The aim of this book is to familiarise readers with the biography of Wojciech Bobowski (1610?-1675?) - known as Albertus Bobovius and Ali Ufkî - and to present Polish version of one of his numerous works: Serai Enderum (1665). Bobovius’s legacy has been a subject of interest to international academia, especially to linguists, musicologists, historians and anthropologists for several decades, but until now none of his writings have been published in their entirety in Polish. 
 
In the first part, the author presents a new version of Bobowski’s biography, which she has updated on the basis of her archival research in Poland and Ukraine and information derived from clues hidden between the lines of Serai Enderum ‒ Bobovius’ first-person account of life in the main residence of the Turkish sultan in Constantinople. Polish translation of the “London” manuscript of this work (MS Harley 3409, British Library, Western Manuscripts Collection) with an extensive commentary regarding historical, socio-cultural and musicological, as well as textual and linguistic aspects of the analysed text, constitutes the second part of the monograph. It is illustrated with Ottoman minatures and European drawings from the period to give a better idea of how life might have looked like at the Topkapı Palace in the 17th century. The third part of the book provides a glossary of more than 300 Ottoman Turkish words and several phrases gathered from Serai Enderum. 

Three appendices (1. a timeline of Wojciech Bobowski’s life, 2. photocopies of archival material discovered by the author in Poland and Ukraine, and 3. a critical edition of a novel by Stanisław Jaszowski entitled Albert Bobowski renegat polski, written in 1829) summarise and enrich the results of the author’s research presented in the monograph, which she carried out within the framework of a project funded by the National Science Centre, Poland in the years 2019-2023 (project number: 2018/29/N/HS2/01686).