How a Polish Nobleman Became An Arab Sheikh: The Story of Wacław S. Rzewuski

emir-rzewuski-w-pustyni-arabskiej-1874-polona-31684526.jpg, default, Emir Rzewuski in the Arabian desert, 1874, photo: Polona.pl, How a Polish Nobleman Became An Arab Sheikh: The Story of Wacław S. Rzewuski

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This is a tale of two manuscripts, a fascination with the Middle East, Romantic ideas, and Arab horses, set in a remote desert and accompanied by Bedouin music and graphomanic poetry.

A manuscript found in Wierzchownia

The golden and cream shades of its cover symbolise the sun and the sand of the Arabian desert. Combined with the white of the pages, they reflect the traditional male Arab attire. The burgundy line marking the margins refers to the colour of ink used for handwriting. This is what the nine-volume academic edition of Count Wacław Seweryn Rzewuski’s manuscripts looks like. The work, published in 2018 (with texts in Polish and English, plus one volume in French) by the Polish National Library and the Qatar Museum, is as impressive as the history of its creation.

The original manuscript, Sur les Chevaux Orientaux et Provenants des Races Orientales, was written in French over the course of a decade. It contains impressions from a journey through Arab countries, a description of Bedouin culture, and a compendium of knowledge about horse breeding, accompanied by numerous illustrations and maps. In total, it amounts to over 500 pages, or three volumes, of priceless knowledge possessed by the Polish magnate. In a letter to Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Rzewuski wrote:

The first volume contains, rather interestingly, Bedouin geography; I will pass this on to you. It will also include a list of tribes with the names of their emirs and sheikhs, a great many of whom I have met personally.

In fact, he not only met them, but eventually became one of them. Discover the birth of the legend of Rzewuski.

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Arab horse breeds described in Rzewuski’s manuscript, 1820, photo. Polona.pl

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Rzewuski’s work was almost just a legend. Following the author’s death, or rather his disappearance, his sister Maria Potocka inherited the manuscript. Later, the document passed into the hands of her son. Wieńczysław later gave it to Teofil Rutkowski who, like Rzewuski, was a horse enthusiast. In 1866, having added his own comments, Rutkowski published excerpts from the manuscript in Biblioteka Warszawska (Warsaw Library). He is said to have passed the manuscript on to one of his friends, but it was soon declared lost. It later transpired, that the manuscript found its way to Rzewuski’s relatives in the town of Wierzchownia, and was later transported to Warsaw by General Adam Rzewuski as he was escaping the revolution in Ukraine. Eventually, in 1928, it was acquired by the National Library in Warsaw.

In his book Wacław ‘Emir’ Rzewuski (1784-1831): Podróżnik i Żołnierz (Wacław ‘Emir’ Rzewuski [1784-1831]: Traveller and Soldier), Filip Kucera meticulously traces the fate of the manuscript and its author. Rzewuski – a Polish nobleman appointed as an Arab sheikh – has always aroused the interests of scholars, writers (including Mickiewicz, Słowacki and others), painters, explorers and lovers of the Middle East. Throughout his life, he consistently constructed his own legend.

An expert orientalist

Rzewuski was born on 15th December 1784 in Lviv (at the time still part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, later partitioned by Austria in 1795), and as Piotr Jaxa Bykowski notes, ‘had a passionate and firm talent for music, singing, and painting.’ However, his greatest passion, inherited from his uncle Jan Potocki, was the Middle East, or the Orient as it was referred to back then. Before young Rzewuski began to read Polish, the boy had learned French and German, so mastering languages further east was not difficult. At the behest of Wacław’s mother, Muslim monuments were restored in their home village of Kazawczyn. There, Rzewuski wrote his first poems and studied the literature of Arab countries. (Later, he would devote the first volume of his manuscripts to their inhabitants and culture.) Thanks to his uncle, young Wacław made the acquaintance of esteemed orientalists, and the translator of the Bible into Abyssinian gave him a Quran manuscript written on the skin of a gazelle (the animal would later be a hero in Rzewuski’s adventures).

Thumbnail — Portrait of Wacław Seweryn Rzewuski, 1824, photo. Polona.pl

Rozalia Lubomirska, whom he married in 1805, shared her husband’s interests. Together, they studied Arabic with Arida, a don of the Viennese Oriental Academy. But it was thanks to an encounter with Joseph Hammer that Rzewuski was finally able to spread his wings. Together, they founded one of the first European magazines dedicated to the Middle East. Mines de l’Orient (Sources from the Orient) printed articles on Arab countries (the magazine even featured an Arabic font!), poetry translations, illustrations, and later included Rzewuski’s texts. The first issue of the periodical appeared in 1809, despite the fact that right before the launch, a grenade fell into the Viennese flat that served as its editorial office. Fortunately, it did not explode, and the last issue was published in 1818.

The wandering knight

Rzewuski was said to wield weapons even better than a pen. He graduated from an Austrian military school with honours, and soon enough he was able to test his skills at the Battle of Vienna in 1809. Although Rzewuski surrendered his horse to the commander and led the grenadier attack on foot (he retreated when he was shot in the leg), his compatriots were not impressed. After all, Rzewuski acted against Napoleon’s army – an ally of the Duchy of Warsaw. The hatred of his countrymen, intensified by his father’s infamous participation in the Targowica Confederation, prompted the promising soldier to resign.

This, however, did not seem to faze Rzewuski. On the contrary – in conversations with new acquaintances, especially from the East, he boasted about having ‘achieved a higher rank in battle’ and being ‘a young, handsome and adept rider’. This seems more or less a correct assessment: in the eyes of others he was slim and rather short, but a strong young man, and there was no horse he was unable to tame. In the poem Faris, Mickiewicz commemorated Rzewuski as an outstanding rider:

Now sails my horse upon the dry sea’s crest
And cuts the brittle waves with dolphin breast

Both were fascinated by the Middle East, and supposedly met in Crimea.

Orient-obsessed

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Bedouin with a horse, photograph of a watercolour by Wacław Seweryn Rzewuski, pre-1939, photo Polona.pl

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Rzewuski had long dreamed of travelling to the Middle East and is said to have prepared extensively for the journey. He toughened his stomach with raw meat and spoiled food, and offered only water and pipes to any guests. He ate and slept with his horse, read the Quran, and wrote in Arabic. Bykowski described him as follows:

Orientalism was his obsession… Arab clothing, Arab attachment to horses, Arab exercises, an austere way of life – these were quite an amusing oddity; but alongside so many great qualities and great intellectual wealth, his quirkiness disappeared in the eyes of people who had a heart and looked straight into the heart […].

Rzewuski was particularly proud of one of his achievements – a map of Turkey. Rzewuski even shared it with Ramiz Pasha, a Turkish political refugee he met through his sister:

I told him that I had made it according to a manuscript by the geographer Haji Chalf, held in my library of Wallenburg, and Riedel’s map. He took the map with him, and so I lost it.

(Rzewuski was not the first Pole to rely on knowledge of scholars from the East. Suffice to say that in his work On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Nicolaus Copernicus referenced the research of the Arab mathematician and astronomer, Al-Battānī).

Arab blood

His critics said that Rzewuski had become an Arab before he even went to Arabia. He was unable to finance the trip, but he quickly found a solution: the reconstruction of European horse breeding, which had declined following the Napoleonic Wars. And what breed was best suited to harsh battle conditions, food shortages, and fast movement? Arab horses. And for the most valuable ones, one had to go to the source – the Bedouins, preferably in person.

Initially, the participants of the Congress of Vienna were sceptical about Rzewuski’s plans – after all, the fate of nations and state borders were more important. But Rzewuski persevered. His first biographer, Lucjan Siemieński, mentioned his nocturnal horse rides around Vienna, accompanied by a group of Cossacks illuminating the road with torches. Rzewuski soon found an ally in Catherine, sister of Tsar Alexander I, who shared his love of the Arab stallions. Rzewuski was given the green light and in 1817 he set off on an expedition.

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Horse, Wacław Seweryn Rzewuski, 1821, photo: Polona.pl

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The second volume of manuscripts, written following Rzewuski’s return (1820-1830), was entirely devoted to information on breeding techniques and different breeds of Arab horses. In the third volume, he demonstrated his painting talent: detailed maps, almost three-dimensional architecture, mountain-desert landscape, Arab symbols, ornaments, some mentions of local customs and, of course, horses. In his drawings featuring horses, Rzewuski attempted appropriate proportions and shading; presented animals standing still and trotting (those at a gallop are less realistic), and supplemented all sketches with extensive notes. From a mere enthusiast, he turned into a passionate expert on Arab horses and an ethnographer.

Orientalism in practice

His journey to the Middle East was prompted not only by the particular goal of purchasing Arab horses, but also by the ideas of Romanticism. For Polish artists, the 19th century was a period of fascination with the culture of the Middle East and a search for different models of freedom. Rzewuski did not inform anyone about the date of his departure, even though everyone was aware of his plans for quite some time. According to his relatives, Rzewuski explained:

Europe has bored me with its civilisation […]. I am leaving [her] forever, I will become a Bedouin and among them, I will seek fame, and I have no doubt I will find contentment.

After several months, he returned to Poland, having failed to fulfil the first part of his promise. However, he did find fame and happiness, and even earned the titles of Emir, Taj al-Fahr (‘Crown of glory’), and Abd al-Niszan (‘Servant of the sign’). Because of the colour of his facial hair, the Bedouins also called him ‘Goldenbeard’.

Trade with the Bedouins was not easy. First, one had to find their camp in the desert, then become a guest of the tribe (this involved participating in celebrations and horse races), and finally pass an oral exam in the knowledge of the stallions, and sometimes a practical test in horse riding. The transaction itself did not always proceed as the buyer would expect – the seller could refuse on any pretext or withdraw at any time. Rzewuski managed all this exceptionally, and simultaneously carefully observed Bedouin customs. In his manuscript, he depicted Bedouin clothing and armour with photographic precision, but the most valuable part of his writings on their customs is the musical notation of a folk song. Middle Eastern music was passed on by word of mouth, so even these few lines of melody are a rare treat.

The inclusion of a Bedouin song in Rzewuski’s manuscript is hardly a coincidence. Reportedly, he was a great singer and gave free vocal lessons to those willing. He played the clavichord and composed (mainly romances and piano dances). He also wrote Requiem for the Funeral of T. Czacki, an ode to someone he once assisted in educational work.

Five hundred & one pages

Rzewuski’s three-volume work can also be read as a collection of fairy tales. Dressed in an Arab burnous and a white turban, Rzewuski won the sympathy of both Bedouins and fellow countrymen with his amazing tales. Some are based on real events, but the rich imagination of their author certainly added a touch of fantasy and horror. Others should be considered as fantastical stories.

The list opens with the myth that Rzewuski is a Bedouin from the North. In another, he claims to be a descendant of the legendary Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. Apparently, Rzewuski believed firmly that the Polish nobility descended from four Arab tribes. He claimed to be a secret agent in the service of Tsar Alexander I, as well as someone who is able to tame a storm. As he sailed along the Syrian coast, the waves began to overcome the small ship – seeing the helplessness of the crew, Rzewuski ordered the sails unfurled. In the manuscript, he quoted the spell he used (to lend credibility to the account of his achievements, he wrote in third person):

The emir turned towards the sea and said: ‘Furious waves, calm your anger, and you wind, son of Chaos, hold your breath. I command you in the name of the Eternal Lord of both worlds!’

In the morning, the travellers reached the shore. Rzewuski also mentioned being captured by Arabs and a tale of preventing horse theft. In a letter to Hammer – the one in which he praised the first volume of his manuscript – he confided:

In Lebanon, while hunting a gazelle, I discovered ruins buried in the ground […]. Likely, other travellers did not see them, because only by luck, chasing after a gazelle, I chanced upon them.

Later work

Rzewuski also wrote poems – some were published before the book containing them was lost. An inspired Romantic, he let his imagination run wild:

Pull out beautiful hair in caressed braids,
Let a very dear rope tie from your hands
He will put an anchor of hope in our hearts.

In his biography of Rzewuski, Siemieński noted that the count never called anything by its name. He always reached for colourful epithets and fancy metaphors. He composed Arabic Melodies, Greek Melodies, and even a poem entitled Oxana describing the Greek struggle for independence. Some, perhaps with jealousy, claimed that Rzewuski was so boring that it was difficult to stand his company.

Still, such an inspiring persona could not have escaped the attention of artists. Writers, including Mickiewicz (in the poem Faris), and painters (like Wojciech Kossak) would portray Rzewuski’s adventurous life as well as his mysterious death (he perished in a battle for his homeland in May 1831). Thanks to all these resultant works, the legend of Goldenbeard the Emir has survived to this day.

A forgotten manuscript

Kucera also describes another manuscript, in which Rzewuski supposedly revealed the true purpose of his mission in the Middle East. But what happened to it? According to one account, the count hid his ‘mémoires secrets’ in a rock grotto in Lebanon and marked the entrance with a secret sign. According to another, he entrusted it to a confidante in Syria. Jan Reychman recalls that the journal was uncovered during WWII: someone put it up for auction in a Warsaw antiquities shop, but soon withdrew the offer and brought it back to Potocki Palace in Krakowskie Przedmieście in Warsaw where it was destroyed in a fire during the Warsaw Uprising. Yet another version says that the author of the manuscript was not Rzewuski, but Roman Sanguszko, who travelled to the Holy Land in 1845 and also accompanied his writing with drawings of Arab horses. Perhaps all this is just part of the legend and the other manuscript never existed at all.

Originally written in Polish, translated by Joanna Figiel, Jan 2022. Hover for selected sources.

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