The defeat of the invading Ottoman Turks by the Polish Army at the gates of Vienna in 1683 left Europe free at last of three hundred years of Islamic expansionism. But the retreating Turks did leave the seeds of a cultural heritage. According to Stewart Lee Allen in his book The Devil’s Cup, the Turks, in their rush to leave the battlefield, left behind 25,000 camels with bags of mysterious green beans which the locals thought were camel food. The Polish spy Kolschitzky, who had lived in Turkey, knew exactly what they were and for his role is saving the city, asked for, and got, the coffee beans and opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, the Blue Bottle. That is the story, sometimes contested, but a good story none-the-less.
And what’s more. With the coffee a pastry naturally developed, in the shape of the crescent moon on the Ottoman flag. We know that pastry today as the croissant. We owe it all to the Turks, the Austrians, and the Poles.
It always amazes me how the small, unintended events in history, often leave longer lasting impacts, unimagined and in the end more important than anything the major players could have imagined.
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Tags: Battle of Vienna, Kolschitzky, Ottoman Turks, Polish army vienna, The Blue Bottle, Turks, vienna, viennese coffee
About Fred, history, Intercultural relations, Literature, The writing process, Uncategorized | fred | 
September 29, 2010 7:02 am | 
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Recently I was introduced to a Russian lady here in California who soon informed me she was in fact a Cossack. In my interest in Russian history and culture I know about the Cossacks, but hard facts are elusive as to who they really are. I knew them from the dramatic pictures and wild stories and that they chased Napoleon out of Russia in 1812. A few questions from my ignorance brought her answer, “Cossacks are a nation.” The origin of the name “Cossack” is from an early Turkic word meaning “free man”—anyone who could not find his appropriate place in society and went into the steppes, where he acknowledged no authority. An independent people they have always been.
Olga told us of her family, its terrible treatment under Stalin, the “disappearance” of most of the men, Meeting Olga encouraged me to do a little research and I find their identity goes back the 16th century in that southern steppe lands of Eastern Europe and Asian Russia, around the Dnieper and Don rivers—that geographic location destined to be forever in the way of invading armies going south or north, with the Cossacks allying with one side or the other, or both.
As I underline in “Walking on Ice, an American Businessman in Russia,” I am always amazed at the determination and strength of many of the Russian women who come here for a new life. To meet a Cossack woman, here only three years, with a good job, and hear her decent English and resolve to better herself in this totally different culture, is admirable. The Cossacks are coming, but maybe only one at a time.
The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan of Turkey, the painting by Ilya Repin shown above is in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg
Tags: Cosdacks, Cossacks, Don River, Ilya Repin, russia, Russian Museum, Turks, Ukraine, Walking on Icc, Zaporozhian
About Fred, Books by Fred Andresen, history, Intercultural relations, Literature, Russian Life, Uncategorized, Walking on Ice | fred | August 30, 2010 7:08 am | Comments (0)
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