Life and work of Wojciech Bobowski revisited. Bobovius (Ali Ufkî) in Polish source material Agata Pawlina

Abstract

Wojciech Bobowski (ca. 1610–1675) is one of the most remarkable figures in the history of cultural contacts between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. His numerous works on Ottoman Turkish music, language and culture are widely recognised and have attracted increased interest from researchers in recent years, but Bobowski’s life story remains rather mysterious. This is especially true of the first part of his life, which he spent in the Polish- -Lithuanian Commonwealth. My current research reveals that the Polish lore concerning Bobovius differs from what is generally written about him in Turkish and Western European literature. In this paper, I present the results of my research in Polish and Ukrainian archives along with excerpts from 17th–19th-century Polish literature that have not previously been available to international academia. I aim to provide new facts of the life of Bobowski by looking for clues hidden between the lines of his works (mainly Serai Enderum) and by tracing his possible contacts with Poles in the course of his long and fascinating life.