Roxelana

Her Imperial Highness Haseki Hürrem Sultan, Imperial Princess Consort of the Ottoman Empire
Hürrem (Huerrem or Kerime) Haseki Sultan, خرم سلطان Roxelana
Born	Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska 1500-1506 Rohatyn, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Ukraine)
Died	April 15, 1558 Constantinople (present day Istanbul)
Resting place	Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul
Known for	Haseki Sultan
Religion	born Orthodox, later converted to Islam
Spouse	Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire
Children	Selim II, Princess Mihrimah, Cihangir, Bayezid and Mehmed

Haseki Hürrem Sultan, Her Imperial Higness, Imperial Princess of the Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: خرم سلطان, b. 1506; d. at Topkapı Palace, 15 April 1558) (née Roxelana or Alexandra Lisowska) was the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.

Names

Roksolana.

Sixteenth-century sources are silent as to her maiden name, but much later traditions, for example Ukrainian folk traditions first recorded in the 19th century, give it as "Anastasia" (diminutive: "Nastia"), and Polish traditions give it as "Aleksandra Lisowska".

She was known mainly as Haseki Hürrem Sultan or Hürrem "balsaq" Haseki Sultan; in European languages as Roxolena, transliterated as "Roksolana" Roxolana, Roxelane, Rossa, Ruzica; in Turkish as Hürrem (from Persian: خرم‎ – Khurram, "the cheerful one"); and in Arabic as Karima (Arabic: كريمة‎, "the noble one"). "Roxelana" or "Roksolana" might be not a proper name but a nickname, referring to her Ukrainian heritage (cf. the common contemporary name Ruslana); "Roxolany" or "Roxelany" was one of the names of East Slavs, inhabitants of the present Ukraine, up to the 15th century. Thus her name would literally mean "The Ruthenian One".

Early life

Idealised portrait of Hürrem Haseki Sultan, 18th century

According to late-16th-century and early-17th-century sources, such as the Polish poet Samuel Twardowski, who researched the subject in Turkey, Hürrem was seemingly born to a father who was a Ukrainian ("Ruthenian" in the terminology of the day) Orthodox priest. She was born in the town of Rohatyń, 68 km southeast of Lwów, a major city of Red Ruthenia (Chervona Rus') which was then part of the Kingdom of Poland, today in western Ukraine. In the 1520s, she was captured by Crimean Tatars during one of their frequent raids into this region and taken as a slave, probably first to the Crimean city of Kaffa, a major centre of the slave trade, then to Constantinople, and was selected for Süleyman’s harem.

Roxelane.

Letter of Hürrem Sultan to Sigismund II Augustus (Sigismond Auguste), complimenting him for his accession to the throne in 1549.

Life in the Topkapı Palace

Introduction, Life with Süleyman

Introduction

When she came to the palace, she became a concubine; thus having a chance of meeting with Süleyman . She saw that she had many rivals, including the Sultan's favourite concubines, including Mahidevran .

Life with Süleyman

Roxelana and the Sultan. The legendary love between the two inspired European imagination, such as this painting by the German baroque painter Anton Hickel (1780)

She quickly came to the attention of her master, and attracted the jealousy of her rivals. One day Süleyman’s favorite, the concubine Mahidevran (also called Gülbahar, Gül meaning "Rose" and Bahar meaning "Spring"), got into a fight with Hürrem and beat her badly. Upset by this, Süleyman banished Mahidevran to the provincial capital of Manisa, together with her son, the heir apparent, Prince Mustafa. This exile was shown officially as the traditional training of heir apparents, Sancak Beyliği. Thereafter, Hürrem became Süleyman’s unrivalled favorite or haseki. Many years later, because of a fear of rebellion (a fear probably incepted by Hürrem), the Sultan ordered Mustafa to be strangled. After the death of her son, Gulbahar lost her state in the palace (as being the mother of the heir apparent) and moved to Bursa.

Hürrem Haseki Sultan memorial in Rohatyn, Ukraine.

Hürrem’s influence over the Sultan soon became legendary; she was to bear Süleyman five children Princess Mihrimah, Selim, Beyazid, Cihangir and Mehmed, in an astonishing break with tradition, eventually was freed and became his legal wife, making Süleyman the first Ottoman Emperor to have a wed wife since Orhan Gazi. This strengthened her position in the palace and eventually led to one of her sons, Selim, inheriting the empire. Hürrem also may have acted as Süleyman’s adviser on matters of state, and seems to have had an influence upon foreign affairs and international politics. Two of her letters to the Polish King Sigismund II Augustus have been preserved, and during her lifetime, the Ottoman Empire generally had peaceful relations with the Polish state within a Polish-Ottoman alliance. Some historians also believe that she may have intervened with her husband to control Crimean Tatar slave-raiding in her native land.

Conflicts with Mahidevran

Mahidevran had several conflicts with Hürrem, and some still unknown. When Hürrem came to the palace, after charming the Sultan, she had a fight with Mahidevran where Mahidevran beat her up badly. Some believe the cause of the fight was that Mahidevran had miscarriage, and then blamed Hürrem and emptied out a rage on her. When the Sultan Suleyman found out, he entered a state of rage, and then banished her from his life (first he started ignoring her existence). Further on, when Hürrem was pregnant with Mehmet (their first child), she was once in the Sultan's room, where they were enjoying themselves and their dessert came in. The dessert had been poisoned, with droplets of an (unconfirmed) medicine that was intended for to be for Mahidevran, but Mahidevran was informed not to drink too much or else it stops the body from functioning. Desperately, Mahidevran ordered her maid to tell the concubine that brings in the food to fill it with the poison, convincing the concubine that it just causes a slight itch. Hürrem started eating first and then suddenly dropped to the ground after short seconds of screaming. The Sultan revived her, then had more anger towards Mahidevran, considering that he might have eaten the poisoned food and died too.

Conflicts with Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha

Hurrem and Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha were hardly friends. Before Ibrahim married Sultana Hatice, Hurrem knew about their love, and tried her best to spoil their chances of getting married (while convincing Hatice that she was helping her get married) knowing that he would get more closer to the Sultan than her, which would ruin her time.

Charities

Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı (Turkish Bath)

Türbe of Hürrem Sultan.

Aside from her political concerns, Hürrem engaged in several major works of public buildings, from Mecca to Jerusalem, perhaps modeling her charitable foundations in part after the caliph Harun al-Rashid’s consort Zubaida. Among her first foundations were a mosque, two Koranic schools (madrassa), a fountain, and a women's hospital near the women's slave market (Avret Pazary) in Constantinople. She also commissioned a bath, the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, to serve the community of worshippers in the nearby Hagia Sophia. In Jerusalem she established in 1552 the Hasseki Sultan Imaret, a public soup kitchen to feed the poor and the needy.

As well, some of her embroidery, or at least that done under her supervision, has survived, examples being given in 1547 to Tahmasp I, the Shah of Iran, and in 1549 to King Sigismund Augustus of Poland.

Esther Handali acted as her secretary and intermediary on several occasions.

Death

Hürrem died on April 18, 1558. She is buried in a domed mausoleum (türbe) decorated in exquisite Iznik tiles depicting the garden of paradise, perhaps in homage to her smiling and joyful nature. Her mausoleum is adjacent to Süleyman’s, a separate and more somber domed structure, at the Süleymaniye Mosque.

Legacy

Hürrem Haseki Sultan, or Roxelana, as she is better known in Europe, is well-known both in modern Turkey and in the West, and is the subject of many artistic works. She has inspired paintings, musical works (including Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 63), an opera by Denys Sichynsky, a ballet, plays, and several novels written mainly in Ukrainian, but also in English, French, and German. In 2007, Muslims in Mariupol, a port city in Ukraine, opened a mosque to honor Roxelana.

See also

• Ottoman Empire
• Ottoman Dynasty
• List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire
• Ottoman family tree (more detailed)

Further reading

• Thomas M. Prymak, "Roxolana: Wife of Suleiman the Magnificent," Nashe zhyttia/Our Life, LII, 10 (New York, 1995), 15–20. A nicely illustrated popular-style article in English with a bibliography.
• Zygmunt Abrahamowicz, "Roksolana," Polski Slownik Biograficzny, vo. XXXI (Wroclaw-etc., 1988–89), 543–5. A well-informed article in Polish by a distinguished Polish Turkologist.
• Galina Yermolenko, "Roxolana: The Greatest Empresse of the East," The Muslim World, 95, 2 (2005), 231–48. Makes good use of European, especially Italian, sources and is familiar with the literature in Ukrainian and Polish.
• There are many historical novels in English about Roxelana: Barbara Chase Riboud's Valide (1986); Alum Bati's Harem Secrets (2008); Colin Falconer, Aileen Crawley (1981–83), and Louis Gardel (2003); Pawn in Frankincense, the fourth book of the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett; and pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard in The Shadow of the Vulture imagined Roxelana to be sister to its fiery-tempered female protagonist, Red Sonya.
• For Ukrainian language novels, see Osyp Nazaruk (1930), Mykola Lazorsky (1965), Serhii Plachynda (1968), and Pavlo Zahrebelnyi (1980). (All reprinted recently.)
• There have been novels written in other languages: in French, a fictionalized biography by Willy Sperco (1972); in German, a novel by Johannes Tralow (1944, reprinted many times); a very detailed novel in Serbian by Radovan Samardzic (1987); one in Turkish by Ulku Cahit (2001).

External links

• University of Calgary | Roxelana
• Roxelana's tomb

Persondata
Name	Lisovska, Alexandra Anastasia
Alternative names	Hürrem
Short description	Ottoman's Queen
Date of birth	1506
Place of birth	Rohatyn, Ukraine
Date of death	April 18, 1558
Place of death	Constantinople(present day Istanbul)