Istanbul - a metropolis at the crossroads of continents, former Byzantium and Constantinople - hides many Polish traces amidst the hustle and bustle of bazaars and maze of streets, amidst dense buildings and overlapping layers of architecture and culture .

The most famous is the romantic legend of Adampol , a Polish village located between the city and the Black Sea, today a popular weekend destination. However, the Polish heritage in Turkey was created by diverse groups: engineers, architects, soldiers, refugees and missionaries - Poles and Poles with different fates and life experiences. They arrived in the former Constantinople in different circumstances: sometimes sold into slavery or as prisoners of war, but more often in search of new opportunities to live outside their enslaved homeland.

Mickiewicz in the shadow of the mosques

The historical figure most often cited in this context remains Adam Mickiewicz . Although his stay in this city was episodic, Istanbul is permanently inscribed in the poet's biography due to the tragic finale of his visit - Mickiewicz died here in November 1855 in circumstances that many consider unclear.

The author of 'Pan Tadeusz' arrived in Istanbul as an emissary of the ideas of the Polish Legion during the Crimean War . With a passion for political action, but with frail health, further devastated by the hardships of the journey. He lived in a dark, damp room rented from a poor Polish emigrant or - according to other accounts - from a "Polish woman married to a German tailor". The medical care turned out to be as despicable as the living conditions and Mickiewicz eventually lost his battle with the disease, most likely cholera. Although this version is the best documented, some researchers also mention possible poisoning .

The building in which the poet died burned down in the great fire of 1870 , but was rebuilt according to the original plans thanks to the efforts of a Polish industrialist, Józef Ratynski , who, in competition with another wealthy entrepreneur, Henryk Groppler (1822-1887), well-known in non-Turkish emigration circles, was the first to buy the plot of land. We can find the house today amidst the narrow streets of the Beyoğlu district - it is a modest two-storey building with a pale cream-coloured façade, squeezed in between similar townhouses.

In the reconstructed building, Ratynski arranged the Adam Mickiewicz Museum which still functions today. Souvenirs of the bard are mainly reproductions, but an interesting element is the former cellar, where the bard's body was buried for a month, turned into a crypt in which a symbolic tomb of Mickiewicz has been arranged . A copy of the poet's death mask is also on display in the crypt . Another interesting element is a section of the exhibition with a wall of blocks printed with Mickiewicz's poetry in translation into several languages. The pages with poems can be torn off like the pages with the daily dates in the once popular wall calendars and taken away as souvenirs.

The would-be embassy

In Cihangir rises the ruined but still majestic villa of Mikhail Tchaikovsky (1804-1886), later the Sadik Pasha . As a political agent of the Hotel Lambert and initiator of the Adampol (Polonezköy) settlement, Czajkowski played a key role in organising Polish émigré life in Turkey . After converting to Islam and joining the Ottoman army, his house became a meeting place not only for Poles, but also for French, Italian and Turkish elites. Today (2025), the villa is abandoned and - waiting for a new owner - is gradually falling into disrepair.

Adampol

Amidst the forests on the Asian side of the Bosphorus lies the small village of Polonezköy, the former Adampol . It was founded in 1842 on the initiative of Prince Adam Czartoryski and Michał Czajkowski , as an asylum for participants in the November Uprising who fled through the Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire. The land for the colony was leased from the French Lazarist Order and it was not long before the first twelve settlers began their new life away from their enslaved homeland.

Contrary to the original assumptions, which envisaged only a temporary settlement, Adampol was transformed into a permanent Polish settlement . A particularly important role in its development was played by Michał Czajkowski and Ludwika Śniadecka (1802-1866) , who strove to stabilise the life of the community. Families were established, more emigrants were brought in, and after the January Uprising the number of inhabitants increased to around a hundred families.

Material evidence of the continuation of this community is 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 died in 1869). Among the marble stelae and simple crosses, there is also the gravestone of Ludwika Śniadecka - initially buried outside the cemetery due to her conversion to Islam, but later incorporated into the necropolis. The cemetery, once overgrown with vegetation, was tidied up in the 1980s and thoroughly renovated in 1999 . Most tombstones have a modest form: a cross on a plinth, a simple slab, sometimes an eagle symbol or other decorations.

The church and the house-museum of "Aunt Zosia " have also been preserved in Adampol . Descendants of the former settlers still live there. However, the village has lost its typically Polish character, becoming a fashionable place for weekend getaways for Istanbul residents.

Modernity with a Polish accent

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

Polish engineers and architects played a not inconsiderable role in the modernisation of Turkish cities. They created plans for sewage systems, water supply systems, public facilities - not only in Istanbul, but also in the new capital of the republic, Ankara. Thanks to their work, Turkey was able to face the challenges of modernity. Although the names of many of them are not immortalised on commemorative plaques, their contribution remains visible in the urban landscape.

Feriköy - a necropolis not only of Poland

A few kilometres from bustling Taksim Square, in the Şişli district, stretches the Istanbul's largest Catholic cemetery - Feriköy , also known as Pangaltı Roman Catholic Cemetery. It was established in 1853 as a response to overcrowding in the old and defunct Pera cemetery. The Ottoman authorities then handed over the new site to the Catholic and Protestant communities. Just a few years later, in 1857, the necropolis had to be enlarged.

The cemetery, somewhat reminiscent of a city park, is separated from the hustle and bustle of the streets by a wall. It is divided into six sectors and the alleys are named after saints. In the western section are the monumental mausoleums of the Levantine families Corpi, Botter, Tubini and Glavany. Next to them are the graves of French and Italian soldiers killed during the Crimean War. It is here, in the quarters of the French Army, that Bolesław Czajkowski and Franciszek Radomski - Poles who fought in the ranks of the French expeditionary forces - are buried . Their names are immortalised on a memorial plaque with the inscription: "France to its sons 1914-1918".

The Polish presence at Feriköy does not end there, however. An inventory carried out in 2023 counted some 90 Polish tombstones located in different sectors of the cemetery. Immigrant activists, doctors, teachers, merchants and children of families who settled in Istanbul in the 19th and 20th centuries rest here . Some of the gravestones are richly decorated monuments, others are modest and simple. Unfortunately, many of them are increasingly badly preserved. All, however, bear witness to the fate 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 19th century, one of the most distinguished representatives of the Polish colony in Istanbul was the aforementioned Henryk Groppler - an industrialist, socialite and patron of culture . He hosted numerous travellers, artists and émigré activists in his villa (now defunct), located near the Bosphorus . One of the most famous was Jan Matejko , who in 1879, on his way to the Middle East, stopped at Groppler's house. The result of this visit was the painting "View of Bebek near Constantinople" (1872) , now in Lviv. Groppler's villa was not only a place for social gatherings, but also a centre of intellectual life, where Polish issues and the role of Turkey in the context of Polish independence aspirations were debated.

Polish artists on the Bosporus

From the 18th century until the interwar period, Polish painters, sculptors and art educators marked their presence in Istanbul. One of the most important figures was Stanisław Chlebowski (1835-1884) - court painter to Sultan Abdülaziz , creator of monumental battle scenes such as the ' Battle of Mohacz ' and the ' Battle of Varna ' . Painting in an academic style, he combined European technique with Ottoman ideology of power. His paintings can be seen in the sultans' residence on the Bosporus, the Dolmabahçe Palace .

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

A significant contribution to Turkish culture and art was also made by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1818-1881) , a Danish painter of Polish origin who visited the Ottoman Empire several times in the second half of the 19th century. Through diplomatic contacts, she gained access to the harem - which allowed her to create rare, authentic portraits of Eastern women, far from orientalising stereotypes, as well as paintings that consciously made use of these stereotypes.

In the period after the First World War, Istanbul became a refuge for artists fleeing Bolshevism. Roman Bilinski (1897-1981) , a sculptor educated in Kyiv and Krakow, not only exhibited in Turkish institutions, but was also invited by Atatürk to co-organise the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art and the conservation of the Hagia Sophia . His oeuvre also included numerous portraits of the inhabitants of Adampol and a bust of Józef Piłsudski . Bolesław Cybis (1895-1957) , on the other hand, during his brief stay in Turkey between 1920 and 1923 , was involved in stage design, wall painting and advertising. Although his presence was episodic, he left behind works combining a grotesque style with an insightful observation of Istanbul's everyday life.

Poles - though few in number - 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 where tradition clashed with modernisation and art served both ideas and memory.

Between identity preservation and assimilation

At the famous İstiklâl Caddesi is the Church of St Mary Draperis . Its history dates back to the late 16th century, when the Poor Clare Clara Maria Draperis donated a house with a small chapel to the monks. This place - despite fires, earthquakes and confiscations - has survived to the present day, and traces of Polishness can be found in the interior of the church , on the surviving memorial plaques.

Polish traces in Turkey, however, are not just random names on cemetery tablets or romantic echoes of Adampol. Their true value is only revealed when we see them as a fragment 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 against geopolitical rulings.

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