Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland-Lithuania

By Tomasz Grusiecki

Transcultural things examines four sets of artefacts from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: maps pointing to Poland–Lithuania’s roots in the supposedly ‘Oriental’ land of Sarmatia, portrayals of fashions that purport to trace Polish culture back to a distant and revered past, Ottomanesque costumes worn by Polish ambassadors and carpets labelled as Polish despite their foreign provenance.

These examples of invented tradition borrowed from abroad played a significant role in narrating and visualising the cultural landscape of Polish-Lithuanian elites. But while modern scholarship defines these objects as exemplars of national heritage, early modern beholders treated them with more flexibility, seeing no contradiction in framing material things as local cultural forms while simultaneously acknowledging their foreign derivation.

The book reveals how artefacts began to signify as vernacular idioms in the first place, often through obscuring their non-local origin and tainting subsequent discussions of the imagined purity of national culture as a result.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Dec 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781526164353

Book preview

Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland–Lithuania

rethinking

art’s histories

SERIES EDITORS

Amelia G. Jones, Marsha Meskimmon

Rethinking Art’s Histories aims to open out art history from its most basic structures by foregrounding work that challenges the conventional periodization and geographical subfields of traditional art history, and addressing a wide range of visual cultural forms from the early modern period to the present.

These books will acknowledge the impact of recent scholarship on our understanding of the complex temporalities and cartographies that have emerged through centuries of worldwide trade, political colonization, and the diasporic movement of people and ideas across national and continental borders.

To buy or to find out more about the books currently available in this series, please go to: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/rethinking-arts-histories/

Transcultural things and the

spectre of Orientalism in early

modern Poland–Lithuania

Tomasz Grusiecki

Copyright © Tomasz Grusiecki 2023

The right of Tomasz Grusiecki to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press

Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 5261 6436 0 hardback

First published 2023

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or any third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Cover: Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633 (detail). Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, public domain.

Typeset by Newgen Publishing UK

This book is dedicated to Tadeusz Mańkowski (1878–1956)

Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

A note on names

Map: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Introduction: Between worlds

1Where is Sarmatia?

2How do you dress like a Pole?

3Who speaks for Poland?

4Where do Polish carpets come from?

Epilogue: Beyond the binary

Bibliography

Index

Figures

0.1Emanuel Pendl, Monument to Georg Franz Kolschitzky, 1885. Vienna, corner of Kolschitzkygasse and Favoritenstraße (photograph taken by the author)

0.2Kolschitzky Coffee. Screenshot of the Julius Meinl official website, www.meinlcoffee.com/gb/products/kolschitzky-coffee-ground-250g, 30 November 2020

0.3Martin Dichtl (attributed), Georg Franz Kolschitzky as Scout in Ottoman Dress, 13 August 1683, from Johann Constantinus Feigius, Wunderbahrer Adlers-Schwung, oder fernere Geschichts-Fortsetzung Ortelii redivivi et continuati: das ist eine aussfuerliche Historische Beschreibung dess noch anhalten den Tuerchen-Kriegs, Vienna: Voigt, 1694, vol. 2, fol. 48, engraving. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Eur. 914 o-1/2 (photograph provided by Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)

1.1Andrzej Pograbka, Partis Sarmatiae Europeae quae Sigismundo Augusto Regi Poloniae Potentissimo subiacet, nova descriptio, 1570, printed in Venice, 68 x 46 cm. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 2 Mapp. 464 (photograph provided by digitale-sammlungen.de/MDZ: Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum, Digitale Bibliothek)

1.2Nicolaus Germanus, Eighth Map of Europe (Sarmacia Europea), in Cosmographia Claudii Ptolomaei Alexandrini, c. 1460. New York, Manuscript and Archive Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, 427027 (photograph provided by the New York Public Library Digital Collections)

1.3Bernard Wapowski, fragment of a proof print of the map of Sarmatia, facsimile (original woodcut made in 1526; lost during World War II), from Karol Buczek, The History of Polish Cartography from 15th to the 18th Century, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1966, fig. 9 (photograph provided by University Library, University of Illinois)

1.4 Wacław Grodecki, In Poloniae laudem, et tabulae huius commendationem, facsimile (original printed in 1562 by Johann Oporinus in Basel), from Monumenta Poloniae Cartographica, ed. Karol Buczek, vol. 1, Cracow: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1939, Tab. VI (photograph provided by polona.pl/Biblioteka Narodowa)

2.1Giovanni de Monte, Portrait of Sebastian Lubomirski, c. 1560, oil on canvas, 173 × 113 cm. Warsaw, Muzeum Pałacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie, Wil.1150 (photograph provided by Muzeum Pałacu Króla Jana III w Wilanowie)

2.2Anonymous (Poland?), Portrait of Sebastian Lubomirski, after 1603, oil on canvas, 200 × 120 cm. Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe, MP 5510, provenance: the Potocki of Krzeszowice collection (photograph by Piotr Ligier/Zbigniew Doliński, provided by Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie)

2.3Martin Kober, Portrait of King Stephen Báthory, 1583, oil on panel, 236 × 122 cm. Cracow, Historical and Missionary Museum of the Congregation of the Mission (photograph provided by Muzeum Historyczno-Misyjne Zgromadzenia Księży Misjonarzy w Krakowie)

2.4Workshop of Tommaso Dolabella (?), Shuysky Czars before Sigismund III, seventeenth century, restored in 2011–13, oil on canvas, 340 × 340 cm. Copy of a lost painting by Dolabella of c. 1611. Lviv Historical Museum, Pidhirtsi Castle Collection (photograph provided by Lviv Historical Museum)

2.5Anonymous, Variety of Polish Costumes, seventeenth century, oil on panel, 117 × 89.5 cm. Poznań, National Museum, Mp 841 (photograph provided by Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu)

2.6Leszko II, from Marcin Bielski, Kronika wszytkiego świata, Cracow: Mattheusz Siebeneycher, 1564, fol. 341v., woodcut. Cracow, Biblioteka Książąt Czartoryskich – Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, 22 III Cim (photograph provided by polona.pl/Biblioteka Książąt Czartoryskich)

2.7Stawisz’s family line, from Bartosz Paprocki, Gniazdo cnoty zkąd herby rycerstwa slawnego Krolestwa Polskiego … początek swoy maią, Cracow: Andrzej Piotrkowczyk, 1578, fol. 66, woodcut. Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, SD XVI.F.64 (photograph provided by polona.pl/Biblioteka Narodowa)

2.8Daniel Schultz, Portrait of Stanisław Krasiński, c. 1653, oil on canvas, 93 × 77 cm. Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe, MP 4312, provenance: the Krasiński Museum collection (photograph provided by Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie)

2.9Polish–Lithuanian sejm in session, from Alessandro Guagnini, Sarmatiae Europeae descriptio: quae regnum Poloniae, Lituaniam, Samogitiam, Russiam, Massoviam, Prussiam, … et Moschoviae, Tartariaeque partem complectitur, Speyer: Bernhard Albin, 1581, fol. Aiiii, woodcut by Jörg Brückner (blockcutter, attr.) and Wendel Scharffenberg (printmaker). Cracow, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, BJ St. Dr. Cim. 8138 (photograph provided by polona.pl/Biblioteka Jagiellońska)

3.1Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Embassy into Paris, drawing on paper in pen and brown ink, over graphite, 2.30 × 4.84 cm. London, British Museum, 1895, 0617.399 (photograph provided by the British Museum)

3.2François Campion (engraver), Nicolas Berey (printer), Le festin nuptial du Roy et de la Reine de Pologne—La magnifique entrée des Ambassadeurs Polonois dans la ville de Paris, 1645, engraving. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, RESERVE QB-201 (38)-FOL (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France)

3.3Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633, sheet 1, etching, first or second state of three, 17.1 × 264.8 cm. ‘Entrata in Roma dell’Eccl.mo ambasciatore di Polonia l’anno MDCXXXIII’. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, bequest of Phyllis Massar, 2011, 2012.136.965(1–6) (photograph provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

3.4Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633, sheet 2

3.5Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633, sheet 3

3.6Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633, sheet 4

3.7Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633, sheet 5

3.8Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633, sheet 6

3.9Melchior Lorck, Turkish Horseman with Fantastical Winged Costume, from Wolgerissene und geschnittene Figuren zu Ross und Fuss, sampt schönen türckischen Gebäwden, und allerhand was in der Türckey zu sehen, Hamburg: Michael Hering, 1626, fol. 19, woodcut. Copenhagen, Royal Library, Hielmst. 188 2° (photograph provided by Det Kongelige Bibliotek)

3.10Stefano della Bella, Turkish Horseman with Fantastic Winged Costume, pen on white paper. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabineto Disegni e Stampe, inv. 6024 Santarelli, fol. 75 of the artist’s sketchbook (photograph provided by Gallerie degli Uffizi)

3.11Melchior Lorck, Turkish Archer, from Wolgerissene und geschnittene Figuren zu Ross und Fuss, sampt schönen türckischen Gebäwden, und allerhand was in der Türckey zu sehen, Hamburg: Michael Hering, 1626, fol. 39, woodcut. Copenhagen, Royal Library, Hielmst. 188 2° (photograph provided by Det Kongelige Bibliotek)

3.12Stefano della Bella, Studies of a Headress, Horse, and Turkish Archer, pen and black pencil on white paper. Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabineto Disegni e Stampe, inv. 6018 Santarelli, fol. 69 of the artist’s sketchbook (photograph provided by Gallerie degli Uffizi)

3.13Stefano della Bella, Entry of the Polish Ambassador into Rome, 1633, sheet 1, detail

4.1Carpet, seventeenth century, Czartoryski Collection, from Les collections cèlèbres d’oeuvres d’art, dessinées et gravées d’après les originaux par Édouard Lièvre, ed. Ambroise Firmin-Didot et al., Paris: Goupil, 1879, plate 60, photolithograph by Édouard Lièvre. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Sciences et techniques, FOL-V-347–2 (photograph provided by gallica.bnf.fr/Bibliothèque nationale de France)

4.2Carpet, seventeenth century, Czartoryski Collection, from Alfred Darcel, Les tapisseries décoratives du garde-meuble … Choix des plus beaux motifs, Paris: J. Baudry, 1881, plate 94, photolithograph by P. Dujardin. Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau, 92050530 (photograph provided by sachsen.digital/SLUB Dresden)

4.3The Czartoryski Carpet, seventeenth century, ‘Polonaise’, made in Iran, probably Isfahan, cotton (warp), silk (weft and pile), metal-wrapped thread, asymmetrically knotted pile, brocaded, 486.4 × 217.5 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, by exchange, 1945, 45.106 (photograph provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

4.4So-called Polish carpet with the coat of arms of King Sigismund III of Poland, c. 1600, made in Iran, silk and golden thread, 243 × 134 cm. Munich, Residenz, BSV.WA316, formerly ResMü.WC3 (photograph by Lucinde Weiss, provided by Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung)

4.5So-called Polish carpet with the coat of arms of King Sigismund III of Poland, c. 1600, made in Iran, probably Kashan, silk and metal thread, tapestry weave, 245 × 135 cm. Munich, Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds, WAF Inv.-Nr. T I b 1 (photograph provided by Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds)

4.6Safavid ‘Polonaise’ kilim with the coat of arms of Sigismund III of Poland, c. 1600, made in Iran, probably Kashan, silk and metal thread, tapestry weave, 206 × 59 cm. Washington, DC, Textile Museum, R33.28.4, acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1951 (photograph provided by the Textile Museum)

4.7Safavid ‘Polonaise’ kilim with the coat of arms of Sigismund III of Poland, c. 1600, made in Iran, probably Kashan, silk and metal thread, tapestry weave, 250 × 134 cm. Rome, Quirinal Palace (photograph by Foto Azimut s.a.s., Maurizio Necci, Rome, provided by Segretariato Generale della Presidenza della Repubblica)

4.8Tapestry with the coat of arms of Princess Anne Catherine Constance Vasa, Brussels, 1630/40. Munich, Residenz, BSV.WA0172 (photograph by Peter Fink, provided by Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung)

4.9Polish rug, second half of the seventeenth century, Ghiordes knot, linen thread, and wool, 195 × 145 cm. Cracow, Muzeum Narodowe, NMK XIX-4451 (photograph provided by Pracownia Fotograficzna Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie)

4.10Johann Hoffman (printer), Equestrian Portrait of King John Casimir, second half of the seventeenth century, engraving and etching, 34.5 × 25.5 cm. Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, G.45497 (photograph provided by polona.pl/Biblioteka Narodowa)

4.11Medallion Ushak-type carpet with the coat of arms of Krzysztof Wiesiołowski, before 1635, Anatolian or Polish, knotted wool, 348 × 227 cm. Cracow, Wawel Royal Castle, inv. 240 (photograph by Łukasz Schuster, provided by Wawel Royal Castle)

4.12Medallion Ushak-type carpet with the coat of arms of Krzysztof Wiesiołowski, first half of the seventeenth century, Poland(?), wool, 363 × 197 cm. Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, 4928 (photograph by Christian Krug, provided by Museum für Islamische Kunst der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz)

4.13Carpet with ornamental design, seventeenth century, Poland(?), wool, 240 × 167 cm. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Inv.-Nr. T 1612, Foto Nr. D52101 (photograph by Bastian Krack, provided by Bayerisches Nationalmuseum)

4.14Henryk Weyssenhoff, Story of a Yatagan, 1891, oil on canvas, 73 × 90 cm. Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe, MP 5357 (photograph by Krzysztof Wilczyński, provided by Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie)

5.1Mosque in Kruszyniany, eighteenth century(?), renovated in 1846 (photograph provided by Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meczet_w_Kruszynianach_front_side.jpg)

Acknowledgements

Like many authors, I have accumulated numerous intellectual debts in the course of writing Transcultural Things. I owe particular thanks to Angela Vanhaelen, without whose unwavering support and invaluable advice a project of this breadth could never have been kicked off in the first place. Several other scholars read parts of the manuscript at various stages, helping me sharpen my thinking on a number of issues. These selfless people are, in alphabetical order, Stan Bill, Letha Ch’ien, Andrzej Drozd, Carolyn Guile, Cecily Hilsdale, Suzanna Ivanič, José R. Jouve-Martin, Igor Kąkolewski, Simon Lewis, Robyn Radway, Christine Ross, Itay Sapir, Braden Scott, Maria Taboga, Milena Tomic, Wojciech Tygielski, and Danijela Zutic. More recently, the anonymous readers chosen by Manchester University Press offered thoughtful and incisive criticism that led me to further refine this book’s arguments. My terrific line editor and wordsmith extraordinaire, Amyrose McCue Gill of TextFormations, read multiple drafts of the completed manuscript with a steadfast commitment to clarity of expression and the broader stakes of the project. I am incredibly grateful to all of these readers; any remaining errors are my own.

At Manchester University Press, I have had the privilege of working with Amelia Jones, whose passion for the project was seminal for turning my work into book form. Emma Brennan, Alun Richards, and Katie Evans made the process of bringing this manuscript to fruition a pleasure at every step.

The research and writing of Transcultural Things were supported by McGill University, Central European University, Boise State University, and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture. I also received funding from the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Boise State University and the RSA-Samuel H. Kress Research Fellowship in Renaissance Art History to help offset some of the production costs.

For their interest, support, and insight, I thank Robert Born, Amy Bryzgel, Stephen J. Campbell, Waldemar Deluga, Niharika Dinkar, Karin Friedrich, Robert Frost, Andrea Gáldy, Anu Gobin, Anna Grasskamp, Jan Hennings, Maria Ivanova, Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Nikos Kontogiannis, Ruth Sargent Noyes, Craig Peariso, Olenka Pevny, Stephanie Porras, Alessia Rossi, Dan Scott, Allie Stielau, Alice Sullivan, Anatole Tchikine, Lee Ann Turner, and Bronwen Wilson. Special thanks again to Suzanna Ivanič and Robyn Radway for our ongoing collaborations, in particular the Connected Central European Worlds, 1500–1700 networking project that continues to give me hope for the future of early modern Central and Eastern European studies, a field that barely existed in English-speaking academe when we were students.

Portions of this book have appeared elsewhere, adapted and revised here: ‘Doublethink: Polish Carpets in Transcultural Contexts’, The Art Bulletin 104, no. 3 (2022), and ‘Sarmatia Revisited: Maps and the Making of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’, in Multicultural Commonwealth: Poland–Lithuania and its Afterlives, eds. Stanley Bill and Simon Lewis (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023), earlier versions of parts of chapters 3 and 1, respectively. I thank the editors and readers of these publications for their stimulating feedback.

Last but by no means least, my love and thanks go to Emanuel Chabot for all his support and patience through years of research, writing, and rewriting.

A note on names

There is no satisfactory solution to rendering in English the personal and place names of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The polity, one of the largest in early modern Europe, was multi-ethnic, multi-denominational, and multi-lingual, and many of its inhabitants themselves used different versions of their names in different contexts. To facilitate readability and consistency, I have left the most commonly used versions of personal names in their respective native or dominant languages; thus, for example, Jerzy Ossoliński and Christoph Hartknoch. Whenever an individual may have been known by different names in different places or languages, I have listed all possible versions at first use; thus, Adam Kysil (Polish: Adam Kisiel); Iodocus Ludovicus Decius (German: Jost Ludwig Dietz; Polish: Justus Ludwik Decjusz); and Marcin Kromer (German: Martin Cromer; Latin: Martinus Cromerus). I have made an exception for Polish–Lithuanian rulers who were kings of Poland as well as grand dukes of Lithuania and were, therefore, known by Polish names in Poland and Lithuania, Ruthenian names in Ruthenia (and Lithuania), and German names in Prussia and Livonia. To strike a balance among these local variants, I have opted for English and Anglicized Latin equivalents; thus, Sigismund I, Sigismund II, Stephen I, Sigismund III, Ladislaus IV, John Casimir, and John III. Needless to say, the fact that Polish was the first language of Lithuanian and Ruthenian families like the Houses of Radziwiłł (Lithuanian: Radvila), Pac (Lithuanian: Pacas), and Wiśniowiecki (Ukrainian: Vyshnivetskii) says nothing about their national identity.

Place names present yet another challenge for historians writing in English about the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and this includes the very name by which the polity itself is known today in Anglophone scholarship. The term most frequently used by early modern Polish–Lithuanian nobility is the Polish proper name Rzeczpospolita: Republic or Commonwealth. Whenever it is clear from context that I refer to all the lands of the post-1569 union, therefore, I use the English term ‘Commonwealth’. In most instances, however, I prefer the clarity of the modern English short form ‘Poland–Lithuania’, which does not exist in Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, or Belarusian, but is typical of Anglo-American and German scholarship. For other place names, I employ the standard English form where one exists; thus Warsaw and Cracow. I also use the most globally recognizable modern versions of names of major towns like Vilnius, Lviv, and Kyiv. I apply the same principle to names of lands and provinces; thus Mazovia (rather than Mazowsze), Little Poland (rather than Małopolska), and Ruthenia (rather than Rus’). The latter refers to the early modern Ukrainian and Belarusian communities as well as their territories, language (various dialects of Eastern Slavic), and ecclesiastical life (Orthodoxy and Greek Catholicism) before the distinction between Ukrainian and Belarusian identities was increasingly taken for granted during the nineteenth century. In all other cases, I spell place names as they appear in the language most often used by my sources; thus—most notably—Danzig (rather than Gdańsk). In solidarity with Ukrainian colleagues whose country has suffered insurmountable losses following the Russian invasion in February 2022, I have made an exception for all place names in today’s Ukraine; thus Kulchytsi (rather than Kulczyce), Kamianets-Podilskyi (rather than Kamieniec Podolski), and Pyliavtsi (rather than Piławce). This choice will not please everyone, but at least it counters the longstanding Polonocentrism in the historiography of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Admittedly, most sources and case studies in this book come from Poland. I have nevertheless framed this study as one of the entire Commonwealth, first because I make frequent reference to Ruthenia—and to a lesser extent also to Lithuania and Prussia—and second because I believe that the history of early modern Poland cannot be told without referring to its entanglements with all the constituent lands of the union. An ideal scholar of Poland–Lithuania would need to read German, Low German, Latin, Hebrew, Kipchak, Lithuanian, Latvian, Old Slavonic, Old Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Polish to conduct research in the archives and have full access to the secondary literature on this vast polity. The complex linguistic landscape points to the problem of untranslatability of much scholarship on Polish–Lithuanian material and visual culture—not in the sense of being unable to translate accurately from one language to another but rather in the sense of never being able to stop revising and updating the scholarship produced in the many national contexts of Poland–Lithuania’s successor states, let alone construct an accepted scholarly synthesis. What on the surface may appear a disadvantage, however, can become a strength if we consider Poland–Lithuania a case study for dialogic scholarship that stresses different kinds of historical experience as well as the need to mediate their meaning in a modern context dominated by nation-states. New collaborative projects and networks have emerged in recent years, promising to take the study of the union in a new transcultural and international direction.

As for the region of Europe encompassing Poland–Lithuania, my preference is for ‘Central and Eastern Europe’. ‘Eastern Europe’ still reeks of Cold War binaries, despite Larry Wolff’s widely publicized, if controversial, claim in Inventing Eastern Europe (1994) that the concept is in fact much older and can be traced back to the eighteenth century. Following the revolutions of 1989, which brought to an end most communist regimes, attempts have been made to blur the dividing lines among the continent’s nations, with Poland and Lithuania joining the European Union in 2004. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has ushered in a new potential division of Europe between West and East, with Belarus relegated to the latter as Russia’s ally and Ukraine steadily pushing for membership in NATO and the EU. With all these changes underway, ‘Eastern Europe’ is as unstable as a geopolitical signifier as it is historically imprecise. Other framings of the region currently in use are no less controversial. ‘Central Europe’ recalls Friedrich Naumann’s Mitteleuropa (1915) and offers an imperialist vision for the area as allegedly predestined for Germanic domination and tutelage. Yet the idea of Central Europe was attractive enough for the Moravian philosopher-turned-first president of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Masaryk (1850–1937) and the Polish historian Oskar Halecki (1891–1973), who resuscitated the term after World War I. Masaryk in particular believed that the history of the region was connected to Western Europe via Austria and Germany. Halecki’s ‘East-Central Europe’ in his mind better rendered the region’s status as an in-between place at a crossroads between East and West (though, for him, it was invariably part of the Western world). Drawing on these ideas in the 1980s, writers like Milan Kundera (b. 1929), Václav Havel (1936–2011), Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004), and György Konrád (1933–2019) argued that Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary were culturally situated not in Eastern but in Central Europe, and therefore had the right to leave the Soviet Bloc and join the Western camp, where—as the argument goes—they had always belonged. The question remains whether it is productive to fight one binary with another—the idea of Central Europe simply moves the notional boundary of East versus West to the easternmost corners of Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, keeping its divisive logic intact and leaving Ukraine and Belarus on the other side of the equation despite major dissimilarity between them (the former is a democracy, the latter a dictatorship). But, as this book argues, there is nothing contradictory in belonging to multiple cultural worlds simultaneously. For this reason, I believe that the open-ended phrase ‘Central and Eastern Europe’ is the least contentious and most accurate term: it embraces the widest possible geographical expanse of the region, connects rather than divides, and defies modern geopolitics in favour of early modern realities.

Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Where I used an early modern English translation of a source, I retained the original spelling but altered punctuation for clarity. Substantive changes to others’ translations are marked with square brackets.

Map: The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Introduction: Between worlds

I wasn’t well received in Essex. I remember trying to reason with some white Cockney kids calling me ‘Paki’ at school once. ‘I’m North African. I ain’t Pakistani.’ Blank looks. ‘You’re still a fucking Paki.’ That summed it up. ‘Paki’ was how they saw anything ‘other’, between their understanding of complete whiteness and what they could clearly discern as blackness.

Yann Demange, ‘The Long Answer’¹

Yet what if identity is conceived not as [a]‌ boundary to be maintained but as a nexus of relations and transactions actively engaging a subject? The story or stories of interactions must then be more complex, less linear and teleological.

James Clifford, Routes²

A statue of an exotic looking man (Figure 0.1) adorns the corner of a grand apartment building at the intersection of Favoritenstraße and Kolschitzkygasse in Vienna’s fourth district. The man wears a fez-like cap, an Ottoman kaftan, billowing trousers, and pointy shoes. And he pours coffee into a cup placed on a tray that he holds in his hand. Although his appearance is strikingly non-Viennese, the drink he presents to the passers-by has become synonymous with Vienna and its culture. The man’s association with coffee is precisely the reason why he was memorialized in this prestigious location: many Viennese would still recognize the monument as a tribute to Georg Franz Kolschitzky (c. 1640–94), alleged owner of the first coffeehouse in the city and, by tradition, a hero of the 1683 Battle of Vienna—one of the most memorable events in the city’s history, during which the Ottoman army besieged and almost captured the Habsburg capital. The statue was commissioned from the prominent sculptor Emanuel Pendl (1845–1927) for the three-hundred-year anniversary of the siege, and was fittingly placed on the façade of a building facing a street that had been named in memory of Kolschitzky just a year before.³ One of the men involved in the commission was Karl Zwirina, proprietor of a well-known coffeehouse that occupied the site of the sculpture’s location.⁴ Thus, while promoting Zwirina’s business, the monument also celebrates a vernacular Viennese custom as well as the city’s local history.⁵

0.1 Emanuel Pendl, Monument to Georg Franz Kolschitzky, 1885. Vienna, corner of Kolschitzkygasse and Favoritenstraße (photograph taken by the author)

Despite his importance for Vienna’s self-image, however, purists could not call Kolschitzky a local man. Probably born in Kulchytsi (Polish: Kulczyce) into a noble family from the province of Ruthenia (województwo ruskie) in the Kingdom of Poland (today in Ukraine), his biography remains a subject of debate.⁶ But while it is clear that he was not originally a citizen of Vienna, his foreign birth and exotic costume matter little to locals who value his contributions to the city’s cultural landscape and treat the public monument dedicated to him as an important landmark, imbuing it with local significance. For all intents and purposes, Kolschitzky is not to them an outsider but a genuine Viennese, a sentiment evident in the names of several local businesses, including the coffee roastery Kafeekontor Kolschitzky and the Kolsch Coffee Shop in Wiener Neustadt.⁷ There is even a specialty coffee blend dedicated to Kolschitzky (Figure 0.2) roasted by Vienna’s leading coffee purveyors, Julius Meinl, of which the professed ‘bold, full flavour’ described on the company’s website ‘captures the spirit of its namesake, the Viennese cafe pioneer Georg Kolschitzky’.⁸ The near-complete disavowal of the man’s foreignness, so clear in this product description, rests on accepting both Kolschitzky’s Viennese credentials and his impact on the city’s sense of identity and place. His naturalization into the local tradition of a place that had not always been his home is by no means exceptional: it is just one example of the relatively common if seemingly paradoxical practice of upholding and reinforcing the collective identity of a community or society by assimilating foreign elements into its cultural vocabulary. But how is it even possible for foreign things to be perceived as local? This book sets out to examine this apparent contradiction.

0.2 Kolschitzky Coffee. Screenshot of the Julius Meinl official website, 30 November 2020

Foreign as local

As a foreigner who introduced a once-exotic drink to the Viennese while making a name for himself in his adopted homeland, Kolschitzky offers us an entry point into the world of foreign people, strange things, and new ideas that become an inseparable aspect of localness.⁹ Although in surviving visual representations he appears visibly different from Vienna’s native inhabitants, Kolschitzky’s non-local origins and appearance fade into the background as his ethnic difference gets lost