Dr Mercia MacDermott’s review of my book The European Sultanas of the Ottoman Empire
Throughout history, “backroom” women have played a role which, though often crucial, is not always either well-known or properly understood. Anna Buxton is therefore to be congratulated for casting light on a whole category of “backroom” women, namely the European brides of the Ottoman sultans. My first and lasting impression of her book was the enormous amount of research that it embodies, encompassing, as it does some six centuries of history, during which there are many changes of circumstance and dramatic personae.
Anna Buxton begins her story with a brief account of the origins of the Ottoman Turks and how they came to settle in Asia Minor in close proximity of Byzantium and other Christian Kingdoms. In subsequent chapters, she not only records the often amazing careers of the “European Sultanas”, but also provides us with a wealth of information about the changes and developments within the Ottoman Empire itself, about the husbands of the ladies and about a multitude of subsidiary protagonists.
Many surprises await the reader. For example, contrary to the popular view of the Turkish sultanas as beautiful, scheming slave girls, immured in the luxurious idleness of the harem, the sultanas of the fourteen, fifteen and early sixteen centuries were high born aristocrats and even royal princesses from Byzantium and other Balkan kingdoms, given in marriage, like their sister in Western Europe, for dynastic and political reasons with the consent of their families and even more – with that of the Orthodox Church. They were not required to convert to Islam, although they often chose to do so, since only sons, born to Muslim mothers could inherit the throne. They were free to visit their families after marriage, and when widowed, they would be given lucrative estates and might even be allowed to go home to their own countries.
The first Ottoman ruler to acquire a European bride was Orhan (1324-1362), who appears to have had at least three of them! The first, who converted to Islam under the name of Nilüfer he married during the lifetime of his father, Osman, founder of the Ottoman Empire. In 1346, he married Theodora, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor John Cantacuzenus. Theodora chose to remain Christian, as did Tamara, daughter of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander, who married Orhan’s son – Sultan Murad I, probably in 1371.
However, after the Ottoman Empire had expanded into the Balkan Peninsula, swallowing both Byzantium and the other, smaller Balkan kingdoms, the Ottoman sultans no longer required royal European brides for political reasons, nor were any available. Thus during the fifteen century, the sultans did indeed begin to choose their wives amongst the numerous beautiful slave-girls in their harems. The first slave-concubine to become the legal wife of a sultan was a Ukrainian girl, called Roxelana and renamed Hürrem on conversion to Islam, who married Suleiman the Magnificent in 1533. Her elevation from slave to free Empress ushered in a period, known as the Rule of Women (Kadinlar Sultani), when women, both as wives and Queen Mothers (Valide Sultans), exercised political power at home and in foreign affairs, with the help of Viziers, not merely when their husbands were away fighting, but also when, latterly the average sultan was an effete hedonist, with no desire to govern or do anything other than enjoy himself with such pursuits as hunting, playing games or sex.
This state of affairs arouse, when it was customary for a new sultan to have all his brothers killed, in order to avoid rival claims to the throne. Often a sultan died (or was killed) before any of his sons were of age, and thus his widow would act as regent. During the reign of Ahmet I (1603-1617) the practice of killing one’s brothers was abandoned in favour of isolating them in luxurious captivity in part of the palace, known as the Cage. This meant that they grew up with absolutely no knowledge of the world outside, with neither the ability, nor the inclination to lead their armies or govern their empire. It was during this time that Kösem, wife of Ahmet I, became the first woman officially to be given the task of running the State, a duty which she carried out between 1632 and 1651, having earlier acted as regent for an underage sultan.
Inevitably, there were indeed feuds and rivalries between the various ladies of the harem, with sultanas going at great lengths to ensure that their sons inherited the throne. One sultana even pushed a rival over a cliff into the sea! It is, however, remarkable that many of these former slave girls proved to be both able rulers and generous financial supporters of public works and charities. Notable among them was Nurbanu, Safiye and Hadice Turhan.
Nurbanu was the favourite wife of Selim I (1566-1574) and mother of Murad III, who on ascending the throne, killed his five brothers. She proved to be a skilful diplomat who corresponded not only with the Venetian Senate, but also with Catherine de Medici of France. As Dowager Queen during Murad’s reign, she took precedence over all other women at the court, even his principle wife, and when she had occasion to leave the Palace, she would return with much pomp and ceremony, with a magnificently choreographed procession of thousands of soldiers and officials, which took three or four hours to pass!
Murad’s principle wife Safiye, who was possibly of Albanian or Venetian origin, had been captured by pirates and sold to a man, who sent her as a present to Murad. Safiye is of special interest to British readers, because she corresponded with Elizabeth I of England. The latter sent Safiye a portrait of herself in a bejewelled frame and more exchanges of gifts followed, with Elizabeth requesting a set of Ottoman style garments and reciprocated by sending Safiye a carriage, in which she proceeded to ride around Istanbul. During this period, exchange of goods was not limited to royal circles. In this chapter, Anna Buxton gives many details of how trade between England and the Ottoman Empire extended, and English customers became acquainted with a number of new spices and oriental delicacies like Turkish delight and halva.
Hadice Turhan, wife of Ibrahim I (1640-1648) was sufficiently politically conscious to concern herself with building towers and supplying cannon for the defence of the Empire and sufficiently charitable to free her own slaves, after they had served her for three years and to provide them with dowries, so that they could marry well.
Several chapters of the book shed valuable light on the position of Jews within the Ottoman Empire, through the close relations, enjoyed by the de Nasi banking family with the successive sultans, including Nurbanu and Safiye. The Ottoman Turks did not share the rabid anti-Semitism of the Christian states of Europe and when in 1492, the Jews were expelled from Spain, as were the Jews of Portugal in 1497, many found sanctuary within the Ottoman Empire.
Two sultanas will be of particular interest to the readers of the British-Bulgarian Society magazine, because they are both Bulgarian. Mention has already been made of Tamara, who married Murad I around 1371, and who is portrayed with her first husband and her two sisters in the celebrated Illuminated Gospel of Ivan Alexander, now in the British Library. Relatively little is known about her, but Anna Buxton nevertheless manages to assemble many scraps of information that give the reader and idea of what her life may have been at the Ottoman Court. A royal princess, given in marriage by her family, she certainly did not conform to the popular idea of sultan’s wives being young virgin slave-girls. At the time of her marriage, she was already a widow, aged thirty-one, who had previously been married to a Bulgarian aristocrat. There are many Bulgarian folk songs about her and although folk songs, like legends, cannot be considered as reliable sources for historical facts, they have some value for historians in that they reflect how ordinary people perceived historical figures and reacted to their deeds. Tamara is remembered with gratitude as an inspirational heroine who sacrificed much for the good of her people.
The second Bulgarian sultana is a complete contrast to Tamara, since she belongs to the later period, when sultans chose their wives from among the slave-girls in their harems. She was a girl from the Rhodope Mountains, probably originally called Sonya, who took the name of Ayshe Seniyerperver as the fourth wife of Abdul Hamid I (1774-1789), and the book contains fascinating information of how after becoming Valide Sultan, she returned to her Rhodope village and apparently established and ruled over a semi-independent mini-state in an area, before finally resuming life as a Valide Sultan in Istanbul, where she died in 1828. Her daughter, Esma Sultan, inherited a fortune, married an important Ottoman Pasha and subsequently, lived an extraordinary, somewhat scandalous life of a merry widow!
It is rightly said that truth is stranger than fiction and I can assure the readers, that nothing in the Arabian Nights can compete with the astonishing reality of the lives and times of the Ottoman Empire’s European sultanas!
As a post script to this review, I would like to add that one of the minor delights of this book is that the author has gone to the trouble of giving the English translations of her heroines’ beautiful Islamic names!
30 May, 2016