Tadeusz Kowalski and the problem of his failed relocation to Istanbul University

Some time after having come back from the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen to Kraków, Tadeusz Kowalski (1889–1948), founder of Oriental Studies in Poland, was offered a chair at Istanbul University. The present author’s aim is: (1) to show that the only report on this event (Lazer 1994) is contradicted by archive materials, (2) to reconstruct the possibly most reliable course of events and their chronological order, as well as (3) to find the true reason why T. Kowalski eventually resigned from coming to Istanbul, even if all formalities were settled, and the relocation guaranteed his and his family’s safety