The best known of these is the romantic legend of Adampol, a Polish village located between the city and the Black Sea, today known as Polonezköy and a popular weekend destination. Yet Polish heritage in Turkey was created by a wide range of people: engineers, architects, soldiers, refugees and missionaries. They were Poles whose lives and experiences differed greatly. They arrived in the former Constantinople in various circumstances: some had been sold into slavery or taken prisoner in war, but many more came in search of new opportunities beyond their subjugated homeland.

Mickiewicz in the Shadow of the Mosques

The historical figure most often mentioned in this context is Adam Mickiewicz. Although his stay in the city was brief, Istanbul has become permanently inscribed in the poet’s biography because of the tragic conclusion to his visit: Mickiewicz died here in November 1855 in circumstances that many still regard as unclear.

The author of Pan Tadeusz arrived in Istanbul during the Crimean War as an emissary promoting the idea of a Polish Legion. He was full of political zeal, but his health was frail and had been further weakened by the hardships of the journey. He lived in a dark, damp room rented from a poor Polish émigré or, according to other accounts, from a “Polish woman married to a German tailor”. The medical care proved as deplorable as the living conditions. Mickiewicz eventually succumbed to the illness, most probably cholera. Although this version is the best documented, some scholars have also suggested that he may have been poisoned.

The building in which the poet died burned down in the great fire of 1870, but it was rebuilt according to the original plans thanks to the efforts of the Polish industrialist Józef Ratyński. Ratyński competed with another wealthy entrepreneur, Henryk Groppler (1822–1887), who was well known among non-Turkish émigré circles, and was the first to purchase the plot of land. Today, the house can be found among the narrow streets of the Beyoğlu district: a modest, two-storey building with a pale cream façade, squeezed between similar townhouses.

In the reconstructed building, Ratyński established the Adam Mickiewicz Museum, which remains open today. The memorabilia associated with the poet are mostly reproductions, but one particularly interesting feature is the former cellar. This was where Mickiewicz’s body lay buried for a month. The cellar has since been transformed into a crypt, with a symbolic tomb dedicated to the poet. A copy of his death mask is also displayed there. Another notable feature is a section of the exhibition with a wall of blocks printed with translations of Mickiewicz’s poetry into several languages. The pages with poems can be torn off like the daily sheets of once-popular wall calendars and taken away as souvenirs.

The Embassy That Never Was

In Cihangir stands the ruined yet still majestic villa of Michał Czajkowski (1804‒1886), later known as Sadyk Pasha. As a political agent of the Hôtel Lambert and the initiator of the Adampol, or Polonezköy, settlement, Czajkowski played a key role in organising Polish émigré life in Turkey. After his conversion to Islam and entry into the Ottoman army, his house became a meeting place not only for Poles, but also for members of the French, Italian and Turkish elites. Today, in 2025, the villa stands abandoned and, as it awaits a new owner, is gradually falling into disrepair.

Adampol

Among the forests on the Asian side of the Bosphorus lies the small village of Polonezköy, formerly Adampol. It was founded in 1842 on the initiative of Prince Adam Czartoryski and Michał Czajkowski as a refuge for participants in the November Rising who had fled to the Ottoman Empire through the Caucasus. The land for the colony was leased from the French Lazarist Order, and before long the first twelve settlers began their new lives far from their subjugated homeland.

Contrary to the original plans, which envisaged only a temporary settlement, Adampol developed into a permanent Polish village. Michał Czajkowski and Ludwika Śniadecka (1802–1866) played a particularly important role in its development; they sought to stabilise the life of the community. Families were formed, more émigrés were brought in and, after the January Rising, the number of inhabitants rose to around a hundred families.

Material evidence of the community’s continuity can be found in the Polish cemetery in Adampol. The first burial took place as early as the 1840s, and the oldest surviving tombstones include those of Antoni Wieruski and Adam Michałowski, both of whom died in 1869. Among the marble stelae and simple crosses is also the gravestone of Ludwika Śniadecka. She was initially buried outside the cemetery because of her conversion to Islam, but her grave was later incorporated into the necropolis. Once overgrown with vegetation, the cemetery was tidied up in the 1980s and thoroughly renovated in 1999. Most of the tombstones are modest in form: a cross on a plinth, a simple slab, sometimes an eagle motif or other decorative element.

The church and the house-museum of “Aunt Zosia” have also survived in Adampol. Descendants of the original settlers still live there. The village, however, has lost its distinctly Polish character and has become a fashionable weekend destination for residents of Istanbul.

Modernity with a Polish Accent

Although Polonezköy remains the best-known trace of the Polish presence in Turkey, there are many other such places and stories. Poles also appeared in other parts of the country: in Bursa, Izmir, Erzurum and Tarsus, as engineers, doctors, cartographers and urban planners. They designed roads and railways, built bridges and established hospitals. Some made spectacular careers, such as Antoni Aleksander Iliński (1812–1861), known as Mehmet İskender Pasha, who became a general in the Ottoman army and a close associate of the Sultan.

Polish engineers and architects played a considerable role in the modernisation of Turkish cities. They drew up plans for sewage systems, water supply networks and public facilities, not only in Istanbul, but also in Ankara, the new capital of the republic. Thanks to their work, Turkey was better able to meet the challenges of modernity. Although many of their names are not commemorated on plaques, their contribution remains visible in the urban landscape.

Feriköy: A Necropolis Not Only of Poles

A few kilometres from bustling Taksim Square, in the Şişli district, lies Istanbul’s largest Catholic cemetery: Feriköy, also known as the Pangaltı Roman Catholic Cemetery. It was established in 1853 in response to overcrowding in the old Pera cemetery, which was no longer in use. The Ottoman authorities then handed over the new site to the Catholic and Protestant communities. Only a few years later, in 1857, the necropolis had to be enlarged.

Somewhat reminiscent of a city park, the cemetery is separated from the bustle of the streets by a wall. It is divided into six sectors, and its avenues are named after saints. In the western section stand the monumental mausoleums of the Levantine families Corpi, Botter, Tubini and Glavany. Nearby are the graves of French and Italian soldiers killed during the Crimean War. It is here, in the French Army section, that Bolesław Czajkowski and Franciszek Radomski are buried: Poles who fought in the ranks of the French expeditionary forces. Their names are commemorated on a memorial plaque bearing the inscription “France to its sons 1914–1918”.

The Polish presence at Feriköy, however, does not end there. An inventory carried out in 2023 recorded some 90 Polish tombstones in various sectors of the cemetery. Émigré activists, doctors, teachers, merchants and children from families who settled in Istanbul in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries rest here. Some of the gravestones are richly decorated monuments; others are modest and simple. Unfortunately, many are in an increasingly poor state of preservation. All of them, however, bear witness to the lives of people for whom Turkey became a second homeland: sometimes by choice, more often by necessity.

Salon at Groppler’s

In the second half of the nineteenth century, one of the most distinguished representatives of the Polish community in Istanbul was Henryk Groppler: an industrialist, man of society and patron of culture. In his villa near the Bosphorus, now no longer extant, he hosted numerous travellers, artists and émigré activists. One of the most famous of these guests was Jan Matejko, who, in 1872, stopped at Groppler’s house on his way to the Middle East. The result of this visit was the painting “View of Bebek near Constantinople” from 1872, now in the Lviv National Art Gallery. The Polish title is “Widok Bebeku koło Konstantynopola”. Groppler’s villa was not only a place of social gatherings, but also a centre of intellectual life, where Polish affairs and Turkey’s role in the context of Polish aspirations to independence were discussed.

Polish Artists on the Bosporus

From the eighteenth century until the interwar period, Polish painters, sculptors and art educators made their presence felt in Istanbul. One of the most important figures was Stanisław Chlebowski (1835–1884), court painter to Sultan Abdülaziz and the creator of monumental battle scenes, including “The Battle of Varna” and “The Battle of Mohács”. Working in an academic style, he combined European technique with the Ottoman ideology of power. His paintings can be seen in the sultans’ residence on the Bosphorus, Dolmabahçe Palace.

Also active in Istanbul was Józef Warnia-Zarzecki (1850–1925), who taught for more than three decades at the School of Fine Arts, or Sanayi-i Nefise Mektebi, founded by Osman Hamdi Bey. His paintings, such as “Sultan Selim III” and “Sükût”, combined realistic depiction with subtle emotional reflection, and Warnia-Zarzecki himself helped lay the foundations of modern Turkish painting.

A significant contribution to Turkish culture and art was also made by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1819–1881), a Danish painter of Polish origin who visited the Ottoman Empire several times in the second half of the nineteenth century. Through diplomatic contacts, she gained access to the harem. This enabled her to create rare portraits of Eastern women from direct observation, although her work also engaged with the visual conventions and stereotypes of Orientalism.

In the period after the First World War, Istanbul became a refuge for artists fleeing Bolshevism. Roman Biliński (1897–1981), a sculptor educated in Kyiv and Kraków, not only exhibited in Turkish institutions, but was also invited by Atatürk to help organise the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art and supervise conservation work at Hagia Sophia. His oeuvre also included numerous portraits of the inhabitants of Adampol and a bust of Józef Piłsudski. Bolesław Cybis (1895–1957), meanwhile, spent a brief period in Turkey between 1920 and 1923. He worked in stage design, mural painting and advertising. Although his stay was brief, he left behind works that combined grotesque, fantastic forms with acute observation of everyday life in Istanbul.

Although few in number, Poles played a surprisingly important role in the artistic landscape of the Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic. They were teachers, court painters and documentarians: witnesses to the transformation of a world in which tradition encountered modernisation and art served both ideas and memory.

Between Preserving Identity and Assimilation

On the famous İstiklâl Caddesi stands the Church of St Mary Draperis. Its history dates back to the late sixteenth century, when the Poor Clare Clara Maria Draperis donated a house with a small chapel to the Franciscan Friars. Despite fires, earthquakes and confiscations, the site has survived to the present day, and traces of Polishness can be found inside the church, on the surviving memorial plaques.

Polish traces in Turkey, however, are not merely random names on cemetery plaques or romantic echoes of Adampol. Their true value becomes clear only when we see them as part of a larger whole: a history of people who sought in a foreign country not only shelter, but also a sense of purpose, a space for their own culture and a place where Polishness could survive despite geopolitical verdicts.

It was a complex and dispersed presence: from diplomacy and the military to art, architecture and education, and to religion and everyday life. It is striking how many of these themes, from Chlebowski painting for the Sultan to Biliński sculpting a bust of Atatürk, played out at the intersection of loyalty, adaptation and the preservation of identity. In this context, the Bosphorus appears not only as a strait between continents, but also as a metaphor for the tension between tradition and modernisation, East and West, exile and settlement. Poles on the Bosphorus were not mere observers; they were often more deeply inscribed in Turkish history than one might assume.