A tribute to a Scottish merchant is being held in a Polish town on Thursday evening, including pipers and traditional songs.
Robert Porteous was a Scottish protestant who moved to the south of Poland in the 1620s.
Settling in Krosno, he made his living importing Tokaj wines from Hungary and having accumulated vast wealth contributed heavily to the development of the town.
Thousands of Scots travelled to Poland in the late 16th and early 17th Century, with effects that can still be seen today.
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In the Kashubian dialect of north-central Poland the traditional word for a commercial traveller is ‘szot’ (Scot), and there is a village in the Kuyavia-Pomerania region called Szkocja (Scotland).
Many Polish second names are transliterations of Scots surnames: Czochran (Cochrane), Machlejd (MacLeod), Szynkler (Sinclair).
On Thursday evening Porteous (spelled Portius in Poland) is to be celebrated at the Glass Heritage Center in Krosno.
The program was prepared by the Scottish-Krakow ensemble Celtic Triangle, formed by Scottish bagpiper Lindsay Davidson, harpist Irena Czubek-Davidson and singer Katarzyna Wiwer, soprano.
It is suspected that Scottish emigration to central and Eastern Europe may be behind the fact many Hungarian jokes are about Scots.
As well as merchants like Porteous having a reputation for driving a hard bargain, in the 19th Century, the Free Church of Scotland’s mission in Pest began inviting Hungarian students to travel to Scotland to be trained as missionaries.
Later, the Free Church of Scotland Scholarship Fund offered students from Debrecen Reformed College the opportunity to attend New College, with the students then bringing Scottish Puritanism back to Hungary.
According to historians Abraham Kovacs and Richard Horcsik this led to “a transplanted Scottish Presbyterian culture” in the east of Hungary, probably giving rise to the stereotype of miserly Scots.