Moseigneur Angelo Roncalli visiting the Polish descendant village of Adampol / Polonezköy in the Anatolian hinterland of Istanbul, flanked by the local Catholics and the local chaplain the Salesian Antoni Wojdas, 1930s. Monseigneur Roncalli would later be praised for his work in assisting Jewish refugees going through Istanbul, and would be the popular Pope Jean XXIII.
On 17 February, Dr Paulina Dominik will give a presentation for the Levantine Heritage Foundation on Levantine-Polish contacts in Istanbul. Throughout the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire was one of the chief destinations for the Polish political émigrés. These émigrés were also involved in various enterprises connected to the nineteenth reforms of the Ottoman state, and the chief political figures of the Tanzimat Era welcomed their services.
This presentation focuses on the relations between the Levantine community and the Polish newcomers into the late Ottoman capital and explores the urban spaces shared by both communities. It delves into the issue of intermarriages, as well as the phenomenon of Levantinization of the descendants of Polish émigrés in the late Ottoman Empire.
Moseigneur Angelo Roncalli visiting the Polish descendant village of Adampol / Polonezköy in the Anatolian hinterland of Istanbul, flanked by the local Catholics and the local chaplain the Salesian Antoni Wojdas, 1930s. Monseigneur Roncalli would later be praised for his work in assisting Jewish refugees going through Istanbul, and would be the popular Pope Jean XXIII.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
