Roxelana

**Hürrem Sultan** (; , "*the joyful one*";  1504 – 15 April 1558), also known as **Roxelana** (), was the chief consort of Sultan Suleiman and the first Haseki Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the legal wife of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and the mother of Suleiman's son, Sultan Selim II. She was one of the most powerful and influential women in Ottoman history, and was the first of the powerful Ottoman women to rule during the era known as the Sultanate of Women.

Hürrem Sultan was born in Ruthenia (then the eastern part of the Kingdom of Poland, now Rohatyn, Ukraine) to a Ruthenian Orthodox family. She was captured by the Crimean Tatars during a slave raid and eventually sold through the Crimean slave trade to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

She was given the name Hürrem after entering the Imperial Harem, and her rank rose, and she became the favorite concubine of Sultan Suleiman. Suleiman broke Ottoman law by marrying Hürrem and recognizing her as his legitimate wife. Sultans had previously only married noble women born into foreign royal families. Hürrem Sultan was the first royal consort to receive the title Haseki Sultan, and the title Haseki Sultan was first created for her.  Hürrem Sultan supported the Sultan in various political matters throughout her life. Suleiman and Hürrem had a very close relationship, and Hürrem and Suleiman had six children, including the future Sultan Selim II. As a result, all subsequent Ottoman sultans and the current living members of the Ottoman dynasty are descendants of Hürrem. Five of Hürrem's six children were boys, but having five sons violated Ottoman custom, as each concubine could only bear one son in order to maintain a balance of power between them. However, after the birth of her first son in 1521, Hürrem not only gave birth to five more children, rather, after Suleiman became Sultan, she also became the mother of all the children born to Suleiman.

When Hürrem gained power, she influenced the politics of the Ottoman Empire. Through her husband, she played an active role in state affairs. She probably consulted with the Sultan on various matters and wrote diplomatic letters to King Sigismund II of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania (1548-1572). Hürrem built many major public buildings (including the Haseki Sultan Complex and the Hürrem Sultan Bathhouse). She died in Constantinople in 1558 and was buried in a mausoleum within the Süleymaniye Mosque complex.

## Names 
Leslie P. Pierce writes that her birth name may have been Alexandra or Anastasia Lisowska. To the Ottomans, she was originally known as Haseki Hürrem Sultan or Hürrem Haseki Sultan. The name Hürrem or Khurrem () means "*joyful*" in Persian. The name Roxalene comes from the word Roxolanes. The name Roxalene was used by the Ottomans to describe girls from Podolia and Galicia who were captured in slave raids.

## Origin 
Most sources agree that Hürrem was originally from Ruthenia, then part of the Polish kingdom. She was born in Rohatyn,  southeast of Lwów (Lviv), a major city in the Ruthenian region of the Kingdom of Poland, now in Ukraine. Hürrem Sultan's native language was Ruthenian, the proto-language of modern Ukrainian. According to sources from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the Polish poet Samuel Twardowski (d. 1661), who studied Hürrem Sultan in Turkey, stated that Hürrem was probably born to a man named Hawryło Lisowski, an Orthodox priest of Ruthenian origin, and his wife was named Leksandra.

Between 1512 and 1520, during the reign of Selim I, Hürrem was abducted by Crimean Tatars during the Crimean-Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe. The Tatars probably took her first to the Crimean city of Kaffa before taking her to Constantinople.

In Constantinople, Suleiman's mother Hafsa Sultan chose Hürrem as a concubine for her son. Other versions claim that Suleiman's confidant and future Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha brought Hürrem to Suleiman's harem. Hürrem later became the first Haseki Sultan of the harem of the Ottoman Empire.

European ambassadors of the time called her Roxelana, meaning "*Ruthenian woman*" or "*the Ruthenian one*", because she was said to be of Ruthenian descent. She has many portraits and is the only woman to have more than one portrait in the Ottoman Empire, although some images were created through fictional imagination.

## Relationship with Suleiman 
]]
Hürrem Sultan probably entered the harem at the age of sixteen. The exact year she entered the harem is unknown, but it is believed that when Suleiman became Sultan in 1520, she became his concubine, as their first child was born in 1521.

Hürrem's unprecedented rise from harem maid to Suleiman's legal wife made her the object of jealousy and revulsion not only from her rivals in the harem, but also from the general public.

Suleiman's mother Hafsa Sultan partially suppressed the rivalry between the two women.  According to Bernardo Navajero's account, the intense rivalry led to a fight between the two women, with Mahidevran beating Hürrem, which angered Suleiman. According to Turkish historian Necdet Sakaoglu, these allegations are completely false. After the death of Suleiman's mother Hafsa Sultan in 1534, Hürrem's influence in the palace increased and she assumed control of the harem. Hürrem later became Suleiman's only wife and received the title Haseki, Haseki meaning "*beloved*". Suleiman freed Hürrem and married her, already having been a Haseki Sultan (at that time, a woman's name or title with the word sultan in it indicated that she was a member of the dynasty).

Around 1533, Suleiman married Hürrem The wedding celebration took place in 1534.
Later, Hürrem would assist Suleiman in various political matters for most of his life, and was the first woman to assist the sultan in political matters. According to Ottoman tradition, a sultan's wife could only remain in the harem until her son was of age (around 16 or 17), after which the prince would be sent to rule a distant province away from the capital, and his mother would accompany him. This tradition was called the Sanjak Beyligi. The mothers of princes would not return to Constantinople until their sons had been crowned sultans. Breaking with this ancient custom, Hürrem remained in the harem, even when her sons went to other provinces as *Sanjak Beys*.After her stay in Constantinople, Hurrem moved permanently from the harem in the Old Palace (Eski Saray) to the Topkapi Palace. Many believe that she moved to the Topkapi Palace not because of the fire in the Old Palace, but because of her marriage to Suleiman. However, Hurrem's move to the Topkapi Palace violated another traditional custom, which was that Mehmed the Conqueror had specifically issued a decree that no woman could live in the same building as the Sultan because it was where official business was conducted.

## State affairs 
, 16th century]]
Hürrem Sultan was described as the first woman in Ottoman history to participate in state affairs. Hürrem Sultan was able to achieve power that no concubine had been able to achieve before. She officially became Suleiman's wife, and although there was no law at the time prohibiting marriage between a sultan and a concubine, the entire Ottoman court was against the marriage of Hürrem and Suleiman. Suleiman did not obey the law. The marriage probably took place in June 1533, although the exact date of this event is still unknown. Hürrem's power was unlimited, as she received the title of *Haseki*.

Suleiman spent most of his time on military campaigns, as a result of which he needed someone reliable to provide him with information about the situation in the palace. He received information about the palace from Hürrem Sultan. The letters that Suleiman wrote to Hürrem have been preserved and are still preserved.  These reveal the Sultan Suleiman's great love and affection for Roxelana (*Hürrem Sultan*). Historical scholars have noted that, in the early stages of his reign, Suleiman did not correspond with Haseki, but with his mother, to obtain information about the palace, because Hurrem did not know enough Ottoman Turkish. In fact, the first letters Hurrem wrote to the Sultan were written in crooked letters. Until she learned the language, she used to write letters with the help of others.

In her letters to her husband, Hurrem greeted politicians and the Sheikh-ul-Islam of Istanbul and talked about the problems of Istanbul. Hurrem was also interested in learning about statesmen and their problems, and she discussed these issues with Suleiman in her letters. For the first time in Ottoman history, Hürrem began to use the title *Şah*, meaning queen, after becoming a legitimate wife.  In most reports, her signature was written as Hurrem Şah. This expression is found in the Haseki Hospital report and in the Jerusalem Soup Kitchen and again in the Haseki Hospital inscription. "''Devletlu Ismetlu Hürrem Şah Sultan Aliyetü'ş-şan Hazretleri''". These expressions were shown as evidence of this signature.

Hurrem was one of the most educated women in the world at the time and played an important role in the political affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Due to Hurrem Sultan's intelligence, Sultan Suleiman sought advice from her on various matters and it seems that Hurrem Sultan also had an influence on foreign policy and international politics. She communicated freely with ambassadors from European countries and with the rulers of Venice and Persia, and Hürrem and Sultan Suleiman invited the rulers of Venice and Persia to feasts. She watched the council meetings through a wire mesh window.  She ushered in an era of the Sultanate of Women in the Ottoman Empire and was a powerful figure in Ottoman history. Suleiman trusted Hurrem so much that rumors later spread in the Ottoman court that Sultan Suleiman had been bewitched by Hurrem Sultan.

In 1523, Suleiman's Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha supported Mustafa. Hürrem is generally blamed in part for plotting against him, as Mustafa was the successor.

A capable commander in Suleiman's army, Ibrahim was eventually deposed during the Ottoman–Safavid Wars (1532–55), during a campaign against the Safavid Empire, on a false charge that he had bestowed upon himself a title containing the word "sultan".  During the Safavid Wars, Ibrahim and his former advisor, Iskender Çelebi, repeatedly clashed with each other over military leadership positions, which led to another rift. This incident led to Ibrahim Pasha being executed by order of Suleiman in 1536. It is believed that Hurrem was responsible for this. After three more viziers over the course of eight years, Suleiman selected Damat Rüstem Pasha, Hürrem's son-in-law and Mihrimah's husband, as vizier. However, scholars have questioned whether Mihrimah Sultan and Rüstem Pasha helped Hürrem secure her son's throne. There are also rumors that Hürrem Sultan, with the help of her daughter and son-in-law Rüstem Pasha, conspired against Mustafa; they wanted to portray Mustafa as a traitor and said that Mustafa was secretly in contact with the Shah of Iran. Acting on Hürrem Sultan's orders, Rüstem Pasha forged Mustafa's seal and sent a letter to Shah Tahmasp I with that seal, and the Shah then sent the letter to Suleiman. After Mustafa's death, Mahidevran lost her status as the mother of the heir to the throne and moved to Bursa.

Although allegations of Hürrem's role in the executions of İbrahim, Mustafa, and Kara Ahmed are very popular, none of them are based on direct evidence. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Ottoman historians, as well as European diplomats, observers, and travelers, described Hürrem as extremely eccentric upon seeing her portraits.  None of these people, however, were Ottoman visitors. They were not allowed to enter the interior of the walled harem, and they learned about it mainly from the people of the Ottoman Empire and members of the Ottoman parliament. The mosque built by Hürrem was the third largest mosque in the capital at the time, after the Fatih Mosque and the Süleymaniye Mosque, a testament to Hürrem's high status and power.

She built mosque complexes in Adrianople and Ankara. She also built a bathhouse called the Hürrem Sultan Bathhouse to serve the elderly worshippers of the nearby Hagia Sophia. It was built in 1556 and designed by Mimar Sinan.

In Jerusalem, she founded the Haseki Sultan Emirate in 1552, a public soup kitchen to feed the poor, which is said to have fed at least 500 people twice a day.  Hürrem Sultan owned land in Palestine and Tripoli, as well as shops, public baths, soap factories, and granaries. The Haseki Hürrem Sultan's deed of donation includes 195 toponyms and 32 estates, mainly located along the road between what is now Jaffa and Jerusalem. The Haseki Sultan Emirate not only fulfilled the religious requirement of giving, but also strengthened social order and showed generosity and aid to the people of the Ottoman Empire in various ways. She established a public soup kitchen in Mecca.

She had a *kira* who served as her secretary and mediator on several occasions, however, there is controversy over the identity of that Kira, (her name could probably be Strongillah).

## Death 
)'' of Hürrem Sultan at Süleymaniye Mosque in Fatih, Istanbul.]]
Hürrem died on 15 April 1558 from an unknown illness. She was very ill in her final years. It is said that the Sultan, in order not to disturb his wife's peace during her illness, ordered all the musical instruments in the palace to be burned. Until the last day of Hurrem's death, Suleiman did not leave her on any expedition. The Sultan's farewell letter to Hürrem, which is preserved to this day, is a reflection of Suleiman's love for Hürrem.

She was buried in a domed tomb (*türbe*) decorated with sophisticated Iznik tiles depicting the Garden of Eden. These tiles were probably used to pay tribute to her cheerful and joyful nature. Her tomb is in the courtyard of the Süleymaniye Mosque, right next to where Suleiman is buried.

## Issue 
, son of Hürrem Sultan and Suleiman the Magnificent]]
Suleiman and Hürrem had five sons and one daughter:

* Şehzade Mehmed (1521, Old Palace, Constantinople – 7 November 1543, Manisa Palace, Manisa, buried in Şehzade Mosque, Constantinople). Hürrem's first son. He was the Sanjak-bey of Manisa and the potential future sultan from 1541 until his death.

* Mihrimah Sultan (1522, Old Palace, Constantinople – 25 January 1578, Constantinople, buried in the Mausoleum of Suleiman I, Süleymaniye Mosque). Hürrem's only daughter. She was married to Rüstem Pasha on 26 November 1539. They had one daughter and one son.

* Selim II (28 May 1524, Old Palace, Constantinople – 15 December 1574, Topkapi Palace, Constantinople, buried in the Mausoleum of Selim II, Hagia Sophia Mosque). He was Sanjak-bey of Karaman, then Sanjak-bey of Manisa after Mehmed's death, and later governor of Konya and Kütahya. He was the only son of Suleiman to survive Suleiman's death, and ascended the throne on 7 September 1566 as Selim II.

* Şehzade Abdullah (c. 1525, Old Palace, Constantinople – c. 1528, buried in the Old Palace, Constantinople, Yavuz Selim Mosque).

* Şehzade Bayezid (1527, Old Palace, Constantinople – 25 September 1561, Qazvin, Safavid Empire, buried in Melik-i Asem Turbe, Sivas). He was the governor of Karaman, Kütahya and later Amasya. He rebelled against his father for the throne, and for this Suleiman had him and his sons executed.

* Şehzade Cihangir (1531, Old Palace, Constantinople – 27 November 1553, Aleppo, buried in the Şehzade Mosque, Istanbul). Born with kyphosis and in poor health, he was declared unfit to be an heir and was therefore not appointed to rule any province. For the same reason, he was not allowed to take concubines and therefore had no children.

## Personality 
Hürrem's admirers described her as being extraordinarily beautiful and distinguished from others by her red hair. Hürrem was intelligent and had a pleasant personality. Hürrem's love of poetry is thought to have been greatly appreciated by Suleiman, who was himself a great admirer of poetry.

It is believed that Hürrem was a cunning and hard-hearted woman who would execute anyone who stood in her way.  However, she was loved by the common people because she built many buildings for the poor and was always generous to their husbands. Prominent Ukrainian writer Pavlo Zahrebelny described Hurrem as "an intelligent, kind, understanding, open-hearted, articulate, talented, generous, emotional and grateful woman who respected the soul more than the body; who was not obsessed with simple luxuries such as money, but was interested in science and art; in short, a perfect woman."

## Legacy 
Hürrem is well known in modern Turkey and the Western world and is famous for many artistic works. In 1561, three years after her death, the French writer Gabriel Bunin wrote a tragedy about her, entitled "La Soltane". This tragedy introduced the Ottomans to the stage in France for the first time. Hürrem Sultan was popularized through paintings, musical works (including Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 63), an opera by Denis Sichinsky, a ballet, plays, and several novels, mainly written in Russian and Ukrainian, but also in English, French, German, and Polish.

In early modern Spain, she was mentioned or alluded to by Quevedo and other writers, and by Lope de Vega in several of his plays.  In a play titled "The Holy League", Titian appeared on stage in the Venetian Senate and said that he had just met Sultan Suleiman, and that he was displaying a painting of Sultana Rossa or Roxelana.

In 2007, Muslims in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol opened a mosque in honor of Roxelana.

In the 2003 TV miniseries, Hürrem Sultan was played by Turkish actress and singer Gülben Ergen. 

In the 2011–2014 TV series *Muhtesem Yüzyıl*, Hürrem Sultan was played by Turkish-German actress Meryem Uzerli from the first to third seasons. In the final season of the series, Hürrem Sultan was played by Turkish actress Vahide Persin. Megan Gale played the role of Hurrem in the 2022 film "*Three Thousand Years of Longing*".

In 2013, Croatian singer Severina created a song called "Hürrem" after the TV series *Muhtesem Yüzyil*, which aired in Croatia, became popular. As of 2024, the song has received 27 million views.

In 2019, the inscription that Hurrem was of Russian descent was removed from the visitor panel near her tomb at the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul at the request of the Ukrainian Embassy in Turkey.

## Visual tradition 
, called La Rosa".]]
Although male European artists were not allowed to enter the harem, Many paintings of the famous Hürrem Sultan have been preserved in the Renaissance. Scholars therefore believe that European artists painted portraits of Ottoman women from imagination. The artists Titian, Melchior Loric, and Sebald Beham all became famous for their portraits of Hürrem. She was renowned for her beauty, and in most of her paintings she is shown wearing a distinctive hat.

The Venetian painter Titian is said to have painted a portrait of Hürrem in 1550. Although he never visited Constantinople, Titian may have imagined or made a sketch of her. In a letter to King Philip II of Spain, the painter Titian stated that he had painted Hürrem in 1552, imagining the appearance of "the queens of Persia".  The Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, acquired the original or a copy of the portrait of Hürrem Sultan around 1930. Titian's painting of Hürrem Sultan bears a striking resemblance to the portrait of Hürrem's daughter, Mihrimah Sultan.

## Gallery

File:Haseki Huerrem Sultan Roxelane.jpg|18th century portrait of Hürrem Sultan kept at Topkapı Palace.
File:Attributed to French School, 17th century - Rosa, Consort of Suleiman, Emperor of the Turks^ - RCIN 406152 - Royal Collection.jpg|A portrait of Hürrem in the British Royal Collection, c. 1600–70
File:Haseki Hürrem Sultan (Roxelana).jpg|A painting of Hürrem Sultan painted by Titian, 16th century
File:Anton Hickel - Roxelane und der Sultan.jpg|Hürrem and Süleyman the Magnificent by the German baroque painter *Anton Hickel*, (1780)
File:Sultan Roxelana.jpg|Engraving by *Johann Theodor de Bry*, (1596)
File:Rossa, Wife of Suleiman the Magnificent.jpg|A 16th-century oil painting on wood of Hürrem Sultan
File:Stamp of Ukraine s148.jpg|Tribute to Hürrem on 1997 Ukrainian postage stamp
File:Illuminated serlevha from the Vakfiye of Hürrem Sultan (TIEM 2191, f. 1b-2a).jpg|Endowment charter (waqfiya) of the architectural Serlevha complex commissioned by Hürrem Sultan in the Aksaray district of Istanbul. Dated 1540. Located in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts
File:Mimar Sinan 1556 Hurrem Sultan Hamami.jpg|The Hagia Sophia Hürrem Sultan Bathhouse built in 1556
File:Bath of Roxelane Istanbul 2007 006.jpg|The Turkish bathhouse (*hammam*) built by Haseki Hürrem Sultan. The hammam is located near the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. Hürrem Sultan was known in the West as Roxelana or Roxelane.

## In literature and popular culture 
* German-Turkish actress Meryem Uzerli played the young and adult Hürrem, and Turkish actress Vahide Perçin played the middle-aged Hürrem in the television series *Muhteşem* *Yüzyil*.

* Turkish actress Gülben Ergen played Hürrem Sultan in the television mini-series "*Hürrem Sultan*".

* Australian actress Megan Gale played Hürrem Sultan in the film "*Three Thousand Years of Longing*".

* Hürrem is a fictional character in the novel *Roxelana şi Soliman* by Romanian author Vintilǎ Corbul. The novel mentions that Hürrem was a Polish citizen and her name was Alexandra Lisowska. The novel tells a fictional story about the love between Hürrem and Suleiman.

## Related pages 
* Suleiman the Magnificent
* Mahidevran
* Nurbanu Sultan
* Safiye Sultan
* Ottoman Empire
* Hafsa Sultan
* Ottoman dynasty
* Topkapi palace
* Selim II
* Mihrimah Sultan
* Constaintinople
*Harem
*Kingdom of Poland
*Crimean Tatars
*Avret Pazarları

## Notes 
## References 
### Works cited 
* 
* .

## Further reading
* There are many historical novels in English about Roxelana: P.J. Parker's *Roxelana and Suleyman* (2012; Revised 2016); 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 Sonja.
* David Chataignier, "Roxelane on the French Tragic Stage (1561–1681)" in *Fortune and Fatality: Performing the Tragic in Early Modern France*, ed. Desmond Hosford and Charles Wrightington (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 95–117.
* Parker, P. J. *Roxelana and Suleyman* (Raider Publishing International, 2011).
* Thomas M. Prymak, "Roxolana: Wife of Suleiman the Magnificent," *Nashe zhyttia/Our Life*, LII, 10 (New York, 1995), 15–20. An illustrated popular-style article in English with a bibliography.
* 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.
* Galina Yermolenko (ed.), *Roxolana in European Literature, History and Culture* (Farmham, UK: Ashgate, 2010).  318 pp.&nbsp;Illustrated. Contains important articles by Oleksander Halenko and others, as well as several translations of works about Roxelana from various European literatures, and an extensive bibliography.
* For Ukrainian language novels, see Osyp Nazaruk (1930) (English translation is available), Mykola Lazorsky (1965), Serhii Plachynda (1968), and Pavlo Zahrebelnyi (1980).
* 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 Serbo-Croatian by Radovan Samardzic (1987); one in Turkish by Ulku Cahit (2001).

## Other websites 
* University of Calgary | Roxelana
* Hürrem Sultan's tomb