Learn about the Scottish community in 15th and 16th century Poland-Lithuania with expert Prof. Waldemar Kowalski, Jan Kochanowski University
While modern Scotland contains tens of thousands of Polish citizens and people of Polish descent, travel between the two nations has not always flowed in a westerly direction.
From the medieval period to the seventeenth century, large numbers of Scots made new lives for themselves in Poland and Lithuania, many working as merchants and mercenaries: some became wealthy and powerful figures, such as the trader Robert Gordon, wine merchant Robert Porteous and the Mayor of Warsaw Alexander Chalmers. The descendants of these Scottish immigrants still live in Poland today, and they are immortalised in graveyards, Scots kirks, public buildings, family names and the names of towns and districts.
Learn more about this community of immigrants, pedlars, entrepreneurs and soldiers of fortune – who they were, where they settled, and how they lived in the multicultural Rzeczpospolita (shetch-poss-POLLY-ta / Commonwealth) – in this English-language online lecture by Professor Waldemar Kowalski from Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce.
Tuesday 8 June 2021 at 19:00
If you missed the lecture you can now watch it here