The Polish Network of an Ottoman Pasha

Ilyash Kolchak Pasha, his Polish Secretary, and Connected History

Abstract

This article explores the cross-border networks that emerged along the Ottoman–Polish border in the early eighteenth century through the case of Ilyash Kolchak Pasha and his Polish secretary, Piotr Pawłowski. Drawing on a unique corpus of Polish-language correspondence preserved in Russian and Ukrainian archives, it reconstructs how Hotin functioned not merely as a fortress but as a logistical, postal, and diplomatic hub. Kolchak – a Bosnian-born Ottoman border governor fluent in Polish – used his position and linguistic skills to cultivate a dense web of relationships with nobles, clergy, soldiers, diplomats, and merchants on both sides of the border. As his secretary, translator, and intermediary, Pawłowski operated his own smaller but vital network of nobles, Tatars, Armenians, Hungarians, and diplomats, enabling everyday exchanges of letters, goods, and intelligence. The article argues that this border was not a rigid civilizational line but a corridor of brokerage, social infrastructure, and mutual dependence. It challenges state-centric and Huntingtonian civilizational binaries by foregrounding intermediaries and their networks as constitutive forces in early modern borderlands. The Ottoman–Polish border emerges as a zone of structural entanglement, where imperial systems overlapped, and trans-imperial actors like Kolchak and Pawłowski shaped political, commercial, and cultural exchange.