Nurbanu-Sultan

The main version is the one about the origin of Nurban from two Venetian noble families ^[1] : her father is , the governor of the Greek island of Paros belonging to Venice and the brother of the doge of Venice Sebastiano Venier , and the mother Violanta Baffo. The girl named Cecilia Venier-Baffo ^{[1] [2]} was considered illegitimate ^[1] because her parents were not married. In addition, some historians mention that the name of Nicolo and Violanta’s supposed daughter was Olivia ^[3] .

According to other versions, Nurbu could be Jewish ^{[4] [5]} from the Nasi family ^[6] or Greek from Corfu Island ^{[7] [8]} .

In 1537, when the pirate and admiral Khair-ad-din Barbarossa captured Paros, a twelve-year-old ^[2] girl was enslaved. As a slave she was transferred by Barbarossa to the sultan's harem in Istanbul ^[7] , where she became the concubine of sehzade Selim . In 1543, Nurbanu probably accompanied Selim to Konya , where he took the post of Sanjak Bey (Governor) of the province. Here, in 1544, Nurbanu gave birth to her first child - the daughter of Shah-Sultan , and then, two years later, the son of Murad . As Leslie Pierce notes, Murad was the only son of Selim who was born before his accession to the throne in 1566 ^[1] .

As the Venetian ambassador wrote, Selim was very “lustful” when he was in Sanjak Bey, but if he had other concubines, then only Nurban was born during this period. She became the mother of at least four children of Selim: in addition to Shah and Murad, she had two daughters, Gevherkhan and Esmekhan , who were born between the first daughter and the son. The last child of Selim, born before his accession to the throne, was Fatma Sultan , born about 1559; Nurbana ^[1] is also considered her mother.

In 1558 sehzade Murad was appointed to the post of Sanjak Bey Akshehir. According to tradition, mother sehzade was obliged to go along with him to the province, where she was supposed to perform functions similar to the functions of a valid under the Sultan. However, Nurban, as before, Selim Hürrem’s mother, did not go to Sandjak, but remained next to her husband. When Selim became a sultan, and Murad was transferred to Manisa , Nurbana, contrary to expectations, went to Istanbul ^[9] .

Up to the ascension of Selim to the throne, Nurbana remained his only favorite. Since the presence of the sultan only one son put the dynasty in a difficult position, Selim started a few more favorites, who gave him according to various sources from five ^[10] to nine ^[11] sons; according to Leslie Pierce, during the eight years of the reign, Selim became the father of six sons, one of whom died during his father's lifetime (presumably it was Mehmed sehzade, buried in the turret of Hurrem-Sultan ^[12] ); it is also known about Selim's four concubines, who also gave birth to sons at the end of his reign ^[1] . At the same time, he probably observed the principle of “one favorite - one son” ^[1] .

The fact that after the ascension of Selim to the throne, Nurbana did not give birth to a single child can say that she has ceased to be a sexual partner of the Sultan, but she retained the status of the main favorite, since it was her son who was proclaimed heir to the throne. After moving to the capital, Nurban's position at the court was difficult: she had to head the sultanian harem , without having influential patrons and established connections. According to reports from the Venetian ambassadors, in the first years in the capital, Nurban’s authority rested solely on Selim’s love for her ^[10] .

Like his father, Selim decided to formally marry. Giacomo Ragazzoni wrote in his report to the Venetian Senate of 1571: “Sultan Amurat [Murad, the eldest son of Selim] has been talented and well educated for 22 years, carefully observes religious rites and is therefore very loved by everyone and his father, the Great Seigneur, contrary to Ottoman traditions. Six months ago, his father, Signore, made a chebin as a sign of love, which means that he took the [prince's] mother, the Circassian [sic], into lawful wives, and gave her a dowry of 110 thousand ducats , wanting to bypass his father, who gave dowry only 100 thousand mother Selim " ^[13] . Like the wedding of Suleiman and Hurrem, the marriage ceremony of Selim and Nurban was not covered in any way in Ottoman sources ^[14] , which was probably caused by the contradiction of similar marriages by Ottoman court traditions.

By the end of the reign of Selim II, Nurban received a salary of 1,100 akche per day, while the other favorites of the sultan received only forty acche ^[15] ; during the reign of her son, Nurbanu received about two thousand akche per day, which was the highest salary in the whole empire, three times the salary of the sultan himself ^{[16] [7]} .

Husband Nurbanu died in 1574 and her 28-year-old son Murad was on the throne; Nurban herself was awarded the title of a valid-sultan and relying privileges. She first began to use this title officially ^[7] . Becoming the mother of the new sultan, Nurbanu began to actively communicate with foreign rulers: so for many years until her death, Nurbana regularly sent letters and also exchanged gifts with the mother of the French kings Catherine de Medici ^[17] . It is believed that Nurbanu adhered to the Pro-Venetian policy, and, therefore, sharply antigenuezskoy; because of this, it was even rumored that the Genoese ambassador had poisoned her ^[18] . Murad relied on the support of his mother, who enjoyed enormous prestige until his death in 1583. This state of affairs in the state did not suit many, and in the first place, the new Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha , who took office after his death in 1580, son-in-law to Nurban. The confrontation between the mother of the sultan and the chief vizier in the state ended a year before Nurban’s death: Sinan Pasha was removed from his post and expelled from the capital and, as the Venetian ambassador Contarini wrote, Murad III’s mother was involved in the displacement, his protege With the end of the confrontation of the mother of the Sultan and the Grand Vizier, a new thing began - between the mother of Murad III and his favorite ^[19] .

Like his father, Murad initially adhered to a relationship with only one concubine, Safiye , with whom Nurban had a conflict in 1583. Nurbanu initially disliked the ambitious Safie, because she was not her own choice: the girl was bought by Mihrimah Sultan , Selim's sister, who presented her to her nephew in 1563 ^[20] . Nurbana advised her son to take other concubines for the good of the dynasty, since by 1581 only one sehzade was alive - the son of Murad and Safiyah, Mehmed ^[21] . The rest of the sons born to Safiye died in early childhood, during or shortly after birth. In 1583, Nurbanu accused Safiy of witchcraft, which made Murad impotent, unable to take a new concubine ^[22] ; Safieh’s several servants were arrested and tortured ^[23] . Shortly afterwards, Murad’s sister, Esmehan-Sultan , presented her brother with two beautiful slaves, whom he accepted and made his concubines. Over the next few years, Murad became the father of twenty sons and twenty-seven daughters ^[14] . In the first half of Murad’s rule, the number of women in his harem doubled, exceeding one hundred. In order to provide Nurbanu-Sultan with more comfortable apartments and to increase the number of places for new concubines and maidservants, Murad ordered to rebuild and expand the rooms of his harem ^[24] .

Death

Nurban died in December 1583. Not receiving special honors in life, she honored them after death: Murad III gave the mother a magnificent funeral, captured in one of the miniatures of Sayyid Lokman in Shekhinshahnam, which became the only miniature in the Ottoman Empire, on which the woman’s funeral was sealed. Sultan was one of those who carried the coffin with a valida in the mosque of Mehmed the Conqueror , where they were supposed to read a funeral prayer. The choice of this particular mosque - the most distant of all the sultan's mosques from the palace - was made deliberately: in this way, Murad reckoned that more people would pray for his mother's soul than could be in nearby mosques. For four days, the Quran was continuously read, and for four days, high-ranking officials and religious figures came to the tomb of Nurban in order to pay tribute to it. The burial place of Nurban was also unusual: by order of Murad III, his mother was buried next to his father in the Aya-Sophia mosque complex; thus, Nurbanu became the first concubine of the Sultan, buried alongside her master. By this act, Murad recognized his Valida as a full member of the ruling dynasty, and also that he himself descended from both Sultan Selim II and Nurban Sultan ^[25] . The burial of Nurban changed the very tradition of the burial of members of the dynasty, in which the sultans were the sole “masters” of their mausoleums, and their offspring, buried their wives and mothers separately ) ^[26] .

One of the prerogatives of the wives and mothers of the sultans was the construction of mosques. The was commissioned by Nurban to the famous architect Sinan and was completed the year of her death. Atik Valide was the first mosque with two minarets built by a woman ^[25] .

• In the Turkish TV series “The Magnificent Century ”, the role of Nurbanu-Sultan was played by actress Merve Bolugur ^[27] .

• List of mothers of the Ottoman Sultans

• Finkel, Caroline. The History of the Ottoman Empire: The Vision of Osman. - M .: AST ; Astrel, 2012. - 829 p. - ISBN 978-5-17-043651-4 .
• Freely, John. Secrets of the Ottoman court. The private life of the sultans. - M .: Algorithm, 2013. - ISBN 978-5-4438-0414-9 .
• Altınay, Ahmed Refik. Kadınlar saltanatı . - BookCase Yayınevi, 2013. - 399 p. - ISBN 6055190028 , 9786055190026.
• Bahadıroğlu, Yavuz. Osmanlı'da Şehzade Katli . - Nesil Basım Yayın Gıda Ticaret ve Sanayi A.Ş, 2014. - 256 p. - ISBN 6051622187 , 9786051622187.
• Goodwin, Godfrey. The Private World of Ottoman Women . - Saqi, 2006. - 261 p. - ISBN 0863567452 , 9780863567452.
• Heuberger, Valeria; Humbert, Geneviève; Vyslonzil, Elisabeth. Ottoman et Austro-Hongrois en Orient et en Occident . - P. Lang, 2001. - 97 p. - ISBN 0820454036 , 9780820454030.
• Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire . - Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. - 374 p. - ISBN 0195086775 , 9780195086775.
• Shaw, Stanford J .; Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey . - Cambridge University Press, 1976. - Vol. 1. - 368 p. - ISBN 0521291631 , 9780521291637.
• Thys-Şenocak, Lucienne. Ottoman Women Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan . - Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. - 326 p. - ISBN 0754633101 , 9780754633105.
• Uluçay, M. Çağatay. Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları . - Ötüken, 2011. - 312 p. - ISBN 9754378401 , 9789754378405.