THE CONTRIBUTION OF POLISH LAWYERS TO RESEARCH ON THE POLITICAL SYSTEM AND LAW OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE (AFTER 1876) AND TURKEY OF ATATURK (Wklad polskich prawników w badania nad... prawem Imperium Osmanskiego (po roku 1876) i Turcji Ataturka)

This article deals with the contribution of Polish lawyers to research on the political system and law of the post-1876 Ottoman Empire and of Turkey during the Presidency of Ataturk. Although the subject was not often analysed in Polish legal sciences, remarks made by Polish lawyers are worthy of reminding for two reasons. Firstly, their works are almost completely unknown in the circle of Polish Orientalists; secondly, they more than once contain detailed analyses of Ottoman/Turkish legal problems. Count Leon Ostroróg has been brought into prominence in the article as the lawyer who was particularly interested in Ottoman/Turkish questions and who had a share in modernization of Ottoman law. Other Polish lawyers only incidentally took up examining legal aspects of the Turkish modernization. Among them were the inter-war period scholars like Antoni Peretiatkowicz, Antoni Wereszczynski, Maciej Starzewski and Waclaw Komarnicki, and the authors writing in the second part of the last century like Leszek Winowski and Eugeniusz Zwierzchowski. The works of the authors mentioned in the article may inspire and motivate young scholars to study Turkish modernization from the legal point of view.