Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)
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304 part two—chapter two
and referred to by the term zapis (
ﺲﭘاز), a loanword from Russian,
whose meaning was “dra.” e instrument consists of seven sheets
of paper, folded and sewn together, thereby making 28 pages, of which
19 are lled with writing in black ink. Of the ten folios, lled with the
writing, nine (apart from the rst one) are stamped with the seals of
the two Crimean envoys, and the last folio is in addition corroborated
with the same seals impressed in red wax.
218
e last folio contains
the oath of the envoys, recorded at the instrument’s bottom, and ends
with the words: “we have sworn on the Koran” (Quran üstünde şart
qılduq). Interestingly, the document is dated according to the Byzantine
era: “in Moscow, the castle of the great khan [i.e., tsar], on the 27th
day of the month of April, in the year [7]178 [i.e., 7 May 1670]” (han-i
a‘zamnın qal‘esi Mosqovda tarih-i yüz yetmiş sekizinci yılda Abril ayının
yigirmi yedinci gününde). It also contains a lengthy margin inscription
made by a Tatar scribe named Abdullah, who thus corroborated the
instrument with his handwriting on the order of the khan’s envoys.
219
In October 1682, Veli-shah Bey from the Sulesh-oghlu clan,
220
who
was made responsible for securing the exchange of embassies (Rus.
rozmen) and escorting the Russian envoys sent to deliver the tsar’s
gis to the khan, issued a sworn instrument at the border meeting
place named Perevoločnaja. e instrument, preserved in the original
in Tatar, is referred to within its text as both şartname and temessük.
221
In its contemporary Russian translation both terms are rendered
as šertnaja zapis’ (“oath-dra”). e Tatar instrument, again dated
according to the Byzantine calendar (2 October 7191, i.e., 12 October
1682), is corroborated on the reverse side with a number of seals
222
and
218
e inscriptions engraved on the seals read bende-i Hüda Sefer Aġa bin Mehmed
1080 (“God’s servant, Sefer Agha, son of Mehmed, [in the year] 1080 [A.H.]”), and
bende-i Hüda Şah-temir Atalıq bin ‘Osman 1080, respectively.
219
See RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, no. 59; published in Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago
xanstva, pp. 584–592; its Russian translation is published in Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix
snošenij. . . . Edited by F. Laškov, pp. 163–169. On the political contents of this instru-
ment, referring also to Poland, see Part I.
220
On the Sulesh-oghlu (Suleševy in the Russian sources) and their traditionally
prominent role in the Crimean-Muscovian negotiations, cf. n. 167 in Part I.
221
e term temessük referred to preliminary dras also in the Ottoman chancery;
even the instrument of the Karlowitz Treaty, issued by Ottoman commissioners, is
referred to as a temessük because its clauses still had to be conrmed by the sultan; cf.
Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations, pp. 47–56.
222
Today, only ve seals are extant while the nineteenth-century edition of
Vel’jaminov-Zernov and Faizxanov lists as many as nine seals, including the one of
Veli-shah Bey that is today missing (Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago xanstva, p. 701);
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 305
the handwriting of a certain ‘Ayvaz Mirza, who thus authenticated it
“on behalf of those mirzas, who do not know the script” (hatt bilmegen
mirzalar içün).
223
Still more interesting instruments were issued by Veli-shah Bey and
his two companions, Qutlu-shah and Dervish Mirza, during the next
Crimean-Russian exchange of embassies (rozmen) that took place at
Perevoločnaja in October 1683. en, three instruments were issued
in their name that were composed in Russian, each one stamped with
their three seals. A corroborative note in Russian entered in the rst
instrument states: “they gave this writing in the presence of Timofej
Protopopov” (pered Timofeem Protopopovym se pismo dali), referring
to a Russian embassy member ranked as a diak, who was present at the
exchange. A parallel corroborative note in Tatar conrms that “the bey
[and] the mirzas inserted their seals” (biy mirzalar mühürleri saldılar).
All the three instruments are written on long and narrow thin pieces
of paper, which glued together once formed huge rolls (Rus. stolbec,
lit. “column”), stored in the Muscovian archives. Today these pieces
of paper are separated again, but they once formed three long docu-
ments, consisting of seven, six, and three pieces, respectively. e lon-
gest instrument once measured 236 x 17 cm, the middle one 196 x
15.5 cm, and the shortest one 83 x 16.5 cm. e author of all the notes
in the Arabic script was a scribe named Abdulghaar, who authen-
ticated the instruments with his own handwriting. Interestingly, he
adopted the Muscovian chancery practice, according to which long
documents, consisting of several pieces of paper, were corroborated
on their reverse by diaks, who marked the places where these pieces
were glued together with their handwriting. One such note on the sec-
ond instrument states accordingly: “[I], the scribe Abdulghaar, have
placed my hand” (yazıçı ‘Abdulġaar qolum qoydım).
224
apparently the upper part of the instrument, containing four seals, has been torn o
and lost.
223
See RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, no. 65; published in Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago
xanstva, pp. 696–701; its Russian translation is published in Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix
snošenij. . . . Edited by F. Laškov, pp. 187–192.
224
See RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, nos. 66–68; since these documents are in Russian,
they are not published in Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago xanstva; their Russian texts
are published in Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix snošenij. . . . Edited by F. Laškov, pp. 192–
198, but all the Arabic-script entries are omitted. Whether or not some of the Crimean
envoys might have been illiterate (see above), the practice of signing documents by
scribes only was probably borrowed from the Muscovian chancery, where only one
clerk (i.e., diak) authenticated a document with his handwriting (cf. the bureaucratic
306 part two—chapter two
e comparison with the rich material preserved in Moscow proves
that the Crimean envoys and plenipotentiaries, appointed to negotiate
with the Russian or Polish-Lithuanian authorities, were not limited to
giving oral oaths on behalf of the khans, but also issued written instru-
ments, corroborated with their seals and/or handwriting and sworn
upon in the presence of the dignitaries of the opposite side. e written
preliminary instruments negotiated and sworn upon by the Crimean
envoys in Poland in 1541 and 1599 were probably not the only ones,
though only they are preserved, and only in copies. e Ruthenian
term spysok, used in 1541, was analogous to the Russian terms zapis’
or šertnaja zapis’, used in the following century. All these terms, along
with their Tatar equivalents: temessük, zapis, and şartname (the uni-
versal meaning of the latter term was discussed earlier), referred to a
common category of instruments, issued by Crimean envoys.
Other instruments
What remains to be discussed are the instruments that do not t any
of the categories proposed above. At the outset, it must be explained
why two instruments have not been included, namely the instruments
issued in 1595 at Ţuţora (Pol. Cecora), and in 1676 at Žuravno (Pol.
Żurawno). ey were corroborated by the khans, sent to Poland, and
they certainly must be classied as international treaties.
In 1595, a pending military conict between the Polish and the
Ottoman-Crimean troops, assembled on the Moldavian plain on the
Prut river, was evaded thanks to timely negotiations, which resulted
in a compromise. Its mutually accepted clauses were recorded in two
instruments, exchanged on 22 October. e Polish instrument, com-
posed in Polish, was corroborated by Jan Zamoyski, the grand hetman
and chancellor, his deputy Stanisław Żółkiewski, the eld hetman,
and two other prominent nobles: Jan Stanisław Gólski,
225
the castel-
lan of Halicz and the starosta of Bar, and Jan Tomasz Drohojowski,
formula: ruku dat’, Rus. “to give one’s hand”), whereas higher dignitaries (e.g., boyars)
corroborated it merely with their seals; cf. Juzefovič, Put’ posla, p. 274.
225
Gólski signed his documents alternatively as Jan or Stanisław which some-
times causes scholarly confusion; cf. his biography by Kazimierz Lepszy in PSB,
vol. 8 (Wrocław etc., 1959–1960), pp. 230–231, where only his second name is given.
He is referred to with the two names in Adam Boniecki, Herbarz polski, pt. I, vol. 6
(Warsaw, 1908), p. 194.
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 307
the Crown referendary and the starosta of Przemyśl. e instrument
of the Muslim side was composed—to quote o contemporary Polish
relation—“in Ruthenian [i.e., Cyrillic] letters in Serbian” (ruskimi lite-
rami po serbsku). Unfortunately, today it is preserved only in a Latin-
script copy, whose language does not resemble Serbian, being in fact
broken Ruthenian with some Polish and very few Southern Slavic
elements.
226
While the leadership of Zamoyski in the Polish troops was undispu-
table, the hierarchy in the Muslim camp was less obvious. e Muslim
troops consisted of an Ottoman contingent, commanded by Ahmed
Bey, the sandjakbey of Bender and Kilia and the would-be Ottoman
governor of Moldavia, and of a Crimean contingent, led in person by
Khan Ghazi II Giray and his brother, Qalga Feth Giray. Although the
khan was a vassal of the Ottoman sultan, he—as well as his brother—
had the Genghisid blood in his veins and stood higher in hierarchy
than an Ottoman bey. In the 16th century, the khans still considered
themselves equal only to Ottoman sultans and looked down even at
Ottoman grand viziers.
227
e Porte, which needed the khan’s mili-
tary support at the outset of its war with the Habsburgs, could not
jeopardize the Muslim unity by secondary issues of prestige. Conse-
quently, in the instruments issued at Ţuţora the names of the khan
and the qalga precede the name of the Ottoman ocial. Nevertheless,
it is clearly stated that the khan acted on behalf of the Ottoman sultan,
being charged and entrusted by the latter to settle the Moldavian cri-
sis. erefore, the instrument of 1595 should be regarded rather as an
Ottoman one, even though it was issued by the Crimean khan, perhaps
even by his chancery clerks. To be sure, the pacication at Ţuţora was
oen invoked in subsequent documents exchanged between the khans
226
See Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations, p. 52; published in
ibidem, pp. 298–299. I wish to thank Andrij Danylenko for the linguistic consultation
of this document.
227
A century later, in 1681, the Ottoman grand vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha, dared to
address Khan Murad Giray “our brother” (karındaşımız). According to Halil Inalcık,
even that late such familiarity must have been resented by the proud Genghisid ruler
and contributed towards the well known antagonism, whose results could be seen dur-
ing the campaign of 1683; see idem, “Power Relationships between Russia, the Crimea,
and the Ottoman Empire as Reected in Titulature,” in: idem, e Middle East and
the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire. Essays in Economy and Society (Bloomington,
1993): 369–411, esp. p. 385 [the article was originally published in: Passé Turco-Tatar
présent soviétique. Études oertes à Alexandre Bennigsen. Edited by Ch. Lemercier-
Quelquejay, G. Veinstein, S. E. Wimbusch (Louvain-Paris, 1986): 175–211].
308 part two—chapter two
and the kings and played an important role not only in Warsaw’s rela-
tions with Istanbul, but also in those with Baghchasaray.
An analogous event occurred in 1676, when a pacication was
reached near Žuravno (Pol. Żurawno) between the Polish-Lithuanian
army, commanded by King John III Sobieski, and the Ottoman-
Crimean army, commanded in liaison by an Ottoman serasker, Sheytan
Ibrahim Pasha, and Khan Selim Giray. Although the Ottoman instru-
ment of peace invoked the khan’s name at the prominent rst place
in its narratio, the document was corroborated only by the monogram
(pençe) and seal of Ibrahim Pasha.
228
In fact, a situation when the khan issued an instrument of peace on
behalf of the Ottoman sultan was by no means unusual. Long before
Istanbul and Moscow began to directly negotiate peace agreements,
the Porte had entrusted its northeastern policy to the khans, while
the direct correspondence between the sultans and the tsars had been
irregular and limited to trade issues and ceremonial matters. Even
when the rst Ottoman-Russian treaty was negotiated in the years
1680–1681, the negotiations took place in Baghchasaray and the khan
acted as a mediator. e treaty conditions were rst conrmed by a
solemn instrument, issued by Khan Murad Giray in January 1681,
229
then, a month later, by an instrument of the Ottoman grand vizier,
230
and nally, aer some hesitations that lasted over a year, by an ‘ahd-
name of Sultan Mehmed IV.
231
228
Published in Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations, pp. 520–527.
229
See the ‘ahdname of Murad Giray, dated 3 January 1091 A.H. (i.e., 13 January
1681); RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, no. 62; published in Materialy dlja istorii Krymskago
xanstva, pp. 651–653. Although composed in January, the document was sealed and
given to the Russian envoys only on 4/14 March 1681, aer the ocial conrma-
tion of its conditions came from the Porte; see “Spisok s statejnago spiska Velikago
Gosudarja Ego Carskago Veličestva poslannikov: stol’nika i polkovnika i namestnika
perejaslavskogo Vasil’ja Mixajlova syna Tjapkina, d’jaka Nikity Zotova.” Edited by N.
Murzakevič, in: Zapiski Odesskago obščestva istorii i drevnostej, vol. 2, otdelenie vtoroe
i tretie (1850): 568–658, esp. p. 638.
230
See the temessük of Kara Mustafa Pasha, dated 22 Muharrem 1092 A.H.
(11 February 1681); RGADA, f. 89, op. 3, no. 2 (another copy is held along with
Murad Giray’s instrument in RGADA, f. 123, op. 2, no. 62); published in Materialy
dlja istorii Krymskago xanstva, pp. 660–662; its Russian translation is published in
Pamjatniki diplomatičeskix snošenij. . . . Edited by F. Laškov, pp. 178–180.
231
See the ‘ahdname of Mehmed IV, dated in the third decade of Rebi II 1093 A.H.
(29 April–7 May 1682); RGADA, f. 89, op. 3, no. 3; another copy was published in:
Feridun Bey, Münşe’atü`s-Selatin, vol. 2, pp. 396–399. On the diculties with obtain-
ing an ‘ahdname directly from the sultan, and not merely from the khan, faced by the
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 309
A document that stands alone for a whole category is the Tatar
instrument issued on 16 October 1667, in result of the Polish-Crimean
negotiations at Pidhajci. ree seventeenth-century peace agreements,
which terminated the major confrontations between the Polish and
Crimean troops, gure prominently in the Polish history textbooks,
namely the treaties of Zborów (1649), Żwaniec (1653), and Podhajce
(1667). Unlike in the years 1595, 1621, 1672, and 1676, when the
Tatars acted as Ottoman allies, in the campaigns mentioned above
they fought and negotiated on their own. To be sure, each time they
were assisted by the Cossacks who had rebelled against the Common-
wealth—led by Bohdan Xmel’nyc’kyj in 1649 and 1653, and by Petro
Dorošenko in 1667. Yet, the Tatars did not treat the Cossacks as their
peers and patronized them, especially when they no longer needed
their military assistance. In result, although in all the three cases paci-
cations resulted from military confrontations between three parties:
the Commonwealth, the Crimean Khanate, and the Cossacks, the
Cossack hetmans were not admitted as equals to the negotiations and
barely concealed the feeling of being deceived.
e patronizing attitude of the Tatar elites towards the Cossacks
resulted from religious as well as social reasons. e Crimean chroni-
cler, Hadji Mehmed Senai, aquitted the heavy losses of the Cossack
troops (then the Tatar allies) during the siege of the Polish garrison of
Zbaraž (1649) by a Persian verse:
ﺖﺴ
ﻣ
ﻼﺳا دﻮﺳ ﻪﺘ
ـﺸ
ﮐ
دﻮﺷ ﻪﮐ فﺮﻃ ﺮﻫ ز
(“from whichever side [a man] is killed, it is to the prot of Islam”)
232
A telling statement is also contained in a letter by Islam III Giray,
sent to John Casimir on the eve of the negotiations that resulted
in the agreement of 1653: “I am the lord and monarch of the great
Crimean hordes, and Your Royal Majesty is also the mighty lord and
monarch of these lands [here]. Almighty God sees that I do not wish
Your Royal Majesty anything wrong, [especially as you are] in such
dire straits, because I ought to respect you, as one monarch should
[respect] another monarch.”
233
Notwithstanding political exigencies,
Russian diplomacy, see Nikolaj Smirnov, Rossija i Turcija v XVI–XVII vv. (Moscow,
1946), vol. 2, pp. 165–168.
232
Senai, Historia chana Islam Gereja III, pp. ٤٤ (original) and 122 (Polish transla-
tion: “z którejkolwiek strony trup padnie, pożytek odnosi islam”).
233
AGAD, Dz. tat., k. 62, t. 19, no. 350.
310 part two—chapter two
on the social level the khans certainly preferred to familiarize with
the kings than with the Cossacks, presented in the Polish propaganda
as rebellious serfs. Similarly, the Crimean mirzas, who oen formed
formal brotherhood ties (Pol. pobratymstwo) with the Polish nobles,
are not known to have entered similar ties with the Cossacks. A some-
what indierent attitude of both the Tatar and Polish nobles towards
the Ukrainian Orthodox “natives” is perhaps best reected by the tacit
consent of the Polish negotiators, repeated in the years 1649, 1653,
and 1667, allowing the Tatars to drive home the enslaved Ruthenian
peasants. To be sure, in all the above cases the military situation of
the Polish troops was desperate, so not much could have been done
to prevent this anyway. e clause was never entered in ocial peace
instruments as it was deeply humiliating for the prestige of the Polish
king, and economically ruining for both the Crown treasury and the
local nobles. Yet, in the same period, Polish diplomats are known to
have fought much more fervently to secure the freedom of the cap-
tured Catholic nobles and soldiers.
As it has been argued above, the Polish-Crimean treaties of 1649,
1653, and 1667 were concluded in similar circumstances. Yet, the
instruments that resulted from the negotiations are dierent. In 1649,
both monarchs were present in the opposite camps, so the clauses,
negotiated between the Polish chancellor, Jerzy Ossoliński, and the
Crimean vizier, Sefer Ghazi Agha, were entered in separate instru-
ments, issued and corroborated by Islam III Giray (in Turkish) and
John Casimir (in Polish). Especially the khan’s instrument, provided
with a tuġra, is reminiscent of a unilaterally granted ‘ahdname, in spite
of the fact that it resulted from bilateral negotiations.
In 1653, John Casimir and Islam III Giray were again present in
opposing camps. ey appointed to the negotiations such prominent
personages as the Crimean vizier, Sefer Ghazi Agha, and on the Polish
side Chancellor Stefan Koryciński, Grand Marshal Jerzy Lubomirski,
and the future eld hetman, Stanisław Lanckoroński. Yet, both sides
resolved not to draw any written documents, so the commissioners
merely conrmed the former treaty of 1649 by oral engagements. In
result, no instrument of the treaty of 1653 has ever existed.
Finally, in 1667 the Polish and Crimean armies were commanded
by Jan Sobieski, the eld hetman and future king, and Qırım Giray,
the khan’s brother and qalga. Neither King John Casimir nor Khan
Adil Giray participated in the campaign. It could be thus expected that
the instruments of agreement would be issued by the hetman and the
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 311
qalga. It so happened, indeed, yet the Tatar instrument is not reminis-
cent of the instruments issued by the past qalgas, which had been pro-
vided with sumptous tuġras and solemn invocations.
234
Instead, both
sides negotiated a single common instrument, composed in Polish,
whose two copies were then corroborated with seals and exchanged.
e copy, provided with the seals of the Polish plenipotentiaries, was
given to the qalga, while another copy (also in Polish), provided with
the seals of the Crimean plenipotentiaries, was given to the hetman.
Furthermore, the agreement was conrmed with oral oaths, pro-
nounced by the plenipotentiaries of the two sides. It is worth noting
that both the Polish and the Crimean instruments were corroborated
and sworn upon not merely by the two commanders, but collectively
by a number of dignitaries and nobles present in the two camps. Apart
from the qalga, the Crimean instrument is sealed by two other Giray
princes, the leader of the Shirin clan, one agha, one bey, and four
mirzas, including a member of the powerful Mansur (i.e., Manghıt)
clan. e seal of the Shirin leader—Mengli Giray, whose given name
already invoked the clan’s aliations with the ruling dynasty—is espe-
cially interesting, since its form and inscription disclose his unabashed
political ambitions.
235
is fact seems to fairly reect the political cul-
ture then prevalent among the Polish and Crimean nobilities. Even
though the nobles accepted the predominance of the monarchs in the
political systems of the Commonwealth and the Khanate, they jeal-
ously guarded their rights of political participation, especially if the
monarch was absent and replaced by a representative, be it a hetman
or a qalga.
e last Crimean instrument, included in the present collection,
is the one issued by Selim Giray at Žvanec’ on 23 October 1672. Its
dating and place of issue are not accidental: on the same day and in
the same place, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed IV crowned his victo-
rious campaign against Poland-Lithuania by issuing a solemn ‘ahd-
name. Although the Tatars participated in the campaign, no separate
agreement was negotiated between Warsaw and Baghchasaray and the
khan had to satisfy himself with the respective clause of the Ottoman
‘ahdname, which conrmed his right to the customary royal gis.
234
In 1640, Qalga Islam Giray even issued his own ‘ahdname and sent to Poland
along with the ‘ahdname of his brother, Khan Bahadır Giray; cf. Document 57.
235
See Document 66, esp. n. 13.
312 part two—chapter two
Nevertheless, the Polish commissioners sent to the Ottoman camp
had oered Selim Giray a supplement of the yearly gi, counting on
his mediation and aiming to prevent future Tatar raids. In return,
they demanded a written guarantee. Such a document, composed in
Polish and provided with the khan’s seal, but without his tuġra, was
issued accordingly and is extant in the Polish archives. In fact, it can
hardly be regarded as a treaty instrument. In spite of the khan’s sump-
tuous intitulatio, it reects the diminishing position of the Crimean
Khanate on the political map of Eastern Europe in the last decades of
the 17th century.
236
236
See Document 70.
CHAPTER THREE
THE DIPLOMATIC SECTIONS AND A PHYSICAL
DESCRIPTION OF THE CRIMEAN INSTRUMENTS
Invocatio
Medieval and early modern rulers, both Christian and Muslim,
typically commenced their documents with religious formulas. e
Genghisid rulers, who adopted Islam, also began to employ such for-
mulas, although pre-Islamic Mongolian documents did not contain an
invocatio. According to Grigor’ev, aer their conversion to Islam, the
khans still did not enter religious formulas in their documents issued
in other scripts than Arabic as it was believed that only the Arabic
script and language were tting to praise God.
237
is usage calls to
mind a similar practice known from the Ottoman chancery, which
issued documents in Italian, Latin, and other “indel” languages, but
did not provide them with religious formulas that appeared only in the
Ottoman documents drawn in Arabic script.
238
Although generally correct, Grigor’ev’s hypothesis does not apply to
all the extant cases. For instance, Mengli Giray’s document from 1514,
preserved in the Italian original, contains an invocatio. Moreover, at
least some documents, preserved today in Ruthenian copies, were also
originally composed in Ruthenian, and yet they contain invocations to
God and Prophet Muhammad. Interestingly, such formulas are regu-
larly missing from the documents addressed to Moscow that are today
preserved in Russian translations. Apparently they were consciously
omitted by the Muscovian chancery clerks who translated or copied
the now lost originals.
239
e thesis proposed by Usmanov, according
to which the invocatio was consciously ignored by Sahib Giray, can-
not be supported by the present study as the two yarlıqs of this khan
addressed to King Sigismund contain invocations.
240
237
Grigor’ev, Mongol’ska diplomatika XIII–XV vv. (Leningrad, 1978), p. 16.
238
Cf. Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations, p. 8.
239
Cf. Usmanov, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa XIV–XVI vv., pp. 185–186.
240
Cf. ibidem, p. 185, and Documents 28 and 31, whose invocations recorded in
contemporary Polish translations are quoted below.