
908 document 51 (29 june 1635)
e great tsar of the Great Horde and great nations, the Crimean throne, the
Kipchak Steppe, innumerable Tatars, countless Nogays, mountain Circassians,
2
unsettled Tats,
3
and the hundreds, tens, thousands, and tens of thousands
[tümens] of the right and the le side, the great Crimean khan, the elevated,
great, decorous, illustrious, magnicent, extending his grace unto the common
people, Inayet Giray Khan (may God assist his majesty with prosperity until
the day of His will [i.e., the khan’s death]!), to the great emperor of Ruthenia,
Prussia, Lithuania, Mazovia, Samogitia, Livonia, Kiev, Podlachia [Podlasie],
Smolensk, Černihiv, and of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals, and of many other
Christians, our brother, the king of Poland, Vladislaus IV (may God conduct
his aairs until the Day of Judgment!), the commander of many states; having
expressed great many salutations and asked about Your Majesty’s health and
prosperity, we have written and sent our present imperial letter:
Almighty God has assisted us by His will and grace, glanced [ favorably] and
let me, the great tsar Inayet Giray Khan, to attain [the reign of ] the Crimean
state and the throne of our former ancestors, resting in paradise, and of our
father. Having pronounced great many thanks to His Holiness [i.e., God], we
ordered to announce it by our letters to our close as well as distant friends.
Hence we send to you, our majestic brother, our great courier Ghazi Agha,
from among our merited servants, in desire to keep good friendship until the
end of our time, to be a friend of [your] friend and an enemy of [your] enemy,
and to retain the ancient friendship and reconciliation.
As our ancestors, resting in paradise, Mengli Giray Khan and Devlet Giray
Khan, had commenced peace and friendship with your ancestor, King Augustus,
4
being friends and brothers to each other, they used to send gis, due according
to the ancient customs and settlements, to our residence in Baghchasaray, hav-
ing loaded them on their own carts. And the great and small envoys, coming
along with the gis and money, and merchants alike, were not harmed by any
damage done to them or their goods on their way, in the steppe, or in [our]
domains. And if any damage occurred in whichever way, it was to be compen-
sated and those, who had committed it, were to be punished, even if they were
found in the khan’s retinue.
not record any names of the Tatar envoys; cf. idem, Stosunki polsko-tatarskie w latach
1632–1648, pp. 41–46.
2
Lit. “Circassians dwelling among mountains,” a literal translation of the Turkish
expression taġ ara Çerkes.
3
On the Tats, see Document 48, n. 8. e description “unsettled” (Pol. bez osiedla
żyjących) apparently results from a misunderstanding, as the Tats were not nomads.
Since in the khan’s intitulatio the Tats were typically paired with the Tavgaches, and
the latter term was unknown to Otwinowski (cf. Document 48, n. 8), the Crown
translator perhaps mistook Tavgaç for Tav-göç, “wandering in the mountains,” and
erroneously applied this term to the Tats (“wandering” > “leading unsettled life” >
“unsettled”).
4
e examples of Mengli Giray Khan and King Sigismund Augustus do not match
chronologically as the rst one died in 1515 while the second was born in 1520. Yet, Dev-
let Giray (r. 1551–1577) and Sigismund Augustus (r. 1548–1572) were contemporaries.