Iranian Studies in Poland

In: Iranian studies, Band 20, Heft 2-4, S. 179-221

Abstract

As a result of its union with Lithuania at the end of the fourteenth century, Poland, for about 400 years, came into the immediate neighborhood of Muslim states the Golden Horde, the Khanate of Crimea and, last but not least, Ottoman Turkey. Poland's relations with her Eastern and Southeastern neighbors, though often hostile, were not limited to wars; diplomatic and economic contacts were maintained, and Eastern provinces of the country became a territory of symbiosis and mutual cultural influence. Oriental minorities living within the borders of the Polish state--Armenians, Tatars, Karaites--assumed the role of mediators between the Christian and Muslim realms. Thus, Poland's contact with the Islamic world was relatively close in this period. Both practical and theoretical Oriental interests in Poland were focused on the Ottoman Empire, as was natural for both Poland and other European countries in this epoch of Ottoman domination of the entire Near East.