Originalveröffentlichung in: Elgood, Robert (Hrsg.): Islamic arms and armour, London 1979, S. 213-238 Islamic weapons Polish collections and their provenance Zdzislaw Zygulski, Jr Dr Zygulski is the President of the International Association of Museums of Arms and Military History (IAMAM) and Curator. National Museum Cracow, the Czartoryski Collection. He is also an Assistant Professor at the Cracow Fine Arts Academy. 214 ISLAMIC ARMS AND ARMOUR By the early fourteenth century, trade and diplomatic relations boundaries extended far to the East, close to the Crimean between Poland and the Near East were firmly established, with Khanate and the Ottoman Empire (see map iv). In the period well-defined commercial routes along which Constantinople, of the last Jagiellonian kings. Sigismund 1 and Sigismund 11 Lvov. Toruri and Gdansk were important stages. From Gdansk it Augustus, there existed an agreement with the 'Sublime Port'1 was easy to go by sea to other European ports, particularly under the terms of which merchants acting on behalf of the Amsterdam and London. Lvov (Lemberg), then in the east of the rulers of both states were exempted from all taxes and tolls. Polish State, became a commercial and manufacturing centre, Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent sent merchants to Poland and the local Polish and Ruthenian citizenry being augmented by Russia every year, giving them the large sum of forty thousand Greeks, Persians. Jews and a large number of Armenians. These ducats to purchase goods. In 1 536, one of these merchants. Hajji last came from Turkish and Persian territories and were soon Rejeb from Istanbul, died in Warsaw; in the inventory of goods polonized, but retained their cultural links with the East, so that left by him are listed many high-quality weapons, together with Armenian goods manufactured in Lvov show a distinctly mixed precious fabrics and gems.2 Polish-Oriental style. Polish-Turkish relations deteriorated at the end of the Trade with the Orient was disrupted by the Turkish conquest sixteenth century after Sigismund of the Swedish Vasa dynasty of Constantinople in 1453. and by Ottoman expansion generally, had been elected to the Polish throne. Polish diplomacy sought though for much of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Poland an alliance with Safavid Persia against their mutual Ottoman foe, and Turkey were at peace. At that time, under the rule of the and in pursuit of this, emissaries and gifts were sent to the Shah's Jagiellonian dynasty, Poland was united with Lithuania and her court. In order to avoid traversing the Sultan's territory, an 93Up t 1 0 % V u w C - / ^ V - - t wr M u ,3 w J- W <* <* v zefc&r *« *» *r • v rf**- - ft'•#.!:,It *»- e HLTI £ • ^MJ^s fe^K m Li— • TTTT r 9* 'W: V v** i -5 •j m #1 ffil Ml * -V 216, 217 Kalkan (shield) of King Sigismund HI. (Wawel State Collection of Art. Cracow) ISLAMIC WEAPONS IN POLISH COLLECTIONS 2 I 5 alternative route to Persia, through Cracow, Moscow and to Trebizond. Erzerum. Kars, the River Araxis. Ecbatana and Astrakhan - the Via Moscovensis - was usually taken. In 1607 a finally to Kiishan in Persia, at that time famous for its textile Polish embassy brought as a gift to Shah 'Abbas an illuminated industry. The purchased goods were transported by the same French mid-thirteenth century Bible known today as the route to Poland.4 Maciejowski Bible (after Bernard Maciejowski, Bishop of Cracow, Today it is not possible to identify any of the weapons brought a sixteenth-century owner), an invaluable source of arms and back by Muratovitch. though, on the strength of Sigismund's armour illustrations, now in the Morgan Library. New York.' In reported fondness for Oriental, particularly Persian, arms we may addition to political legations, some solely commercial missions assume that those purchased by Muratovitch were of the highest were sent to Persia by the Polish kings. The royal castles and quality.s Unfortunately all the portraits of Sigismund known to palaces - particularly Wawel Castle at Cracow - were furnished the author show him in western attire and do not provide with luxury items from both East and West. In 1601 an evidence of the decorative fashion in sword hilts prevailing in Armenian merchant, Sefer Muratovitch. was commissioned by Kashan at this time. When in the late eighteenth century his Sigismund m of Vasa to purchase rugs woven with the royal coffin was opened, among the objects found was a kalkan shield arms, as well as costly fabrics, tents and weapons, specifically (now displayed in the Royal Treasury in Wawel Castle'' (216, sabre blades of watered steel. Muratovitch did not take the 217) made of woven rig twigs, the outside being covered with Moscow route. Probably he had a Turkish safe conduct, for he gilded silver plate, embossed in floral motifs and set with passed through Wallachia along the River Danube, through the turquoise and jade, while the inner side is lined with Persian Turkish town of Mangalia on the Black Sea, and thence by boat fabric. Though generally attributed to Persia of the early 2 16 ISLAMIC ARMS AND ARMOUR seventeenth century, this opinion rests on the presence of the Another beautiful example is preserved in Wilanow Palace and is 9 Persian fabric and on representations of similar shields in Persian traditionally connected with Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz miniatures from the fourteenth century onwards, in which (219). It is interesting to compare this mace with the late horsemen armed with such shields are plentiful; but hardly any seventeenth-century bulawa, made by Armenians in Lvov, in the of the shields themselves have come down to us. Those of Czartoryski Collection (220). Turkish manufacture in the Polish collections are very similar to Very similar to the bulawa was the buzdygan mace; sometimes Sigismund's though they are covered with cloth of gold and lined used as a badge of rank but primarily intended as a fighting with plain velvet, and all date from the second half of the weapon, it was popular all over the Eastern world. Various seventeenth century; some are booty from the great Polish- versions, locally made and imported, were used in Poland. 7 German victory over the Turks at Vienna in 1683. Examples of Persian origin or made in the Persian style are Throughout the Near East and Islamic India, the mace with a preserved in Polish museums though they are rarely found globular or pear-shaped head was used as a military sceptre. This elsewhere. The buzdygan head has six flanges with curved edges; symbol can be traced back as far as third millennium BC it is mounted on a tubular-faceted haft terminating in a grip that Mesopotamia and Egypt, at which time they were furnished with contains a hidden dagger which may be withdrawn after stone or ceramic heads, and occasionally deposited in temples as unscrewing the bottom knob, and then fixed in reverse position votive offerings for victory. In sixteenth-century Poland, a solid- to form a jarld-hke weapon. The surfaces are usually damascened headed type of mace called a bulawa served as the insignia of the with finely executed floral motifs or small cypresses, or hetman, the highest commander of an army.* The Royal Treasury sometimes with the coat of arms of the owner (221). of Wawel Castle contains a superb early-seventeenth-century From the late seventeenth century onwards, reports of the example made in Persia or by Persian craftsmen. It is entirely fabulous Mughal Empire influenced Polish national fashion. This covered with gold, blue enamel, turquoises and rubies (218). is especially evident in the sashes adopted for the costume of the v iv ft r- Wc f7. •17 4v s w O Si " . bfln v- • w k v v 1 218 • • 219 218 Bulawa-mace, Persian, seventeenth century. (Wawel State Collection of Art, Cracow) 2 19 Bulawa-mace, Persian, seventeenth century. (The Wilanow Palace Collection. National Museum, Warsaw) ISLAMIC WEAPONS IN POLISH COLLECTIONS 21 7 ^""""'fwttttl' : /^j^'^BW?^^ " «* •wHtrtS- tf'^KSI - x 5 *1>h •w O tl*"^ v' ft -rju*--*- 8M fc3 SbelS&tafc .'•^•^"•yi-rg-a > • • ; ••• i *• ^ ^.. J-d^ • v». (m kwraii ii/. I I ••r, ri I 2 22 I 220 Buiawa-mace made by Armenian craftsmen in Lvov, late- seventeenth century; also shown, a Polish sash in Indo-Persian style. (The Czartoryskl Collection. Cracow) 221 Buzdygan-mace, Polish under Persian influence, seventeenth eighteenth centuries. (The Polish Army Museum. Warsaw) nobles, at first imported but later produced in Poland. As to weapons, the Polish karabela sabres came to include a variety called indyczka, 'Indian-like', distinguished by downcurved quillons with floral endings. Some of these were imported from India, others were made in Poland (222). In the second half of the seventeenth century. Polish culture adopted a variety of Turkish styles and ideas. Wars with the Ottoman Empire had brought to the country an abundance of military trophies, but not enough to satisfy the demands of the gentry. Gentlemen disinclined to risk t he hazards of war were able to buy the expensive Turkish arms that fashion had made de rigeur. Merchants from East and West continued to trade in spite of the periodic outbreaks of hostility, for Ottoman Turkey provided the greatest market in the Near Hast for Oriental and Western commodities. Goods in Persian and Indian taste were produced in Istanbul by artisans brought - sometimes forcibly - into the city. We know little about these immigrant workers, though information is probably to be found in the city's unpublished archives. The Cracow Museums display a large number of objects which reflect the process by which Oriental styles intruded themselves in the Polish panoply in the course of the eighteenth century.