Jan Potocki’s Unstable Turkeys

This study presents two distinct moments in Jan Potocki’s engagement with Turkey, separated by more than twenty years. The first concerns his journey to Egypt in 1784, when the 23-year-old stopped for two months in Constanti­nople, a formative experience that nurtured his enduring passion for the Orient. The second moment occurs in 1806–1807, when, serving as an adviser to the administration of Tsar Alexander I and as a knowledgeable connoisseur of the Near East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, he approached the Turkish question with the dispassionate, strategic perspective required for developing imperial policy under the looming threat of Napoleon’s conquering campaigns

Formative assessment · Passion · Turkish · Central European and Russian historical studies · Historical and Cultural Studies of Poland · Ottoman Empire History and Society