New Source on Safavid-Polish Relations and What It Tells Us

The relations between the Safavid state and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth have been the subject of scholarly inquiry since as early as the years immediately following the fall of Isfahan, as evidenced by the early study by Krusiński (1734 and 1740). Since then, the research into the subject has largely been based on the limited narrative sources, as well as the documents – Persian, Turkic and Latin – mostly kept in the Central Archives of Historical Records (AGAD) in Warsaw, as well as those included (in Latin translations or in French) in Krusiński’s compilation. In recent years, these have been supplemented by the documents copied into the early 17th-century Carmelite manuscript kept in Naples, and other limited sources. The present work contains the transcription and translation of the documents sent from Persia with the Polish envoy, Teofil Szemberg, on his return to Poland. These documents never reached Poland, as Szemberg was killed in Dagestan in 1638. Copies of the documents, long thought to be lost, were discovered in a manuscript kept in the library of the Islamic Consultative Assembly in Iran. The documents and the commentary found in the manuscript fill long felt vacuum in the study of the Safavid-Polish relations, and add to the knowledge of Szemberg’s mission. Moreover, they allow for the better understanding of the relationship between the Persian and Turkic languages both in Safavid diplomacy and on the official level of the state in general.