Roxolana, originally from Ukraine, was captured by Crimean Tatars and became a slave in the Ottoman Sultan's harem. Due to her intelligence and beauty, she gained the Sultan's favor and became his legal wife, the first time a Sultan married a former slave. As the Sultan's wife, Roxolana was able to influence diplomacy between the Ottoman Empire and countries with Ukrainian lands, helping to prevent slave raids and negotiate the release of Ukrainian captives. Roxolana's rise to power demonstrated the strength of her character and mind in overcoming the challenges of her origins as a captured slave to become a influential figure in the Ottoman Empire.

1. A Story of a Nation
IEARN 2018. Ms Byzova’s Class. Kyiv, Ukraine
Roxolana

2. Hurrem Sultan (1502 – 1558), known as Roxolana in Ukraine,
was the favourite and legal wife of Ottoman Sultan Süleyman
the Magnificent(1494 – 1566).

3. Roxolana was originally from Ruthenia (Ukraine).

4. In the 1520s, Crimean Tatars captured Roxolana during one
of their frequent raids into Ruthenia (Ukraine).
Crimean Khanate was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire
from 1478 to 1740.

5. Ukrainian girls were regularly kidnapped. In addition to this,
Ottoman policy was to recruit Christian boys into the army
and these youths formed the elite core of Janissaries.
But they were “recruited” by force, essentially kidnapped from
their families and never again seen by them. They were
forced to convert to Islam and studied in the best war
Academies.
By the fifteenth century, the Janissaries had become a
powerful political force within the Ottoman state, and were
gradually granted increasing rights

6. This is the extent of the Ottoman Empire in 1566, upon the
death of Suleiman the Magnificent. Ukraine, except for some
areas and not for long, was never conquered by the
Ottomans thanks to the Ukrainian warriors called the
Cossacks.

7. The Cossacks were defenders of Ukraine

8. How did Roxolana,
a Christian slave from Ruthenia (Ukraine),
become a legal wife of Ottoman Sultan?

9. First, the Turk merchant was struck by the
dazzling beauty of the girl, and he decided to
buy her to make a gift to the Sultan.
Having learned for whom the slave was intended,
the merchant presented her to the Sultan as a
token of respect. This turn of affairs enabled
Roksolana to become Suleiman's legal wife, which
would have been impossible if she had been
bought for money.
By Ruslana Shymohina 8-A

10. Roxolana’s emergence
in the Ottoman imperial harem
has been compared to the projectory of a meteorite or
a bright comet in the night sky.

11. Roxolana’s main asset was her mind,
which was remarked upon by all the contemporaries
who wrote about her.

12. She showed her intelligence in her passion to learn
the Ottoman language, mathematics, astronomy,
geography, diplomacy, literature and history.
Apart from this, she was very interested in alchemy.
Because of this advantage,
Suleiman did not only see her as a beautiful
company who later became his legal wife, but also
an advisor for himself as a Sultan.
By Ira Kolisnichenko

13. In 1533 or 1534 Suleiman married Roxolana
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 Roxolana,
the Sultan became practically monogamous,

14. Roxelana and Süleyman the Magnificent
by the German baroque painter Anton Hickel, (1780)

15. In 1553 when Roxolana was already fifty, the Venetian
ambassador Navagero wrote:
“His Majesty the Sultan loves Roxolana so much
that never has in the Ottoman dynasty been a woman
who would enjoy a greater respect”.

16. In 1554, an Italian, Dominico Trevisano wrote from the
Ottoman capital:
“His Majesty the Sultan loves her [Roxolana] so much
that he has refused to be with any other woman but her;
none of his predecessors had ever done that
and such a thing is unheard of among the Turks”

17. In the last years of life Roxolana tried not to part
with her husband.
The winter of late 1557 - early 1558, they spent in
Edirne, together returned to Istanbul. April 15,
1558, according to other data of 1560 or 1563,
Hurrem Sultan died.
Suleiman was active in her honor, throughout the
empire built a large number of objects dedicated to
Roxolana.
By Y.Horlenko

18. The beauty of Ukrainian women
must have been so magnetic
(or maybe the memory of Roxolana’s powerful personality
exercised a strong influence on later Ottoman rulers)
that in the seventeenth century two more sultans,
Suleyman II and Ibrahim I,
were married to Ukrainian women.
One of them, Hatidje Turhan Sultan,
was the mother of the Sultan Mehmed IV;
she is particularly remembered
for building the Mosque Yeni Jami.

19. To what extent
did Roxolana as the wife of the Ottoman Sultan
influence the life of Ukrainians?

20. She played an important role
in Suleiman’s diplomatic dealings and correspondence,
often acting on the Sultan’s behalf.
There are Roxolana’s letters
to the Polish King Sigizmund II August
(Ukraine was part of Poland at that time)

21. Ukrainians view Roxolana’s destiny
as a triumph of human will and intelligence.
Captured and sold at the slave markets,
she also reached a position
in which she could relieve the sorry
of a lot of her captured compatriots.
It is believed that during her tenure at Suleiman’s court,
Roxolana facilitated the Porte’s friendly relations with Poland,
who had dominion of the western Ukraine at the time.

22. It is not known exactly what part Roxolana played
in preventing the ongoing slave trade in Ukraine
and in negotiating the release of Ukrainian captives.
Yet, Piotr Opalinski,
Polish Ambassador to Suleiman’s court in 1533,
confirmed that through Roxolana’s pleading,
the Sultan forbade the Crimean Khan to bother
Polish (Ukrainian lands were part of Poland) lands.

23. The Polish Ottoman truces of 1525 and 1528
and the “eternal peace” treaties of 1533 and 1553
are frequently attributed
to her influence.

24. The fact that Suleiman twice granted “eternal peace”
to a non-tributary Christian neighbor
was in itself amazing,
as it was a radical departure from the Islamic principles
governing their relations with “infidels.”
It clearly pointed to Poland’s
(Ukraine was part of Poland) privileged status
in Ottoman diplomacy.

25. The German historian Hammer
wrote in his History of the Ottoman Empire:
“[In this mosque] there is a tomb of a Rusynka
[Slavic woman from Ukraine]
who thanks to her charm and talent
managed to rise from the base position of a slave
to the lofty level of a legal royal wife;
later, when her beauty had long faded,
she became the sultan’s closest and only friend”

26. In the Sultan’s harem
she was called Hurrem Sultan, or “the joyful sultana.”
In history she has remained known as Roxolana,
that is a girl from Roxolania, the medieval Latin name for
Rus-Ukraine (a man from Roxolania was Roxolanus).

27. Tribute to Roxolana on 1997 Ukrainian postage stamp