„Niewygodny, acz bezsilny partner”. Współpraca Hôtelu Lambert z bułgarskimi działaczami narodowymi w latach czterdziestych XIX wieku

In the 1840s Hôtel Lambert started to operate in the Balkan Peninsula – they wanted to use the animosities between the Great Powers in the region to create international conditions to regain independence for Poland. One of the territories of their activity was Bulgaria, where they cooperated with the activists of the Church Movement: Neofit Bozveli and Ilarion Makariopolski. The specific character of the activity of  Hôtel Lambert in Bulgaria lay in the close relations with the Catholic Missionaries, with whom Polish agents were trying to realize their main purpose: to reach the union of the Church and to weaken the influences of Orthodox Russia in the Balkans. The main agent of Czartoryski in Constantinople, Michał Czajkowski, led to the escape of Neofit and Ilarion from the Athos in 1844 and organized the action of sending petitions about Bulgarian national rights to the sultan. The Polish involvement yielded important results for the development of the Bulgarian national movement.