Michal Czajkowski (Sadyk Pasha)’s Projects in The Ottoman Empire (1841-1872)

Abstract

There should be three periods in the activity of Myhaylo Czajkowski on the Balkan Peninsula. The first is the time when Czajkowski led the Oriental mission of Hotel Lambert in Istanbul. The Concept of the South Slavic Federation, created by Adam Czartoryski, included the liberalization of the policy of the Ottoman Empire in relation to the Christian population, and the promotion of the Uniate movement among the Orthodox. The second period is the time before and immediately after the Crimean War, when Czajkowski became an Ottoman general (Sadyk) and headed the Cossack regiments. At this time, his projects became free from the influences of Czartoryski. An idea emerges about the formation of the Ukrainian-Bessarabian Principality, headed by Hetman. The third period is the 1860s, when Sadyk Pasha contributed to the proclamation of the Bulgarian Autocephalous Church, entered into an open conflict with former colleagues from Hotel Lambert and at the same time began to substantiate the concept of Pan-Slavism. Consequently, the project activity of Mykhaylo Czajkowski deserves our attention, because it played a certain positive role in the Bulgarian revival, sometimes contrary to the intentions of Sadyk Pasha. For the first time, the Bulgarians received patronage in the upper circles of the Ottoman Empire, which was marked primarily by the successful proclamation of the autocephaly of the Bulgarian church in 1870. The Ottoman Cossacks, headed by Czajkowski, positively influenced the processes of national revival in the 1860s. Cossacks laid the foundations of European cultural influence on the population of Bulgarian cities. The Cossacks softened the repressive actions of the Ottoman administration against the insurgent movement in the 1860s. Czajkowski’s literary works in the "Spring of Peoples" introduced the Bulgarian people to the European reader and justified the image of Bulgarian movement for independence.