600 Years of Polish-Turkish Diplomatic Relations

[chrisild]

600 years ago the Kingdom of Poland and the Ottoman Empire established diplomatic relations and began exchanging envoys and ambassadors. Two silver collector coins from Poland (20 zł) and Turkey (50 TL) commemorate that anniversary. Both pieces have the same specifications: weight 31.1 g, diameter 38.61 mm. Mintage is 10,000 each.

Attached is an image of the two coins. Larger images are here:
Turkey 50 TL obverse / reverse
Poland 20 zł obverse / reverse

Have not found detailed descriptions of the "four sides" yet, but here is some background information:
* http://poloniaottomanica.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-600th-anniversary-of-polish-turkish.html
* http://culture.pl/en/event/600-years-of-turkish-polish-relations-in-istanbul
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Jagiellon_ambassadors_to_Turkey

Christian

[Figleaf]

Don't care about the "coins", but the history behind them is fascinating. Thanks for those links. A shameless piece of 15th century politics, based on "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" emerges. As long as the kingdom of Hungary is between Poles and Ottomans and both are troubled by Habsburgs, they are on friendly terms.

In turn, this gives much perspective on the political insight of Jan Sobieski, choosing to defend a cowardly Habsburg emperor and his brave capital against the Ottomans. It helped that Hungary had been assimilated into Ottoman and Habsburg lands, I suppose, but still, it must have required good and prolonged thinking as well as political bravery to switch sides so completely.

Peter