^{TDN: Sunday, March 12, 2006 - "}FEATURE"

" From my notebook " - YÜKSEL SÖYLEMEZ

The Polish Embassy in Ankara has an eminent Turkish scholar in the person of Ambassador Grzegorz Michalski. He is more than a diplomatic emissary, a real ambassador of culture like his illustrious predecessor, Turkish scholar Ambassador Andrzej Ananicz.

He has recently drafted, produced and published no less than three sizeable books, one to promote his country Poland, its people and culture, another on Istanbul's Polonezköy, until 1937 Adampol, and its phenomenal history since 1832 as the oldest and only Polish village outside Poland. The third book is a biography of the great Polish romantic composer Frederic Chopin, whose music is synonymous with Poland. Ambassador Michalski must be congratulated on his valuable efforts to promote Poland and Polish culture in Turkey.

Michalski is also unique for promoting Turkey's cultural heritage to Turks in Ankara, which has no precedence. He organized a one day exhibition in the palatial Polish Embassy on Feb. 23 in cooperation with Dr. Nurettin Erbil, a distinguished forestry scholar with the Ministry of Agriculture, on the local cultures of Turkey's mountain villages, their traditions and economic life. The exhibition was held under the patronage of the 9th President of Turkey, Süleyman Demirel, who made an excellent and informative speech full of lively reminiscences.

According to Dr. Erbil: "In nearly 70,000 villages of Turkey about 8 million people live in 20,000 mountain villages. They are populated by Muslim Turkic migrants mostly from the Balkans, the Caucasus and elsewhere who fled from the ravages and destruction of a century of wars in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. These villages have kept their ethnic cultures and traditions intact, while the rural culture all over Turkey is fast disappearing."

As the Polish Embassy booklet published for the occasion mentions, "following the events and war of 1831, the 1848 Hungarian revolt, the Crimean War and the 1863 rebellion, Polish army soldiers who were left without a country found refuge and welcome in the Ottoman Empire, accorded to them by the sultan.” Moreover, as President Demirel reminded his audience, the Ottoman Empire did not recognize the partition of Poland by its enemies like Austria, Russia and Prussia, and these acts of friendship were never forgotten by the Polish people.

The first Poles who fled to the Ottoman Empire were the Crimean Tartars in 1831 after having fought with the Russians in the Crimea. The Ottoman Empire and Poland were geographic neighbors, and as the erudite Mr. Demirel recalled, the sultan refused Austrian pressure to return the rebellious Poles to Austria, the sultan categorically retorting, "It is either the Poles who have taken refuge in our midst or my throne."

They were settled in a barren and hilly site called Adampol, as a tribute to Prince Adam, near Istanbul, which later came to be called Polonezköy. For the past 160 years these Poles have tilled the land and made a living through agriculture and husbandry but freely maintained their Polish culture and traditions.

Ambassador Michalski, as the proud host, made the audience laugh when he said that Poland once sided with Austria against the Ottoman Turks at the Siege of Vienna, "a mistake we will never repeat again." When Demirel visited Poland as the guest of Lech Walesa he included in his delegation the Muhtar of Polonezköy. During the visit the Poles claimed him as their own, to which Demirel retorted, "No, he is my Muhtar, a Turkish national of Polish origin," a pleasant wrangle that continued in an amiable way, as Demirel recounted to the invited audience. Alas, none of the invitations to the ruling AKP or the Ministry of Culture and Tourism were accepted, and there was no representative of the government or the opposition either present despite the written invitations sent to them.

The registered population of Polonezköy is now about 250, but only 50 of those are the true descendants, or third-generation Poles. Polonezköy is bleeding to death with the emigration of its Polish-origin villagers to Europe, the U.S. or even Australia. In another generation there will be no Poles left in Adampol of the past as the young leave to study in Istanbul and never return.

Polonezköy was a showcase of ethnic and racial harmony in Turkey. The Beykoz mayor was the first and only mayor to participate in the religious festivities of the Catholic Poles in the village. The mayor of Beykoz proposed the founding of a Chopin School to teach the Polish language.

As recently as the ‘60s and ‘70s their numbers dwindled, Turks moved in and their main source of income changed and turned into tourism. Dr. Erbil and Ambassador Michalski are the initiators of the brilliant idea that the Polonezköy experience can be an example to be emulated in some earmarked mountain villages, probably starting from the Black Sea region mountain villages. For European and local Turkish visitors it will be an experience of historic and cultural interest, propagating Turkey's cultural diversity and its dormant propensity.

The Polish Embassy, in a colorful brochure in Turkish, while sharing all the information briefly mentioned here, is proposing a new vista for Turkish tourism hitherto unknown, unexplored, unchartered virgin area which is well worth getting to know.