Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)

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234 part two—chapter one

the Muscovian chancery, Xoroškevič yet suggests that the text was

rather composed in the Crimea already in the Ruthenian language.

e use of the East Slavic language(s) along with the Turkic one(s)

in the Crimean chancery is unequivocally conrmed by the correspon-

dence between Qırq Yer and Vilnius. Aer all, before he ascended the

Crimean throne, Hadji Giray had spent numerous years in Lithuania

and was regarded by contemporaries as a Lithuanian client. e oldest

original Crimean document, preserved in Poland, is the letter sent by

Hadji’s son, Mengli Giray, to Jurij Radziwiłł, the palatine of Kiev, in

March 1512.

Sealed with the khan’s nişan, it is composed in Ruthe-

nian and begins with the words: Velykoe Ordy ot velykoho carja Mengli

Gereja Carja slovo (Великое ѡрды ѿ великого ц҃р҃ѧ мен҃ли гереꙗ

ц҃р҃ѧ слово). It was surely not the only document in Ruthenian, issued

by Mengli Giray, although it might be the only one extant today. In

1514, in a letter to Mengli Giray, Sigismund acquitted the receipt of

the khan’s two letters of identical contents, written in Ruthenian and

Tatar (lysty svoy v odno slovo po rusky y po tatarsky k nam pryslal esy).

Unfortunately, none of these letters is preserved today in the original,

although we nd Mengli’s letters from 1514 in numerous Ruthenian

copies.

In 1562, when Mengli’s grandson, Devlet Giray, urged Sigismund

Augustus to join his campaign against Muscovy, the khan’s letter,

issued in a military camp on the Samara river, was again drawn in

Ruthenian. Since in that period the khans apparently did not take

along their solemn seals (nişans) on military campaigns, the letter was

corroborated merely with Devlet’s signet seal. Apart from the sealed

original, preserved today in the Polish archives, a copy of the khan’s

letter is entered in the Lithuanian Register books.

If the original had

not been preserved, perhaps some scholars would have argued today

that the copy preserved in the Lithuanian Register must be the transla-

tion of the lost Turkic original!

ere are further hints indicating that there were more than one lan-

guage options for a khan’s instrument to be issued in. In his şartname

Xoroškevič, Rus’ i Krym, p. 19; Mengli’s letter is recorded among the Tatar

embassy papers from 1509.

Cf. n. 123 in Part I.

Pułaski, Stosunki Polski z Tatarszczyzną, p. 445.

Cf. n. 292 in Part I; for a similar situation, when the khan corroborated his docu-

ment with a signet seal since he lacked his nişan while campaigning in Hungary, see

n. 270 below.

the language and preservation of documents 235

(prysjažnyj lyst), sent to Casimir in 1480 and preserved today in a

Ruthenian copy, Mengli Giray refers to his oath, “pronounced in [his]

own language” (rekučy svoym jazykom) in the presence of the royal

envoy as if the oath could have been pronounced in another language

as well.

At times, it was the Christian side that insisted for the khan’s

document to be written in the khan’s own language and Arabic script.

In 1514, Sigismund asked Mengli Giray for an instrument of peace

“written in Muslim words” (pysany musulmanskymy slovy), appar-

ently in the hope that the khan would not break a promise written in

Arabic—the sacred script of the Koran.

Beside Ruthenian, the Crimean chancery used other “indel”

languages as well. e use of Greek is conrmed by Mengli Giray’s

letter, addressed in 1481 to Genovese envoys, that is preserved in

the original stamped with the khan’s nişan.

As to the Western lan-

guages, the instrument of Nur Devlet, addressed in 1467 to Casimir, is

preserved in a eenth-century Latin copy that contains a strikingly

precise datatio referring to the Muslim calendar (anno Saracenorum

octugentesimo septuagesimo secundo mensis Zapher). Furthermore,

two letters by Mengli Giray, addressed in 1472 to the kings of Poland

See Document 6.

Cf. n. 148 in Part I; four years earlier, Sigismund had contacted the chief mul-

lah at the khan’s court, asking for mediation and invoking the addressee’s religious

authority among the Giray dynasty members; see n. 116 in Part I.

Encouraged by the death of Mehmed II in 1481, Genova revived its diplomatic

activity in the Black Sea region and tried to gain the support of the local rulers, includ-

ing Mengli Giray, for restoring its suzerainty in Caa. In September 1481, two Geno-

vese envoys, Bartolomeo da Campofregoso and Lodisio Fiesco, arrived at Kiev (the

form Mancreman, encountered in Genovese sources, derives from the Turkish name

of Kiev: Mankerman) and, with the consent of King Casimir, began correspondence

with Mengli Giray, who invited them to come incognito to his court and discuss

the secret project of an anti-Ottoman alliance. e Genovese-Crimean negotiations

lasted for two more years but did not bring any result; see Giacomo Grasso, Docu-

menti riguardanti la costituzione di una lega contro il Turco nel 1481 (extratto dal

Giornale Ligustico) (Genova, 1880), pp. 21–22, 89–96, and 162–174; cf. Şerban Papa-

costea, “Caa et la Moldavie face à l’expansion ottomane (1453–1484),” in: Colocviul

româno-italian “Genovezii la Marea Neagră în secolele XIII–XIV.” Bucureşti, 27–28

martie 1975. Edited by Ş. Pascu (Bucharest, 1977): 131–153, esp. pp. 152–153. e

Greek text of Mengli’s invitation, addressed to the Genovese envoys and dated on

30 December [1481], is published in Franz Miklosich and Joseph Müller (eds.), Acta

et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana, vol. 3: Acta et diplomata graeca res

graecas italasque illustrantia (Vienna, 1865), pp. 292–293, and again, along with a

Latin version, in Grasso, Documenti, pp. 168–169; for the facsimile of the original

document in Greek, preserved in the State Archives in Genova, see Księga podróży

Ewliji Czelebiego. Edited by Z. Abrahamowicz (Warsaw, 1969), p. 325.

236 part two—chapter one

and Bohemia, are also preserved in Latin copies recorded in the Pol-

ish Crown Register books.

Finally, an early sixteenth-century manu-

script, held today in Zagreb, contains a Latin copy of a letter addressed

by Mengli Giray to John Albert, the king of Poland. It is dated in

Qırk Yer on 10 February 1500 (Ex Chercher . . . millesimo quingen-

tesimo die decima Februarii) and even contains the standard sözüm

formula (Menlicherei verbum meum).

Since none of the above let-

ters is preserved in the original, we cannot be entirely sure that they

were originally drawn in Latin, but at least the use of Italian, precisely

its northern dialect spoken in Genovese Caa, by the Crimean chan-

cery is well evidenced. Numerous Italians entered the khan’s service

aer the Ottoman conquest of Caa and other Black Sea colonies, to

mention only Vicenzo de Guidulphis, the son of the Genovese ruler

of Matrega (Taman’), and Augustino de Garibaldis, a Genovese from

Caa whose brothers lived in Spain. ese characters make perfect

representatives of the Genovese diaspora then dispersed between the

Caspian and the Spanish New World.

e oldest document published

in the present volume, which is preserved in the original, is Mengli

Giray’s instrument from 1514, provided with the khan’s golden nişan

and composed in Italian. It was sent to King Sigismund in response to

the latter’s instrument in Latin, issued on behalf of the Polish Crown.

e task of drawing the khan’s instrument was entrusted to Augustino

de Garibaldis. e Crimean chancery did not make much dierence

between Italian and Latin and in its correspondence in Ruthenian it

referred to both languages as “Frankish” (frjažskyj). It was probably

easier to nd a clerk uent in Italian than in Latin since the knowledge

of Latin among the members of Italian diaspora was on the decrease.

Although Italians continued to serve in the Khanate’s diplomacy into

the 17th century, there is no evidence that the Crimean chancery used

Italian in the years following the death of Mengli Giray. Due to their

For the instrument from 1467, see Document 2. For the two letters from 1472,

see AGAD, Metryka Koronna, Libri Inscriptionum, no. 12, fol. 79a–79b; they are pub-

lished in Pułaski, Stosunki Polski z Tatarszczyzną, p. 199; on the Crimean embassy

from 1472, cf. n. 53 in Part I.

Published in Józef Garbacik (ed.), Materiały do dziejów dyplomacji polskiej z lat

1486–1516 (Kodeks zagrzebski) (Wrocław-Warsaw-Cracow, 1966), pp. 89–91.

On Vicenzo de Guidulphis and Augustino de Garibaldis, see Document 16, notes

10 and 18.

A similar process can be observed in the Ottoman chancery: while the eenth-

century letters sent from Istanbul to Cracow were drawn in Ottoman Turkish or Latin,

in the 16th century Italian replaced Latin as the second language.

the language and preservation of documents 237

rising acculturation, Italians themselves gradually forgot their vernac-

ular although they oen kept Genovese family names along with Tatar

or Tatarized names and titles.

While many scholars described and oen deplored the Ottomaniza-

tion of the Crimean chancery, another paralell and fascinating process

went almost unnoticed. We would call it—toutes proportions gardées—

the Polonization of the seventeenth-century Crimean chancery. By

the late 17th century, Polish had been largely adopted in everyday

use by the Lithuanian and Ruthenian nobility, and replaced Ruthe-

nian as the ocial language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It also

became widely spoken among the upper strata of Ukrainian Cossacks,

Armenian merchants living in Poland-Lithuania, and even Moldavian

boyars. To be sure, the usage of Polish as the tool of communica-

tion was not equal to the loyalty towards the Polish king and institu-

tions; to give just one example: when in 1653 Bohdan Xmel’nyc’kyj,

the leader of the Cossack rebellion against the Polish rule, sent a letter

to the Ottoman grand vizier, the letter was composed in Polish and

corroborated with Xmel’nyc’kyj’s signature in Polish.

Many Tatars experienced captivity in Poland, taken prisoner in result

of failed raids. While the rank and le were usually settled as slaves

and with time they assimilated into the local society, the nobles could

hope for redemption or a chance to be released during the nearest pac-

ication, although sometimes they had to wait quite a long time. In the

years 1629–1634, such fate fell to the lot of the future khan Islam III

Giray, imprisoned in Rawa, where he had many opportunities to meet

Polish dignitaries and learn Polish. In the years 1649–1653, the Tatars

led by Islam III Giray assisted the Cossack rebellion and took part in

numerous engagements with the Polish troops, while in the years 1654–

1666 the Tatars and the Poles fought alongside against the Russians

and the Swedes. Either in war or in alliance, there were numerous

opportunities to learn each other’s customs and sometimes even lan-

guage. Besides, the Crimean society was anything but homogeneous

and there were many Polish “renegates”—both of common and noble

On the Genovese in the khans’ service, cf. Document 45, n. 8.

For the letter, preserved in the original in the Topkapı Archives, see Nigâr Ana-

farta, Osmanlı Imparatorlugu ile Lehistan (Polonya) arasındaki münasebetlerle ilgili

tarihi belgeler/Historical documents concerning relations between the Ottoman Empire

and Lehistan (Poland) [(Istanbul, 1979)], no. 19 (pp. 17 and 15–16 of the Turkish and

English versions, respectively; see also Figure 5 for the facsimile).

238 part two—chapter one

origin—who made career at the khan’s court. Some of them may have

been kidnapped, especially at a young age, which facilitated accultura-

tion. Others might have arrived at their free will.

In the 1660s, a

prominent role in the khan’s chancery was played by a certain Islam

Bey, who had retained his Polish noble surname along with the new

Muslim identity and signed his letters to Polish dignitaries as Isłan

Bey Cegielski.

A prominent Tatar diplomat and go-between in the

same period was Dedesh Agha, who spoke Polish, headed numerous

embassies to Poland, and even posed for the royal court painter, Dan-

iel Schultz, who executed his portrait in a Polish outt (a Muslim with

an uncovered head!), depicted with his sons and servants in the then

fashionable setting composed of a hunting dog, a hawk, and a mon-

key.

Having in mind the above background, we should not be surprised

that numerous letters sent by the Crimean khans and dignitaries and

extant in the Polish archives were composed in Polish. Two docu-

ments in the present volume, preserved in the originals and issued by

the qalga (along with nine other dignitaries) and the khan, in the years

1667 and 1672 respectively, are composed in Polish and corroborated

with seals engraved in Arabic script.

Moreover, in the 17th century

Polish began to serve as a medium for the Crimean correspondence

with other European courts, namely Stockholm and Copenhagen. In

1661, Mehmed IV Giray furnished his embassy to Stockholm with a

letter in Tatar, accompanied by a Polish translation (perhaps prepared

For various reasons that motivated the so-called renegates, who kept arriving from

Christian Europe to Islamic countries, cf. Bartolomé and Lucile Bennassar, Les Chré-

tiens d’Allah. L’histoire extraordinaire des renégats XVI

–XVII

siècles (Paris, 1989).

Cf. his letter to Chancelor Mikołaj Prażmowski from 15 May 1663, in AGAD,

Dz. tat., k. 61, t. 57, no. 199.

e oil painting by Daniel Schultz, one of the best painters of the Polish baroque,

born in a German family in Danzig, was executed in 1664 and is preserved in the

Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Painted during the envoy’s stay in Warsaw,

the portrait was apparently a royal gi presented to Dedesh and taken by him to the

Crimea. It was probably captured by the Russian army during Münnich’s invasion of

the Khanate in 1736. On the adventurous history of the painting and the identication

of the portrayed gure, see Gdzie Wschód spotyka Zachód. Portret osobistości dawnej

Rzeczypospolitej 1576–1763. Katalog wystawy pod kierunkiem Jerzego Malinowskiego

(Warsaw, 1993), pp. 353-354 (a note by Jacek Gajewski), and Bożena Steinborn, Malarz

Daniel Schultz. Gdańszczanin w służbie królów polskich (Warsaw, 2004), pp. 136–139.

See Documents 66 and 70; on the use of Polish in the Crimean seventeenth-

century correspondence, see also Baranowski, Znajomość Wschodu w dawnej Polsce

do XVIII wieku (Łódź, 1950), p. 128.

the language and preservation of documents 239

by aforementioned Islam Bey Cegielski) and an explanatory note, also

in Polish: “now, having written our letter in Tatar, we send it to you;

yet, if there is no one with you who can read it, we send you its Polish

translation [as well].”

Also the Crimean letters, addressed to Copenhagen, were oen

accompanied by Polish translations, on whose basis the Danish royal

chancery, which lacked translators of Oriental languages, was able to

prepare translations into German.

Besides, Josef Matuz, who studied

the Crimean documents preserved in the Danish archives, identied

a number of Polish translations made—as the author maintained—

from Turkish originals that “could not be identied so far” (bisher

unaundbar).

Matuz provided his otherwise remarkable study with

an explanation that it was unthinkable for a Crimean khan or digni-

tary to issue a document in other language than Turkish.

Perhaps

his own credo prevented him from noticing that the Turkish originals

had never existed because the Polish “translations” were the actual

originals. A visit in the Danish State Archives in March 2009 enabled

the present author to establish that most of the alleged “translations”

are corroborated with the original seals of Crimean dignitaries (for

instance, of the Crimean vizier Sefer Ghazi Agha) with Arabic script

engravings. e letters were folded and sealed with wax (the traces of

folding and wax are still visible), according to the European rather than

the Oriental custom. Aer they had been folded, solemn addresses in

Latin were written on their back, for instance: Serenissimo et Potentis-

simo Domino Friderico ex Gratia Dei Daniae Regi etc. etc. etc. Amico

Nostro honorato. In short, these are undoubtedly the originals, and not

translations or copies.

Teraz list nasz po tatarsku napisawszy Wam posyłamy; luboby też u Was takich

ludzi nie było do przeczytania onego, na polski przetłomaczywszy Wam posyłamy; see

Karl Zetterstéen, Türkische, tatarische und persische Urkunden im Schwedischen Reich-

sarchiv (Uppsala, 1945), pp. VI and 98, n. 1; cf. also Święcicka, “e Diplomatic Letters

by Crimean Keräy Ladies to the Swedish Royal House,” p. 64, n. 11.

Matuz, Krimtatarische Urkunden im Reichsarchiv zu Kopenhagen, p. 122.

Cf. ibidem, pp. 279–280.

Bevor wir nun auf die Frage eingehen, wie die Sprache der in Kopenhagen bendli-

chen krimtatarischen Urkunden beschaen ist, soll darauf hingewiesen werden, daß die

Krimchane und sonstige hohe krimtatarische Würdenträger sich in ihrer Korrespondenz

mit Dänemark ausschließlich des Türkischen bedienten. Schreiben der krimtatarischen

Potentaten konnten weder in einer anderen islamischen Sprache (Arabisch oder Per-

sisch) noch in einer Europäischen Sprache ermittelt werden; see ibidem, p. 82.

Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, Tyske Kanzelli, Udenrigske Afdeling, Tatariet AI

1/2/41–47 (46 is missing). It is worth noting that in the same period the Crimean

240 part two—chapter one

In their correspondence with the Habsburgs, the Girays did not

need to have recourse to Polish since there were many translators of

Turkish in Vienna. Nevertheless, Tatar embassies traveling to Ger-

many and Austria through Poland were usually joined by Polish com-

missioners, who acted as guides, interpreters, and even intermediaries,

just like in the case of Baghchasaray’s contacts with the Scandinavian

kingdoms.

In sum, the use of so many scripts (Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Latin) and

languages (Khwarezmian Turkic, Crimean Tatar, Ottoman Turkish,

Ruthenian, Greek, Italian, Polish, perhaps Muscovite Russian and Latin

as well) demonstrates the political pragmatism of the Crimean court

and the uency of the Crimean chancery in various cultural spheres.

Scholars, who mourn the Ottomanization of the Crimean culture as

the manifest sign of its decadence, should also take into account its

impressive adaptability and openeness to stimuli coming from dier-

ent directions. Perhaps here should we look for the roots of the future

dynamism, for which the nineteenth-century Crimean Tatar activists

and reformers, such as Ismail Bey Gaspiralı, are oen credited?

Languages used by the Lithuanian and Polish chanceries

When it comes to the beginnings of the Polish and Lithuanian rela-

tions with the Tatars, Cracow might claim precedence over Vilnius,

because already in 1241 a Polish prince perished at the hands of the

letters written in Turkish, addressed to the Danish king, were put into satin bags with

addresses written on attached paper sheets known as kulaks (lit. “ear”), so the Oriental

and European traditions coexisted in the Crimean chancery.

For just a sample of information regarding the Crimean embassies traveling

through Poland to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Vienna, preserved in the Polish

archives and libraries, see Augusiewicz, “Dwa poselstwa Mariusza Stanisława Jaskól-

skiego na Krym w 1654 roku,” p. 60, n. 83; Bibl. Kórn., ms. 991, fol. 498b and 505a.

In a letter, sent in 1686 from Baghchasaray to the Transylvanian ruler, Mihály

Apa, Khan Selim Giray proudly proclaimed that there were many people at his court

uent in dierent languages and scripts, although he admitted that in the given case

nobody was able to translate Apa’s letter that was apparently composed in Hungar-

ian: egerçe bu tarafda her dili bilür ve her yazuyı oqur adamlar var idi lakin sizden

gelen kaġıdı oquyub içinde olan ahvali tercümeye qadır olamadılar (“although there

have been people here who have known every language and read every script, yet,

having read the letter that had come from you, they have been unable to translate

its contents”); see Bucharest, Direcţia Arhive Naţionale Istorice Centrale, Documente

turceşti, no. 2349. I would like to thank Michał Wasiucionek for drawing my attention

to this latter and providing me with its copy.

the language and preservation of documents 241

Mongol-Tatar invaders. Yet, since the 14th century geographic factors

decided that the relations of the Golden Horde, and then the Crimean

Khanate, developed more intensively with Vilnius than Cracow, hence

we will start our description from Lithuania.

Well into the early modern period, Lithuanian had not been entirely

forgotten by the Lithuanian elites. Jogaila and Vytautas are known to

have conversed in that language, especially when they did not wish to

be overheard. Nevertheless, the ocial language used by the Lithu-

anian chancery was Ruthenian, sometimes referred to as “common

speech” (prostaja mova) in order to dierentiate it from Church

Slavonic. Contrary to the latter designation, it was not a vernacular

but a literary language, derived from various Eastern Slavic dialects

used by the inhabitants of present-day Belarus and Ukraine,

but also

containing some Church Slavonic and a rising number of Polish ele-

ments. Ruthenian diered from Muscovite Russian, but the two chan-

cery languages were mutually intelligible as they combined Church

Slavonic with local Eastern Slavic vernaculars.

Apart from having lexically inuenced Ruthenian, Polish also

directly entered the chancery usage in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

and gradually replaced Ruthenian as the ocial means of commu-

nication. e process began in the 16th century and was completed

by 1697, when the Polish-Lithuanian Diet passed the law that Polish

should be the ocial language in both parts of the Commonwealth.

By that time the majority of Ruthenian nobles became Catholic and

Polonized and opted themselves for introducing Polish, invoking their

inability to read the Cyrillic script, although one still heard few voices

favoring the preservation of Ruthenian.

e oen encountered term Old- or Middle Belarusian is insofar imprecise as it

conceals the inuence of the Volhynian dialect, visible from the times when Vytautas

resided in Luc’k; see Andrij Danylenko, “On the Name(s) of the Prostaja Mova in the

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,” Studia Slavica Hungarica 51 (2006): 97–121, esp.

p. 98; cf. also the classical monograph by Christian Stang, Die westrussische Kanzlei-

sprache des Grossfürstentums Litauen (Oslo, 1935), p. 163.

On the penetration of Polish into the Lithuanian institutions, cf. Antoine Mar-

tel, La langue polonaise dans les pays ruthènes: Ukraine et Russie Blanche, 1569–1667

(Lille, 1938), pp. 54–66; Bohdan Strumins’kyj, “e Language Question in the Ukrai-

nian Lands before the Nineteenth Century,” in: Aspects of the Slavic Language Ques-

tion, vol. II: East Slavic. Edited by R. Picchio and H. Goldblatt (New Haven, 1984):

9–47, esp. pp. 21–24; on the law of 1697, known as Coequatio iurium and containing

the famous clause regarding the ocial language, see Jerzy Malec, Szkice z dziejow

federalizmu i mysli federalistycznej w czasach nowozytnych (Cracow, 1999), pp. 38–50;

the law is published in Volumina legum: przedruk zbioru praw staraniem XX. Pijarów

242 part two—chapter one

Since its foundation, the Lithuanian chancery also used Latin and

German, especially in its relations with the Teutonic Order. e use of

Tatar in the times of Vytautas is also highly probable.

In the 15th and

16th centuries, numerous Tatars were employed in the grand ducal

chancery, and at least some of them must have had the command

of the written language apart from the vernacular.

For instance, an

entire clan of Tatar envoys and interpreters was founded by Ibrahim

Tymirčyn, who had participated in several embassies to the Great

Horde and Crimea, and in a more advanced age served in the Lithu-

anian chancery. As his noble status was questioned by earlier Tatar

immigrants to Lithuania, he managed to secure letters from both

Mengli Giray and the latter’s mortal enemy, Sheikh Ahmed, certifying

the elevated position of his family within the Tatar society.

Undeni-

able proof of the use of the Tatar language in the Lithuanian chancery

is provided by a letter of Sigismund I from July 1511. Notifying his two

envoys, sent earlier to the Crimea and still remaining at Mengli Giray’s

court, of the departure of a new royal embassy headed by Stanisław

Skinder, the king informed that the envoy was provided with two let-

ters: “one in Ruthenian, whose contents Stanisław should orally com-

municate to the khan, and another in Tatar, which you should give to

the khan so that he may read it himself.”

Yet, even if some letters addressed to the khans could be drawn

in Tatar or rather two language versions: Ruthenian and Tatar, the

w Warszawie, od roku 1732 do roku 1782 wydanego, vol. V (St. Petersburg, 1860),

p. 418; in the scholarly literature, it is sometimes referred to under the erroneous date

of 1696.

Cf. Marceli Kosman, “Kancelaria wielkiego księcia Witolda,” Studia Źródłoznawcze

14 (1969): 91–117, esp. p. 93; Żwan, “Stosunki litewsko-tatarskie,” p. 598; Banionis,

Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės pasiuntinybių tarnyba, pp. 146–147. Gilbert de

Lannoy, who in 1421 traveled to Constantinople through Lithuania, recalled that

Grand Duke Vytautas had provided him with safe-conducts written in Tatar, Ruthe-

nian, and Latin (Et me bailla le dit duc, au partir, telles lettres, qu’il me falloit pour

passer par son moyen parmy la Turquie, escriptes en tartarie, en russie et en latin); see

Gilbert de Lannoy i jego podróże, p. 68.

For a list of Tatar interpreters, whose names are known for the years 1492–

1506, see Krzysztof Pietkiewicz, Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie pod rządami Aleksandra

Jagiellończyka. Studia nad dziejami państwa i społeczeństwa na przełomie XV i XVI

wieku (Poznań, 1995), p. 29.

On Ibrahim Tymirčyn as well as his two brothers and three sons, who also served

in the Lithuanian diplomacy, see Document 8, n. 40.

odyn spysok po rusky, z kotoroho maet Stanyslav slovom carju movyty, a druhyj

spysok po tatarsky maete carju daty, yžby car sam sobe vyčol; see Pułaski, Stosunki

Polski z Tatarszczyzną, p. 382.

the language and preservation of documents 243

majority of the correspondence was conducted in Ruthenian, especially

as this language was also used by the Crimean chancery. With the

passing of time, the role of Lithuanian Tatars in diplomatic exchange

decreased, partly due to their weakening uency in the spoken and

especially written language in the Crimea.

Although valued as caval-

rymen and allowed to retain their religion, they played a limited role

as political or cultural intermediaries. eir momentous return to the

fore, caused by their collective desertion in 1672, on the eve of the

Ottoman invasion of Poland, helped to refresh their cultural liaisons

with the Muslim world, but did not serve well their image in Poland.

Even though many returned, persuaded by John III Sobieski and dis-

enchanted with Ottoman realities, their resumed role was again that

of soldiers rather than diplomats.

To sum up, in its correspondence with Qırq Yer, Vilnius used pre-

dominantly Ruthenian, both in its own instruments and for recording

the copies of incoming Crimean documents, even if some of the lat-

ter might have been originally drawn in Khwarezmian Turkic (it was

demonstrated above that both Khwarezmian Turkic and Ruthenian

were used in Qırq Yer). e linguistic Polonization of the Lithuanian

chancery was still at its inception by 1569, when the role of Vilnius

in the Commonwealth’s relations with the Crimea was overtaken by

Cracow. erefore, Polish did not have time to make its impact. Even

those Crimean instruments, addressed to the Jagiellonian rulers (i.e.,

until 1572), which are extant today in Polish copies, were apparently

rst composed in (or translated from Turkic into) Ruthenian, and

only then recorded in Latin script in Polish.

As to the Polish chancery, its ocial language since the Middle Ages

had been Latin, but in the 16th century a gradual process of Poloniza-

tion began. Ruthenian was used as well, though much less commonly

Mária Ivanics maintains that Polish commissioners who accompanied the

Crimean embassies, traveling to Vienna through Poland, were recruited from among

the Polish (or rather Lithuanian) Tatars; see eadem, “Posol’stva krymskix tatar pri

Venskom dvore v 1598–1682 gg.,” p. 233. Yet, an examination of the Habsburg nan-

cial documents, quoted by Ivanics, where these commissioners are recorded by their

Christian names, proves that they were Polish Armenians and not Tatars: in 1660 the

Tatar embassy to Vienna was accompanied by a polnischer Commissar Łukasz Abazel,

and in 1669 by Krzysztof (Christoph) Dominikowicz; see Vienna, Österreichisches

Staatsarchiv, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Finanz- und Hoammerachiv, Reichs-

akten, Fasc. 187a, fol. 557a–558b, Facs. 189a, fol. 290a–291b.

ese are Documents 1, 4, 28, 31, and 33 from the years ca. 1462, ca. 1473, 1539,

1542, and 1560.