Summary: The early modern era was a period of tremendous fluidity in terms of borders of identities. In this podcast, we discuss the life and times of Sefer Muratowicz, an Armenian merchant born in Ottoman Anatolia during the late sixteenth century who settled in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and became an envoy to the Safavid Shah in Persia through his role as a merchant. Sefer left an account of his visit, which our guest Michael Polczynski has translated and analyzed. The account provides information about Sefer's journey as well as his diplomatic and mercantile activities, painting a picture in the process of some aspects of travel, diplomacy, and perhaps even espionage in borderlands regions during the early modern period.
