Przekład, Orient, Służby i Action

Abstract

A warning letter from somebody at the Turkish Court to His Lordship Castellan of Czernihow is one of the oldest translations from Polish into Swedish, published probably 1673. The text is also known in its Latin translation, while the original Polish version is probably lost. The analysis opens a field for questions of both linguistic and historical nature about the text itself, its anonymous author, the addressee and about relations between Poland, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire during the last decades of the 17th century. The conclusion suggests that the addressee is Jan Sobieski, the future king John III, and the author must most probably be his soldier and spy, Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki (known also in Austria as Georg Franz Kolschitzky).