#hurremweek

[ottomanladies]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HÜRREM SULTAN | day 1: origins and early life

Tradition holds that Hürrem Sultan was born as the daughter of an Orthodox priest in a small town in Ruthenia, a "broad area that today encompasses western Ukraine but was then under the rule of the Polish king". While there is no evidence that she was the daughter of an Orthodox priest, it seems very plausible that she was from Ruthenia: the nickname by which she was called by Europeans, Roxelana, means "the maiden from Ruthenia", though it was often mistakenly translated as "the Russian maiden".

Hürrem may have been presented to Süleyman I as an accession gift, and tradition holds that it was his favourite Pargali Ibrahim Pasa who did it, while other rumours maintain that she was acquired and trained by a wedded princess and then gifted to Hafsa Valide Sultan. Nevertheless it seems almost certain that she became one of Süleyman I's bedded concubines in the winter of 1520-1521, as she would later give birth to her first child in the autumn of 1521. It is not known who gave her the name of Hürrem or whether she previously had held another Ottoman name; Hürrem means "joyful" or "the laughing one" in Persian, and it seems it was her charm and her easy laugh that enthralled Süleyman from the start. According to Venetian reports, she was not beautiful "although graceful and petite"; she was a skilled embroidered (something that she would later pass on to her only daughter Mihrimah) and was known for her singing and musical abilities.

Sources: Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire; Galina Yermolenko, Roxolana: “The Greatest Empresse of the East”

[ottomanladies]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HÜRREM SULTAN | day 2: Hürrem and Süleyman I

"Suleiman’s great love for Roxolana was manifest in his exceptional treatment of his hasseki. To her benefit, the Sultan broke a series of very important traditions of the imperial harem. In 1533 or 1534 (the exact date is unknown), Suleiman married Hurrem in a magnificent formal ceremony, violating a 300-year-old custom of the Ottoman house according to which sultans were not to marry their concubines. Never before was a former slave elevated to the status of the sultan’s lawful spouse. Moreover, upon marrying hasseki Hurrem, the Sultan became practically monogamous, which was unheard of in Ottoman history. As Trevisano wrote in 1554, once Suleiman had known Roxolana, “not only did he want to have her as a legitimate wife and hold her as such in his seraglio, but he did not even want to know any other woman: something that had never been done by any of his predecessors, for the Turks are accustomed to take various women in order to have children by them, or for carnal pleasure." -- Galina Yermolenko, Roxelana: the Greatest Empresse of the East

[ottomanladies]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HÜRREM SULTAN | day 3: Hürrem and her children

There are no certain dates of birth for Hürrem's children, sometimes not even a specific year. Her first child, Şehzade Mehmed, was born in late 1521. In his case, only the year of his birth was recorded - 972 in Islamic calendar - which ended on 30 November 1521. Şehzade Mehmed was the first child of Süleyman I's to be born after his accession, around a year later, which could confirm the theory that Hürrem had been presented to him as a congratulatory gift. After Mehmed's birth, Hürrem's status rose, and in harem registers she started to be referred to as "the mother of Prince Mehmed". Her only daughter, Mihrimah, was born in autumn 1522, therefore breaking a centuries-old rule that mothers of a son could not have any more sexual encounters with the sultan. Süleyman was far from Istanbul at the time of the birth: he was at war against the Knights Hospitallers and returned to the capital only in February 1523. The future Selim II was born on 28 May 1524 - the only child to have a sure date of birth - and was followed in 1525 or 1526 by another prince, Şehzade Abdullah, who died of smallpox at a young age. Şehzade Bayezid was born in 1527, and Hürrem's youngest child - Şehzade Cihangir - was born in 1531, unusually distanced from his elder brother Bayezid. Peirce thinks he may have been "unanticipated or an afterthought—the result of a decision by Roxelana and Suleyman to have one last child", since his birth had arrived after the magnificent circumcision fest that Süleyman had organised for his three eldest princes, which could have symbolised that "the sultan considered his reproductive obligation to the empire fulfilled"

sources: Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire; Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

[ottomanladies]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HÜRREM SULTAN | day 4: wedding to Süleyman

"The conjunction of these two events in the spring of 1534—Hafsa’s demise and Suleyman’s urgent need to go east—is the most likely explanation for the timing of the marriage. Several factors were apparently at play, the most obvious being that Hafsa’s death made wedding Roxelana feasible. Elevating a concubine through marriage would have dishonored the queen mother by diminishing her well-deserved and hard-earned status as the ranking female of the Ottoman dynasty. Hafsa was the family elder, the only person in whose presence her son was said to rise to his feet. Nor was the marriage likely to happen while Mahidevran still lived in the Old Palace, but that issue had resolved itself a year earlier. There were other pressing reasons for securing Roxelana’s status. As always, when grand vizier and sultan were both absent, a loyal and dependable deputy governor was assigned to administer and supervise Istanbul. But with his mother gone, his confidant Ibrahim on the frontier, and his only adult son assigned to monitor all Anatolia, Suleyman was in want of a trusted intimate in the capital. […] Passion and politics inevitably intertwined Roxelana and Suleyman’s lives. While strategic considerations certainly played a role in their decision to marry, personal feelings were undoubtedly at work as well. It had long been obvious that Roxelana was more than an ordinary childbearing slave of the dynasty. Her career as the sultan’s favorite was unique in the history of the Ottoman dynasty, or at least in contemporary memory. Suleyman had broken several precedents for his favorite, and he had certainly not hidden his devotion to her. What the marriage accomplished was to legitimate this concubine’s maverick position as the mother of all the children of Suleyman’s sultanate and to imbue her stature with an aura of majesty. […] The royal wedding apparently caught some in the foreign community by surprise. “This week there has occurred in this city a most extraordinary event, one absolutely unprecedented in the history of the Sultans,” remarked the Istanbul representative of the Genoese Bank of Saint George. “The Grand Signior Suleiman has taken to himself as his Empress a slave woman from Russia.… There is great talk about the marriage and none can say what it means.” If the palace anticipated negative reaction to the event, it offered palliative diversion. “At night the principal streets are gaily illuminated, and there is much music and feasting,” noted the banker’s dispatch. “The houses are festooned with garlands and there are everywhere swings in which people swing by the hour with great enjoyment.” The public festivities highlighted entertainment just as the memorable circumcision celebration of six years before had. Although the 1530 event’s duration and extravagance were greater, the venue was the same, as was, at least in part, the menu of amusements. This time, however, Roxelana was a center of attraction. “In the old Hippodrome a great tribune is set up, the place reserved for the Empress and her ladies screened with a gilt lattice,” wrote the Genoese banker. “Here Roxelana and the Court attended a great tournament in which both Christian and Muslim Knights were engaged, and tumblers and jugglers and a procession of wild beasts.” The giraffes had necks so long that to the unaccustomed spectator they appeared to “touch the sky.” The wedding prepared the way for Roxelana’s public career. Soon she would begin the construction of a philanthropic foundation in Istanbul, the first royal mother to build in the Ottoman capital." -- Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

[ottomanladies]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HÜRREM SULTAN | day 5: empress of the Ottoman empire

It is not known exactly when Hürrem acquired the title of Haseki Sultan, meaning "the favourite", but it may have been around the same time she married Süleyman. The title may have been created to separate her from the rest of the harem, which she now oversaw as the eldest female member of the Imperial family. As de facto Empress of the Ottoman Empire, Hürrem moved to Topkapi Palace, where she had private apartments connected with Süleyman's, maybe as soon as 1534 when her son Mehmed was appointed deputy by his father. "Under [Hürrem]’s tutelage, the New Palace harem would expand rapidly and become, by the end of the century, a regularized institution in Ottoman government. The upper echelon of royal women now lived and labored at the political heart of the empire, while the Old Palace retained its stature as a training institution and home for retired harem women. Working from the New Palace, senior women developed networks that connected them with political allies on the outside, including foreign emissaries." "[Hürrem] kept herself occupied as mistress of the female court, receiving visitors and organizing celebrations to mark religious and social holidays. She had the palace harem household and its cadres of attendants and servants to oversee, though the principal responsibility for order and discipline lay with the palace staff of female administrators and eunuchs. It was [Hürrem] who ensured that talented harem women graduated from palace service to marriage with a deserving partner, generally an esteemed member of Suleyman’s government. She also managed the staff of male agents who worked for her outside the palace. The business of her far-flung charitable endowments in particular took up an increasing amount of her and their time. And as she acquired political acuity, she became Suleyman’s eyes and ears in the capital when he was away." A keen philanthropist, Hürrem Sultan was the first royal mother to build a mosque in Istanbul. The Haseki Camii was accompanied by a huge complex which included a hospital, a madrasa, a primary school and a soup kitchen. Afterwards, she endowed a large complex in Jerusalem, that consisted "of a mosque and a fifty-five-room lodging for pious Muslims". She also laboured to raise the salary of Janissary recruits and afterwards sold some of her jewels to fund the raise. Hürrem was also a very involved mother and though she never left Istanbul to follow one of her sons in their provincial posts, she made sure to visit them as much as she could. Sometimes she would be accompanied by her daughter Mihrimah, other times it was her youngest son Cihangir, who was never granted a governorship and instead always lived in Topkapi Palace with his parents.

Sources: Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

[ottomanladies]

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HÜRREM SULTAN | day 6: death

"[Hürrem Sultan]'s health had been declining, although just when it became a serious matter is not clear. Her death in the spring of 1558 apparently stemmed from a combination of chronic illness and more immediate factors. The Venetian ambassador Antonio Barbarigo, who had arrived in Istanbul in September 1556, informed the Senate in 1558 that she had become very reluctant to be parted from Suleyman. […] She was “the mistress of the life of this gentleman, by whom she was extremely loved. And because she wants him always near her and is doubtful for her own life on account of illness, she rarely or never lets him part from her.” […] On April 15, 1558, the new French ambassador to Istanbul, Jean de la Vigne, sent a letter to a colleague announcing the departure of a great Ottoman fleet headed to the Mediterranean (it would ultimately win the Battle of Jerba). He went on to report that “La Assaqui” (the Haseki) had died early that morning. So great was the sultan’s grief that he aged greatly. “They say that the day before she died,” wrote de la Vigne, “he promised her and swore by the soul of his father Selim that he would never approach another woman.” […] Another ambassador, also present in the capital, left a near-daily record of his doings from his arrival on March 30 until his departure at the beginning of June. This was Kutbeddin el-Mekki (the Meccan), an envoy sent by the sharif of Mecca, steward of the two holy cities. […] On April 15, [Hürrem] died, “unable to recover from the illness she had been suffering for quite a while,” Kutbeddin wrote, “and she was also stricken with malaria and colic.” Funeral prayers were held at the mosque of Bayezid II, where prayers for Mehmed had been performed fifteen years earlier. […] The chief mufti, Ebu Suud, a close friend of Suleyman’s old age, led the funeral prayers. The queen was interred in the cemetery enclosed by the walls of the Suleymaniye, where Ebu Suud buried her with his own hands. Soon an elegant tomb would rise to house her in death. Eight years later Suleyman would join his beloved for eternity in a nearby tomb of his own. In his travel memoir, Kutbeddin composed a kind of epitaph for [Hürrem]: There are many charitable foundations and good works of hers in the Noble Sanctuaries and Jerusalem and other cities. It is said that she was Russian by origin.… Because she pleased the sultan, he married her and in this way the deceased finally achieved the status she held. She influenced the sultan to the degree that the state of many affairs lay in her hands. She had many children, they are Selim, Bayezid, Mehmed, Cihangir, and the Lady Sultan. As long as their mother lived, these siblings got along well but after her death, discord arose among them. It is said that her name was Hurrem Sultan. The sultan loved her to distraction and his heart has broken with her death." -- Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire