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Concept
Roxelana
Summary
Hürrem Sultan (hyɾˈɾæm suɫˈtan; خُرّم سلطان; Hürrem Sultan; 1504 – 15 April 1558), also known as Roxelana (Роксолана), was the chief consort and legal wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. She became one of the most powerful and influential women in Ottoman history as well as a prominent and controversial figure during the era known as the Sultanate of Women.
Born in Ruthenia (then an eastern region of the Kingdom of Poland, now Rohatyn, Ukraine) to a Ruthenian Orthodox priest, she was captured by Crimean Tatars during a slave raid and eventually taken to Istanbul, the Ottoman capital. She entered the Imperial Harem where her name was changed to Hürrem, rose through the ranks and became the favourite of Sultan Suleiman. Breaking Ottoman tradition, he married Hürrem, making her his legal wife. Sultans had previously married only foreign free noble ladies. She was the first imperial consort to receive the title Haseki Sultan. Hürrem remained in the sultan's court for the rest of her life, enjoying a close relationship with her husband, and having six children with him, including the future sultan, Selim II.
Hürrem eventually achieved power, influencing the politics of the Ottoman Empire. Through her husband, she played an active role in affairs of the state. She probably acted as the sultan's advisor, wrote diplomatic letters to King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland ( 1548 - 1572) and patronized major public works (including the Haseki Sultan Complex and the Hurrem Sultan Bathhouse). She died in 1558, in Istanbul and was buried in a mausoleum within the Süleymaniye Mosque complex.
Her birth name is unknown. Leslie P. Peirce has written that it may have been either Anastasia, or Aleksandra Lisowska. Among the Ottomans, she was known mainly as Haseki Hürrem Sultan or Hürrem Haseki Sultan. Hürrem or Khurrem () means "the joyful one" in Persian. The name Roxalane derives from Roksolanes, which was the generic term used by the Ottomans to describe girls from Podolia and Galicia who were taken in slave raids.
Official source
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