A Young Turk from Lehistan: Tadeusz Gasztowtt aka Seyfeddin Bey (1881 - 1936) and his Activities During the Second Constitutional Period (1908 – 1918)

Abstract

Following the final partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1795) the Ottoman Empire became one of the key destinations for Polish political émigrés. They fled to Istanbul hoping for Ottoman support in their efforts to regain independence. Not only did they promote an independent Polish state, but also were many of them involved in the modernization enterprise of the Ottoman state. During the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918) Tadeusz Gasztowtt aka Seyfeddin Bey came to prominence as a supporter of the Committee of Union and Progress, journalist, diplomat and soldier. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of WWI he was one of the main organizers of the diplomatic rapprochement between independent Poland and the Ottoman Empire and later, the Republic of Turkey. Given Gasztowtt’s service to a double national cause this paper puts forward a more inclusive category of a Polish Ottoman or an Ottoman Pole to define the overlapping allegiances of this individual.