The Last Century in Turkish-Polish Relations (1923-2023)

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DOI :10.26650/B/AH3SSc15SSc21.2025.006.002   IUP :10.26650/B/AH3SSc15SSc21.2025.006.002    Full Text (PDF)

On a secret mission to Ankara: Informal attempts to establish Polish-Turkish relations during the Turkish War of Independence

Paulina D. Dominik

This chapter examines the efforts of the political leadership of the Second Republic of Poland to establish relations with the Turkish national government in Ankara, a process that dates back to the final months of 1920. To under/ stand the motivations behind the Polish leaders’ engagement with this emerging political entity in Anatolia while simultaneously maintaining friendly relations with the Ottoman government in Istanbul. This chapter focuses on the secret mission of Seyfeddin Thadée Gasztowtt (1881 – 1936), the First Secretary of the Polish Delegation to the Sublime Porte. This mission took place in the spring of 1921. Drawing on Gasztowtt’s report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Second Republic of Poland and the Second Department of the Polish General Staff, along with other relevant testimonies, I reconstruct this political mission, which can be regarded as the first success of the post/ World War I Polish diplomacy in establishing relations with the Ankara government. I discuss its significance within the broader geopolitical strategies of Chief of State and First Marshal of Poland, Józef Piłsudski, and his circle while also highlighting its long/term impact, particularly in the lead/up to the Polish/Turkish Friendship Treaty signed in Lausanne on 23 July 1923.


Keywords: Polish/Turkish relations, interwar period, informal diplomacy, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Józef Piłsudski, Seyfeddin Thadée Gasztowtt

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