext of buying carpets, tents, and other goods in Persia for the royal court. In the Persian city of Kashan, Muratowicz âordered for His Majesty the King a few carpets of silk and gold to be made, as well as a tent, and a damascene saber.â60 Muratowicz managed to gain access to the shahâs person due to his familial ties to a certain Vizier Tachmasâa Georgian or Armenian by originâwho had never before met Sefer, but had â[â¦] heard all good things about [him] from [his] brothers, who [were] good friends.â61 Muratowiczâs mission resulted in two Persian embassies, which arrived in Poland in 1605 and 1609, along with the shahâs proposal for a multinational anti-Ottoman coalition. Muratowicz himself returned to Poland in 1602 with six Persian carpets, some of which were embroidered with the royal coat of arms (Fig. 15.6). Sigismund III awarded Muratowicz the title âservitorum ac negotiatorum,â which placed him under the direct juridical governance of the king and allowed him to import Tatar, Persian, and Turkish goods without duties, as long as the royal court was allowed to purchase selected items before any other buyer. Muratowicz was also granted the title of âservitor regiusâ and citizenship of Warsaw. In 1642, Sigismund IIIâs daughter Anna Katarzyna Konstancja Vasa (1619â51) married the Elector Palatine Philipp Wilhelm of Neuburg (1615â90). She brought a considerable dowry, including several of the carpets brought from Persia by Muratowicz forty years prior.
So-called âPolish carpetâ (âPolenteppichâ), ca. 1601â2
Bayerischen Schlösserverwaltung, Munich Residenz Museum, Munich, Germany
In order to meet the growing demand for Ottoman and Persian goods during the seventeenth century, Polish manufacturers increased the production of luxury goods, all of which were patterned on Middle Eastern models.62 Armenian merchants had noted the growing demand for Ottoman and Persian luxury goods and facilitated the migration of Armenian artisans from the Middle East to Poland, where they settled in royal and private towns.63 The most popular occupations among Armenian artisans were as skinners, shoemakers, saddlers, tentmakers, goldsmiths, armorers, and fletchers.64 In 1757, Prince MichaÅ Kazimierz RadziwiÅÅ (1702â62) invited the Armenian Jan Madżarski (Yovhan Madzhareants) of Istanbul to begin production of silk sashes, saddlecloths (dywdyki), and tapestries (makaty) of Persian style in the recently established factory (persjarnia) in the cities of NieÅwież and Slutsk, in present-day Belarus.65
5 Armenian Merchants and Middle Eastern Luxury in the Rival Public Discourses
Though many Greeks, Italians, Jews, Turks, and merchants of other ethnic backgrounds were involved in the trade between Poland and the Middle East, in public discourse the trade was almost exclusively associated with Armenians. Initially, the assessment of the Armenian merchant network was quite positive. For example, Maciej Miechowski (ca. 1457â1523), a professor at Kraków University (Jagiellonian University), royal physician to King Sigismund I, and founding father of the myth of Sarmatism in Polish humanism, stated in his âTreatise on the Two Sarmatiasâ that the Armenian merchants from Lviv and Kamianets-Podilskyi âare the best merchants who reached Caffa [in the Crimea], Constantinople, Alexandria in Egypt, al-Kair, and Indian countries to bring goods.â66
However, at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the alliance between the nobility and the Armenian merchants became evident, two rival discourses emerged: one positive, expressed by the nobility; and one negative, propagated by the Catholic clergy and townspeople.67 The noblemen ordinarily described Armenian trade as a positive phenomenon, as Armenian merchants supplied them with the Ottoman and Persian commodities they needed to affirm their Sarmatian identity, and thus to reinforce their republican values.68 Leonard Gorecki (ca. 1530 to post-1582), a Polish nobleman, described the Armenian trade of Ottoman and Persian goods in this manner: âMalmseyâ wine from Turkey to Poland is taken by Armenians through Moldavia, as well as other commoditiesâpepper, crocus, precious flavorings, and carpets, which are accessories of luxury.â69 He did not blame Armenian intermediaries for the temptation of Polish consumers by supplying them with luxury. Likewise, in his pamphlet, Defense of Poland (1648) written in response to these foreign criticisms, Åukasz OpaliÅski (1612â66), a Polish magnate and the court marshall of the crown since 1650, considered the importation of Ottoman and Persian merchandise by Armenian merchants to be a positive phenomenon: âIt is needless to say regarding Asian merchandiseâthat is, Turkish and Persianâin what quantities the Armenians import it to us [in Poland].â70 The nobility saw the conspicuous consumption of these goods as a sign of Polandâs prosperity and superiority.
His brother Krzysztof OpaliÅski (1611â55), on the other hand, was a leader of the noble opposition to King WÅadysÅaw IV and King Jan Kazimierz, and in 1655 he joined the invading Swedish army led by King Charles Gustav. In his Satires, or the Warnings Related to the Reform of Government and Mores in Poland (1650), OpaliÅski criticized excessive consumption, but made no references either to Armenian or to Middle Eastern commodities. His main criticism was directed instead at Italians and Germans for what he considered unfair trade and destructive exportation of currency out of Poland.71 In the chapter entitled âOn the corrupted mores of the female estateâ (Na zepsowane stanu biaÅogÅowskiego obyczaje), OpaliÅski admonished women for âbuying the German jewels from Jews.â72 Since women took no part in politics, their Western-style attire was not important to their Sarmatian identity and was thus criticized by noble satirists.
Even some outspoken clerical and burgher authors fiercely attacked Armenian merchants for supplying the Polish market with âredundant extravaganciesâ and, therefore, for contributing to the economic decline of the cities and the moral decline of the noblemen. Their criticism of Armenian merchants was much stronger than that of the noble Sarmatian consumers of Middle Eastern luxury. Both Catholic clergymen and burghers tried to convince their powerful Sarmatian readers to make changes in their politics. And the Armenian âmobilizersâ became the principal target of the antiluxury rhetoric in order to make the polemistsâ arguments more eloquent and, at the same time, inoffensive to noble readers. The same model was simultaneously used by the Polish Catholic pamphleteers who fiercely attacked Jews, as the Church was fighting a larger battle to eliminate or neutralize by all feasible means any group perceived as a challenge to its hegemony.73 They also tried to persuade the noblemen to cut off their economic symbiosis with Jews.74
The extensive consumption of foreign goodsâfoods, wines, clothes, carpets, armory, and jewelryâby the upper classes was seen by contemporary Catholic intellectuals as a sign of moral decline, caused not only by the sinful human nature but also by the intervention of foreign merchants. In his anti-Armenian pamphlet of 1605, Sebastian Petrycy (1554â1626), a professor of medicine at Kraków University, accused Armenian merchants in the following way: âThey bring to the Kingdom the redundant extravaganciesâcotton handkerchiefs, linen headscarves, and towelsâthough many could live without it. And Persian rugs are recently brought to Poland by them (Armenians).â75 Petrycy returns to the issue of Armenians and Middle Eastern rugs in a poem published in 1609. In a different chapter of the poem entitled âOutrageous luxuryâ (Zbytek nieprzystojny), Petrycy described his beloved motherland as being attacked by foreign goods and exotic food. In this apocalyptic narrative, Petrycy reserves two lines for Armenian merchants and Middle Eastern rugs, mentioning them among other signs of moral decline of the Polish aristocracy as opposed to their virtuous ancestors who ânever dealt with foreign Armenians for hanging the rugs on the walls.â76
In a report to Rome written in 1622, Jan-Andrzej Próchnicki, the Catholic archbishop of Lviv, clearly juxtaposed the fair trade of the Catholics with the unfair practices of the Armenian merchants, though he gave no examples of either: âOnly our Catholic circumspection does not allow them (Armenians) to trade by deception and fraud, to buy by falsity and to gain profit by destroying their soul. For our Catholics [are] also doing their trade, but they keep their conscience safe, and donât suffer losses.â77 As Bishop Piotr Gembicki (1585â1657), chancellor of Poland, pointed out in his instructions to the Polish ambassador sent to the sultan in 1640: âIt is impractical for our Commonwealth to have our [permanent] representative [in Istanbul, as Western nations do]. Though there are several Armenian carts going to Turkey, they did more harm to the Commonwealth, than good.â78
As William Bouwsma has argued, âsocial identity depended on the boundaries between communities and classes, within which the individual was contained and at home. [â¦] Anxiety was thus transmuted into a fear of transgressing the boundaries defining the cultural universe.â79 The response to the growing demand for luxury goods in Poland is an example of trade anxiety: it was seen as dangerous to the established social order since some representatives of the lower groups could use money and luxury for their social advancement.80
6 Conclusion
Luxury, and Middle Eastern luxury in particular, became the focal point of public discourse in seventeenth-century Poland. Throughout early modern Europe, sumptuary laws restricted luxury to the elites, while the Catholic clergy made efforts to reserve luxury goods solely for the royal court and churches.81 And the Catholic patricians in the royal cities attempted to prohibit luxury to plebeians as well as to non-Catholic groups of townspeople. This caused an evident dilemma, because in the Commonwealth Middle Eastern luxury was encouraged in order to demonstrate national identity, political unity, and the power of the ruling elite. Yet, neither legislation nor pamphlets and sermons of clergymen and intellectuals could prevent social distinctions from being transgressed. Luxury knew no law, and rising anxieties about weakening social cohesion were reflected in the numerous works on the moral, military, political, and economic decline of the Commonwealth.
The complexity of luxury acquisition was underpinned by the regular caravan traffic between Poland and the Ottoman Empire, as well as by the migration of some artisans to Poland and the establishment of workshops there. Thus, Middle Eastern luxury goods became available to some economically privileged representatives of the lower estates seeking social advancement. And Armenian merchants were active in all these endeavors, which made them one of the principal targets of the antiluxury polemic.
Middle Eastern luxury signaled fairly complex social messages. For the nobility, it was an expression of its anti-absolutist political values, of a social identity as a privileged elite, and later of national identity. For the elected kings, the adoption of Sarmatian attireâand its representation in gala portraitsâsignaled either a genuine or an insincere adoption of the ârulesâ of the political game as played in their new motherland. For the Catholic clergy, Ottoman and Persian commodities ordered in the Middle East, donated by benefactors, and even imitated in frescoes were expressions of the Churchâs power and splendor in accordance with the Counter-Reformation ideology. At the same time, Ottomanized Sarmatian attire and the excessive Sarmatian way of life were convenient targets of criticismâa fundamental part of the Churchâs strategy to reestablish control over the nobility that had been lost during the Reformation. For the city patricians, the consumption of Ottoman and Persian commodities expressed their aspirations for ennoblement, although, as in the case of the Church, their attitude was also ambivalent. The Catholic patricians blamed the Armenian trading diasporaâas well as that of the Jewsâfor being the âmobilizersâ of the nobilityâs excessive consumption, which in turn caused the economic decline of royal cities. Since Ottoman and Persian commodities became signs of high social status, their consumption by non-Catholic groups of townspeople caused anxiety among patrician and Catholic intellectuals alike. And Armenians dressed in Middle Eastern garments were among the principal targets of their criticism.
Sarmatism as a complex system of political values, cultural signs, and behavioral strategies became a specialized knowledge, which anyone needed as a prerequisite for the appropriate consumption of luxury. Sarmatism, along with its material attributes, was appropriated in multiple ways by representatives of various social groups. The political and military crisis of 1648â60 had fueled discussion over the political system and excessive consumption in the Commonwealth. However, Sarmatism and its luxurious image only strengthened its position as an expression of Polish uniqueness.
Sarmatism also provided a high degree of connection between luxury consumption and the body, the person, and their personality. From the late sixteenth century on, garments, armory, furniture, and horses and their harnesses, as well as hairstyles, gala portraits, donations to churches, and panegyrics at funerals (pompa funebris), became expressions of individual allegiances. Ultimately, through their connection to the imaginary Sarmatian ancestors, and thus to national and social identities, as well as religious and political allegiances, these goods lost any reference to their Ottoman and Persian manufacturers.
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Poskrobko-Strzeciwilk, Janina. âThe 18th-Century Polish Silk Sash and Its Oriental Prototypes.â In The Art of the Islamic World and the Artistic Relationships between Poland and Islamic Countries, edited by Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, Magdalena Ginter-FroÅow and Jerzy Malinowski, 337â346. Kraków: âMangghaâ Museum of Japanese Art and Technology; Warszawa: Polish Institute of World Art Studies, 2011.
Protokul spraw regiminis Armenorum Leopoliensium ab anni 1668 ad 1686. National Library of Ukraine in Lviv. Department of Manuscripts. Fond 5, holding 1, file 1723 II.
PrzyboÅ, Adam, ed. Wielka legacja Wojciecha Miaskowskiego do Turcji w 1640 roku. Kraków: PWN, 1985.
Raveux, Olivier. âEntre réseau communautaire intercontinental et intégration locale: La colonie marseillaise des marchands arméniens de la Nouvelle-Djoulfa (Ispahan), 1669â1695.â Revue dâhistoire moderne et contemporaine 59, no. 1 (2012): 83â102.
Relacya Sefera Muratowicza Obywatela Warszawskiego od Zygmunta III Krola Polskiego Dla Sprawowania Rzeczy WysÅanego do Persyi w Roku 1602. Warszawa: w Drukarni J. K. Mci y Rzpltey Mitzlerowskiey, 1777.
Skarga, Piotr. Kazania sejmowe. Skultuna: Ligatur, 2008.
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Starowolski, Szymon. Reformacya Obyczaiow Polskich. Wszytkim Stanom Oyczyzny naszey, teraźnieyszych czasow zepsowanych barzo potrzebna. Ca. 1653.
Starowolski, Szymon. Polska albo opisanie poÅożenia królestwa Polskiego. GdaÅsk: Tower Press, 2000. [Originally published in Latin as Starovolsci, Simonis. Polonia sive status Regni Poloniae descriptio. Coloniae: Apud Henricum Crithium, 1632.]
Szuppe, Maria. âUn marchand du roi de Pologne en Perse, 1601â1602.â Moyen Orient et Océan Indien, XVIeâXIXe s. 3 (1986): 81â110.
Teter, Magda. Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Wyrobisz, Andrzej. âAttitude of the Polish Nobility towards Towns in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century.â Acta Poloniae Historica 48 (1983): 77â94.
ZabÅocki, Franciszek. Sarmatyzm: Komedya w piÄciu aktach. Edited by Ludwik Bernacki. Kraków: Krakowska SpóÅka Wydawnicza, 1928.
Zakrzewska-Dubasowa, MirosÅawa. Ormianie Zamojscy i ich rola w wymianie handlowej i kulturalnej miÄdzy PolskÄ a Wschodem [Armenians of ZamoÅÄ and their role in the commercial and cultural exchanges between Poland and the Orient]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-SkÅodowskiej, 1965.
Zakrzewska-Dubasowa, MirosÅawa. Ormianie w Dawnej Polsce [Armenians in Old Poland]. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, 1982.
Zakrzewska-Dubasowa, MirosÅawa. âPolityka handlowa Jana Zamoyskiego i jego nastÄpców.â Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-SkÅodowska. Sectio F, Historia 38/39 (1983/1984): 93â114.
Zygmunt, MirosÅawa. âPersica: A Brief History of Polish-Persian Relations through Documents from the National Library.â Polish Libraries Today 6 (2005): 96â105.
Å»ygulski, ZdzisÅaw. âArmenians in Poland: A Foreign Culture Incorporated.â In The Art of the Islamic World and the Artistic Relationships between Poland and Islamic Countries, edited by Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, Magdalena Ginter-FroÅow and Jerzy Malinowski, 317â536. Kraków: âMangghaâ Museum of Japanese Art and Technology; Warszawa: Polish Institute of World Art Studies, 2011.
Notes
For the ongoing debates on the definition of âSarmatism,â see StanisÅaw Cynarski, âThe Shape of Sarmatian Ideology in Poland,â Acta Poloniae Historica 19 (1968): 5â17; Anke Heynoldt, âDie Bedeutung des Sarmatismus für das Nationsbewusstsein und die Kultur des polnischen Adels zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert,â Kultursoziologie 7, no. 1 (1998): 6â57; âDie polnische Kulturgeschichtsschreibung und das Problem Sarmatismus,â Kultursoziologie 8, no. 1 (1999): 29â68; Joanna Dziubkowa, Szlachetne dziedzictwo czy przeklÄty spadek. Tradycje sarmackie w sztuce i kulturze, katalog wystawy, Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu [The noble patrimony or accursed heritage. Sarmatian traditions in art and culture. Exhibition catalogue of the National Museum of PoznaÅ] (PoznaÅ: Muzeum Narodowe, 2004); Karin Friedrich, âHistory, Myth, and Historical Identity,â in Early Modern Europe: Issues and Interpretations, eds. James B. Collins and Karen L. Taylor (Oxford: Malden, 2006), 41â54; Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, âSarmatismusâZur Begriffsgeschichte und den Chancen und Grenzen als forschungsleitender Begriff,â Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 57, no. 3 (2009): 402â8; Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, ed., Sarmatyzm: Sen o potÄdze [Sarmatism: A dream of power] (Kraków: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, 2010); Magdalena DÅugosz and Piotr O. Scholz, eds., Sarmatismus versus Orientalismus in Mitteleuropa / Sarmatyzm versus Orientalizm w Europie Årodkowej (Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2013); Robert Born and Sabine Jagodzinski, eds., Türkenkriege und Adelskultur in Ostmitteleuropa vom 16 bis zum18. Jahrhundert (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2014).
Tadeusz Majda, ed., ArcydzieÅa sztuki perskiej ze zbiorów polskich [Masterpieces of Persian art in Polish collections] (Warszawa: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, 2002); MirosÅawa Zygmunt, âPersica: A Brief History of Polish- Persian Relations,â Polish Libraries Today 6 (2005): 96â105; Waldemar Deluga, ed., Ars Armeniaca: Sztuka ormiaÅska ze zbiorów polskich i ukraiÅskich. Katalog wystawy (ZamoÅÄ: Muzeum Zamojskie, 2010); Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, Magdalena Ginter-FroÅow and Jerzy Malinowski, eds., The Art of the Islamic World and the Artistic Relationships between Poland and Islamic Countries (Kraków: âMangghaâ Museum of Japanese Art and Technology, 2011); Paulina Banas, âPersian Art and the Crafting of Polish Identity,â The Fascination of Persia: The Persian-European Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Art and Contemporary Art of Teheran, ed. Axel Langer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 118â35; Robert Born and MichaÅ Dziewulski, eds., The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Culture: Papers from the International Conference at the National Museum in Krakow June 26â27, 2015 (Kraków: The National Museum in Krakow, 2015); Robert Born, MichaÅ Dziewulski and Guido Messling, eds., The Sultanâs World: The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art. Exhibition Catalogue (Brussels: Palais des Beaux-Arts; Kraków: Muzeum Narodowe, 2015).
Adam JasieÅski, âA Savage Magnificence: Ottomanizing Fashion and the Politics of Display in Early Modern East- Central Europe,â Muqarnas: Middle East and Islamic Studies 31, no. 1 (2014): 173â205.
MirosÅawa Zakrzewska-Dubasowa, Ormianie Zamojscy i ich rola w wymianie handlowej i kulturalnej miÄdzy PolskÄ a Wschodem [Armenians of ZamoÅÄ and their role in the commercial and cultural exchanges between Poland and the Orient] (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-SkÅodowskiej, 1965); MirosÅawa Zakrewska- Dubasowa, Ormianie w Dawnej Polsce [Armenians in Old Poland] (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, 1982); Eleonora Nadel-Golobic, âArmenians and Jews in Medieval Lvov: The Role in Oriental Trade, 1400â1600,â Cahires du Monde russe et soviètique 20 (1979): 345â88; Andrzej DziubiÅski, Na szlakach Orientu: Handel miÄdzy PolskÄ a imperium OsmaÅskim w XVIâXVII wieku [On the routes of the Orient: Trade between Poland and the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenthâeighteenth centuries] (WrocÅaw: Fundacja na rzecz Nauki Polskiej, 1998); Alexandr Osipian, âTrans-Cultural Trade in the Black Sea Region, 1250â1700: Integration of Armenian Trading Diaspora in Moldavian Principality,â New Europe College Black Sea Link Yearbook (2012â13): 113â58.
ZdzisÅaw Å»ygulski, âArmenians in Poland: A Foreign Culture Incorporated,â in The Art of the Islamic World and the Artistic Relationships Between Poland and Islamic Countries, eds. Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, Magdalena Ginter-FroÅow, and Jerzy Malinowski (Kraków: Polish Institute of World Art Studies, 2011), 317â36; Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, Ormianie polscy: OdrÄbnoÅÄ i asymilacja [Armenians of Poland: Distinctiveness and assimilation] (Kraków: Muzeum Narodowe, 1999).
Arjun Appadurai, âIntroduction,â in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 38.
Appadurai, âIntroduction,â 38.
Baghdiantz McCabe, Orientalism in Early Modern France: Eurasian Trade, Exoticism and the Ancien Regime (New York: Berg, 2008), in chapter 10, âOrientalism, Despotism, and Luxury.â
Cynarski, âThe Shape of Sarmatian Ideology in Poland.â
Friedrich, âHistory, Myth, and Historical Identity.â
Except for a turban, which was considered a sign of being Muslim.
Nancy Bisaha, ââNew Barbarianâ or Worthy Adversary? Humanist Constructs of the Ottoman Turks in Fifteenth- Century Italy,â in Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other, eds. M. Frassetto and D. Blanks (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), 194; Margaret Meserve, Empires of Islam in Renaissance Historical Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 68.
JasieÅski, âSavage Magnificence,â 177.
Kazimierz Kozica and Janusz Pezda, eds., Imago Poloniae: Dawna Rzeczpospolita na mapach, dokumentach i starodrukach w zbiorach Tomasza NiewodniczaÅskiego [Old Polish Commonwealth on maps, in documents and old prints in the collection of Tomasz NiewodniczaÅski], vols. 1â2 (Warszawa: Agencja Reklamowo-Wydawnicza A. Grzegorczyk, 2002) cat. H8/1.
âCzemuż JoKMÄ bÄdÄ c caro de carne, os de ossibus nostris, abhorret narodu Polskiego vestitum, a cudzoziemskÄ sobie, iakoby opprobrio gentis Polonae, ktorÄ przodkowie nasi fastidio mieli, upodobaÅ modÄ?â; Franciszek Kulczycki, ed., Diariusz Seymu Warszawskiego w styczniu roku 1672 (Kraków: Akademia UmiejÄtnoÅci, 1880), 9.
Franciszek Bohomolec, MaÅżeÅstwo z kalendarza: Komedia (Warszawa: w Drukarni J.K.M. i Rzeczy- Pospolitey w Kollegium Societ. Jesu, [1775]); Franciszek ZabÅocki, Sarmatyzm: Komedya w piÄciu aktach, ed. Ludwik Bernacki (Kraków: Krakowska SpóÅka Wydawnicza, [1928]); MieczysÅaw Klimowicz, OÅwiecenie (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2012), 246â48.
Baghdiantz McCabe, Orientalism, 265â66.
Baghdiantz McCabe, Orientalism, 266.
Baghdiantz McCabe, Orientalism, 267.
âMala est pluralitas principum, sit ergo unus rexâ; Iliad, II, 198â99.
Piotr Skarga, Kazania sejmowe (Skultuna: Ligatur, 2008), 39.
Szymon Starowolski, Polska albo opisanie poÅożenia królestwa Polskiego (GdaÅsk: Tower Press, 2000), 101â102; originally published in Latin as Simonis Starovolsci, Polonia sive status Regni Poloniae descriptio (Coloniae: Apud Henricum Crithium, 1632).
Starowolski, Polska, 111.
Starowolski, Polska, 102â3, 104.
Szymon Starowolski, Prywat PolskÄ kieruie po nim stateczny sÅuga Rzeczypospolitey, nastÄpuie (n.p., 1649), A4.
Szymon Starowolski, Reformacya Obyczaiow Polskich. Wszytkim Stanom Oyczyzny naszey, teraźnieyszych czasow zepsowanych barzo potrzebna (n.p., ca. 1653), 37.
Starowolski, Reformacya Obyczaiow, 30.
Wespazjan Hieronim Kochowski, NieproznujÄ ce proznowanie ojczystym rymem na lirica i epigrammata polskie rozdzielone y wydane (Kraków: w Drukarni WoyÄiecha Goreckiego, 1674), 50â51.
Denuszka or Demeszkaâa Turkish saber made of Damask steel. The sabers and sheaths were decorated with gold, silver, and precious stones. In this case, a saber was decorated with turquoises (Turkusy).
Andzar (from Arabic khanjar and Turkish Hançer)âa short curved dagger shaped like the letter âJâ that resembles a hook.
Nadźiakâa kind of battle hammer or blade with a beak that was used to break the enemyâs helmet and armor. Nadźiak was also seen by contemporaries as a symbol of high social status, that is, a man of quality. In the poem, Kochowski wrote that the nadźiak of the hussar was made of gold.
CzoÅdar (from Turkish çuldar)âa Turkish horsecloth or saddlecloth.
SiodÅo RumelskieâRumelian saddle, that is, a saddle made in the Ottoman province of Rumelia (southern part of present-day Bulgaria).
Teley (delja, deljura, telej, telet, from Turkish tellu, telli)âa fabric made with golden threads. In early modern Poland, teley or delja was a cloth made out of Middle Eastern textiles and worn over a shirt.
Pas w Karmażynie SekiemskÄ robotÄ âa silk sash (TurkishâkuÅak) of a dark red color (from Turkish qırmızıââredâ) made on the island of Chios.
But z Turska wielkiâa Turkish boot of bigger size.
Baczmagi (from Turkish baÅmag, baÅmak)âTurkish footwear, the cavalry soldierâs boot, made with soft tops, of variable height but typically knee high, and with a semicircular heel. The fancy version used gold or red morocco (saffian) or embossed (kurdybanowych) leather.
Kochowski, NieproznujÄ ce proznowanie, 51.
Kochowski, NieproznujÄ ce proznowanie, 214.
Many times Kochowski defined the Polish warriors as âSarmatiansâ (Sarmata), for instance, when describing the war between Poland and Sweden (1655â60).
Kochowski, NieproznujÄ ce proznowanie, 289â91.
See also Emese Pásztor, âOttoman Turkish Textiles in Christian ChurchesâParticularly in Transylvania and Royal Hungary,â in The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Culture. Papers from the International Conference at the National Museum in Krakow June 26â27, 2015, eds. Robert Born and MichaÅ Dziewulski (Kraków: The National Museum in Krakow, 2015), 193â214.
In fact, the design is a floral pattern of leaves attached to rosettes.
Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, âThe Place of Ottoman Art in Polish Art during the Renaissance,â in The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Culture. Papers from the International Conference at the National Museum in Krakow June 26â27, 2015, eds. Robert Born and MichaÅ Dziewulski (Kraków: The National Museum in Krakow, 2015), 218, ill. 2.
In 1585, King Stefan Batory commissioned, for the embellishment of the royal castle in Kraków, âcarpets with birds of the kind commonly made in Turkeyâ; Tadeusz MaÅkowski, Sztuka Islamu w Polsce w XVII i XVIII wieku (Kraków: NakÅ. Polskiej Akademji UmiejÄtnoÅci, 1935), 22â23; Beata BiedroÅska-SÅotowa, âArt of Islam in the History of Polish Art, in The Orient in Polish Art. Catalogue of the Exhibition, ed. Beata BiedroÅska-SÅotowa (Kraków: National Museum in Kraków, 1992), 15.
Beata BiedroÅska-SÅota, âKobierce Islamu w polskim malarstwie. Przyczynek do ikonografii tkanin orientalnych,â Rozprawy i Sprawozdania Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie. Seria Nowa 1 (1999): 119â20.
Stephen Greenblatt, âMobility Studies Manifesto,â in Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 251.
Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, The Shahâs Silk for Europeâs Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the Julfa Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530â1750) (Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1999); Edmund Herzig, âVenice and the Julfa Armenian Merchants,â in Gli Armeni e Venezia. Dagli Sceriman a Mechitar: Il momento culminante di una consuetudine millenari, eds. Boghos L. Zekiyan and Aldo Ferrari (Venezia: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 2004), 141â64; Sushil Chaudhury and Kéram Kévonian, eds., Armenians in Asian Trade in the Early Modern Era (Paris: Maison des sciences de lâhomme, 2008); Sebouh David Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, Isfahan, 1605â1747 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); René Arthur Bekius, âThe Armenian Colony in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Armenian Merchants from Julfa Before and After the Fall of the Safavid Empire,â in Iran and the World in the Safavid Age, eds. Willem Floor and Edmund Herzig (New York: I.B.Tauris & Co, 2012), 259â84; Olivier Raveux, âEntre réseau communautaire intercontinental et intégration locale: La colonie marseillaise des marchands arméniens de la Nouvelle-Djoulfa (Ispahan), 1669â1695,â Revue dâhistoire moderne et contemporaine 59, no. 1 (2012): 83â102.
For more details on Armenian judicial autonomy, see Alexandr Osipian, âLegal Pluralism in the Cities of the Early Modern Kingdom of Poland: The Jurisdictional Conflicts and Uses of Justice by Armenian Merchants,â in The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600â1900, eds. Griet Vermeesch, Manon Van Der Heijden and Jaco Zuijderduijn (London: Routledge, 2019), 80â102.
Andrzej Wyrobisz, âAttitude of the Polish Nobility towards Towns in the First Half of the 17th Century,â Acta Poloniae Historica 48 (1983): 90â91; MirosÅawa Zakrzewska-Dubasowa, âPolityka handlowa Jana Zamoyskiego i jego nastÄpców,â Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-SkÅodowska. Sectio F, Historia 38/39 (1983/1984): 93â114.
âWen die Armenier auff diese reyze wegfertig sein, fasten sie etliche tage, auch eine gantze woche vor dem ausstzuge, beichten, comunitzieren, gleich goltte es ihnen tzum thotteâ; Almut Bues, ed., Die Aufzeichnungen des Dominikaners Martin Gruneweg (1562âca. 1618): über seine Familie in Danzig, seine Handelsreisen in Osteuropa und sein Klosterleben in Polen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), bd. 2, 687.
Dariusz KoÅodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15thâ18th Century): An Annotated Edition of âAhdnames and Other Documents (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 278.
Dariusz KoÅodziejczyk, âPolish-Ottoman Trade Routes in the Times of Martin Gruneweg,â in Martin Gruneweg (1562âafter 1615): A European Way of Life, ed. Almut Bues (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009), 168.
âDie Armenier haben alletzeitt diesem wege tzugefallen etliche Pasbriewe untter sich, sowol vom Turckischen Keyser als Polnischen Könige oder ihrer Statt;â Bues, Die Aufzeichnungen, 686.
For more details on the caravanbashi office, see Alexandr Osipian, âVoting at home: Elections of Mayors and Caravanbashi by Armenian Merchants in Poland and the Ottoman Empire, 1500â1700,â in Cultures of Voting in Pre-Modern Europe, eds. Serena Ferente, Lovro KunÄeviÄ and Miles Pattenden (London: Routledge, 2018), 310â28.
These privileges were mentioned in the records of the Armenian court in Kamianets at least twiceâeight charters in 1604, twelve charters in 1615, and five more charters issued to cross the border over the Dniester River; Central Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, fond 39, holding 1, file 20, fol.50; file 26, fol.40, published in Oleksandr Garkavets, Virmeno-qypchatski rukopysy [Armenian-Qipchaq manuscripts in Ukraine, Armenia, Russia: The catalogue] (Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1993).
DziubiÅski, Na szlakach Orientu, 36â37.
Erasm Otwinowski, âWypisanie drogi tureckiej, gdym tam z posÅem wielkim wielmoznym panem Andrzejem Bzickim, kasztelanem cheÅmskim, od króÅa Zygmunta Augusta poslanym roku paÅskiego 1557 jeździl,â in Podróże i poselstwa polskie de Turcyi a mianowicie; podróż E. Otwinowskiego 1557, JÄdrzeja Taranowskiego komornika j.k.m. 1569, i poselstwo Piotra Zborowskiego 1568, ed. Ignacy Kraszewski (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Biblioteki Polskiej, 1860), 33â36.
Janusz Dorobisz, âEpilog wielkiej legacji Krzysztofa Zbaraskiego do StambuÅuâmisja Krzysztofa Serebkowicza z 1623 roku,â in Region nadczarnomorski w polityce europejskiej. PrzeszÅoÅÄâdzieÅ dzisiejszy, ed. Tomasz Ciesielski and WiaczesÅaw Kusznir (Odessa, Opole, WrocÅaw: n.p., 2008), 66â70.
Relacya Sefera Muratowicza Obywatela Warszawskiego Od Zygmunta III Krola Polskiego Dla Sprawowania Rzeczy WysÅanego do Persyi w Roku 1602. (Warszawa: w Drukarni J.K. Mci y Rzpltey Mitzlerowskiey, 1777); Tadeusz MaÅkowski, âWyprawa po Kobierce,â Rocznik orientalistyczny 17 (1953): 184â211; Maria Szuppe, âUn marchand du roi de Pologne en Perse, 1601â1602,â Moyen Orient et Océan Indien, XVIeâXIXe s. 3 (1986): 81â110; MichaÅ PoÅczyÅski, âThe Relacyja of Sefer Muratowicz: 1601â1602 Private Royal Envoy of Sigismund III Vasa to Shah âAbbas I,â The Turkish Historical Review 5, no. 1 (2014): 59â93.
PoÅczyÅski, âThe Relacyja of Sefer Muratowicz,â 26.
PoÅczyÅski, âThe Relacyja of Sefer Muratowicz,â 27.
BiedroÅska-SÅotowa, âThe Art of Islam,â 14.
Andrzej Janeczek, ed., Album Civium Leopoliensium: Rejestry przyjec do prawa miejskiego we Lwowie 1388â1788 (PoznaÅ: Wydawn. PoznaÅskiego Tow. PrzyjacióŠNauk, 2005), 1,:303, 307, 327, 331.
For instance, in the list of Armenian community members in Lemberg, composed on August 15, 1669, the artisan occupation was recorded for fifteen men. There were five goldsmiths (zÅotnik), four fletchers (lucznik), a dyer (falbiersz), a shoemaker (szwiec), and a capmaker (czapnik); see Protokul spraw regiminis Armenorum Leopoliensium ab anni 1668 ad 1686 (National Library of Ukraine in Lviv. Department of Manuscripts), fond 5, holding 1, file 1723 II: fol. 17â17v; WÅadysÅaw ÅoziÅski, OrmiaÅski epilog lwowskiej sztuki zÅotniczej (Kraków: Druk. Uniwersytetu JagielloÅskiego, 1901).
Janina Poskrobko-Strzeciwilk, âThe 18th-Century Polish Silk Sash and Its Oriental Prototypes,â in The Art of the Islamic World and the Artistic Relationships between Poland and Islamic Countries, ed. Beata BiedroÅska- SÅota, Magdalena Ginter-FroÅow and Jerzy Malinowski (Kraków: âMangghaâ Museum of Japanese Art and Technology; Warszawa: Polish Institute of World Art Studies, 2011), 337â46; Anatoly P. Gritskevich, âArmianskaia manufaktura v Belorussii v kontse XVIII veka,â Vestnik obshchestvennykh nauk AN Armianskoi SSR 4 (1967): 44â53.
âHi sunt mercatores peritissimi, ad Caffam, Constantinopolim, ad Alexandriam Aegypti, ad Alkairam et partes Indiae penetrantes et merces afferentsâ; Mathias de Miechow, Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis Europiana et Asiana et de contentis in eis (Augusta Vindelicorum: S. Grimm, M. Wirsung, 1518), 40.
Alexandr Osipian, âBetween Mercantilism, Oriental Luxury and the Ottoman Threat,â Acta Poloniae Historica 116 (2017): 171â208.
âMalmaticum vinum ex Turcia, & id genus alia in Poloniam Armenii per Valachiam aduehunt: piperitem, crocum, preciosa aromata, peristromata, quae sunt instrumÄta luxuriaeâ; Leonhard Gorecki, Descriptio belli Ivoniae, Voivodae Valachiae quod anno 1574 cum Selymo II Turcarum imperatore (Frankfurt: Wechel, 1578), 19.
Åukasz OpaliÅski, Obrona Polski, trans. Kazimierz Tyszkowski (Lwów and Warszawa: KsiÄ Å¼nica Polska T-wa Nauczycieli SzkóŠWyższych, 1921), 26. Originally published as Åukasz OpaliÅski, Polonia defensa contra Joannem Barclaium [Defense of Poland to John Barclay] (1648).
Krzysztof OpaliÅski, Satyry (WrocÅaw: ZakÅad Narodowy im. OssoliÅskichâWydaw; Warszawa: De Agostini Polska, 2005), 180.
Krzysztof OpaliÅski, Satyry albo przestrogi do naprawy rzÄ du i obyczajów w Polsce należace, na piÄÄ ksiÄ g rozdzielone (Kraków: Universitas, 2004), 45.
Magda Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 133.
Teter, Jews and Heretics, 32, 80â82, 91â92.
Sebastian Petrycy, Polityki Aristotelesowey, to iest rzÄ du Rzeczypospolitey z dokÅadem ksiag osmioro (Kraków: w Drukarni Symona Kempiniego, 1605), cxxxii.
Sebastian Petrycy, Horatius Flaccus w trudach wiÄzienia moskiewskiego, ed. Adam Trojak (Kraków: TAiWPN Universitas, 2004), 60.
Litterae Episcoporum historiam Ucrainae illustrantes (1600â1900) (Roma: PP. Basiliani, 1972), 1:87â89.
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