Vulgar History - International, part 5： Hürrem Sultan： From Slavery To Queen (pt 1⧸2)

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00:01:27.280 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is

00:01:46.360 ann foster this is season five and we are going international by which i mean looking at places

00:01:54.060 that are not Tudor England and I could find the names of two members of the Tits Out Brigade who

00:02:00.360 suggested this woman I feel like other people might have but and I apologize if you did and

00:02:04.860 I don't show you out here my inbox is not super organized but Lori suggested her also Courtney did

00:02:12.660 and also thank you so much to Tits Out Brigade members Sasha and Stephanie who helped answer

00:02:19.120 some of my questions about my research that I was doing, as well as friend of the podcast,

00:02:24.640 Alison Epstein, for information on Russian and Ukrainian history, as well as Vesel, who I don't

00:02:31.800 think is a listener, but who is my friend's partner and a Turkish person. And so he was

00:02:37.160 helpful with some pronunciation stuff. So for this episode, when a Turkish or an Arabic or a Persian

00:02:42.740 name or word comes up, I will be doing my best to pronounce the words and names in the Turkish or

00:02:47.940 Arabic or Persian way, please know that several people helped me with this. And if I mess up,

00:02:54.740 that's all on me, not on them. They were very helpful. So some sources that I found super

00:03:00.820 helpful for this. So the Ottoman history podcast, which is a great podcast. I suggest

00:03:05.980 subscribing to in general. It's called the Ottoman history podcast. There's also a podcast.

00:03:12.580 It's more kind of like a mini series called Ottoman lives, which each episode is about a

00:03:17.500 different member of sort of ottoman culture like there's one about um the concubine there's one

00:03:22.720 about the eunuch there's one about the sultan very helpful as well there's also an episode of

00:03:28.560 another women's history podcast that i really like called her half of history talked about this

00:03:34.740 person and i also just in general recommend that if you're looking for another women's history

00:03:39.700 podcast her half of history is a really good one and then a biography called empress of the east

00:03:45.920 by leslie pierce as well as the oxford encyclopedia of women in world history

00:03:50.700 an article on daily saba an article on list first encyclopedia.com history.com as well as the

00:03:59.960 magnificent century wiki where i read about how the characters are treated in the tv show the

00:04:05.480 magnificent century and then also i think this is the first time i've recommended uh you oh no i

00:04:11.420 recommend there is the youtube account in the rani did episode as well but there's a channel

00:04:15.500 all these are linked in the show notes if you're like gotta get this research noted so you can

00:04:20.000 follow it they're all the show notes and also at vulgarhistory.com i list all my research but

00:04:24.420 anyway so it's a youtuber slash instagram account called barry istanbul tips which is run by a

00:04:30.300 person who is from mexico she's a mexican expat living in istanbul and she does these great

00:04:35.880 videos going around various sites in modern day istanbul which is so helpful for me to see like

00:04:41.180 what there's going to be a lot in here about various buildings that people commissioned but

00:04:45.660 to see what they actually look like it's super stunning so her her istanbul videos are great

00:04:51.940 and so a note on names so yet again we have a main character whose name both changed throughout

00:05:01.020 their life but also where we aren't sure what her name was to begin with and we don't know how she

00:05:06.320 felt about her name changing so we just need to go with like well here's what people called her

00:05:10.380 so here's what we're going to call her so we don't know what name she was given as a child

00:05:15.000 in western european sources of her time she was referred to as roxelana la rosa or la rose all of

00:05:22.460 which mean the woman from ruthenia or the russian woman because of her birthplace ruthenia which

00:05:29.880 um footnote i'll talk about in a bit where that is so hang on but sort of like with melancine

00:05:35.240 we do know what her name was changed to and we know what some people who knew her called her

00:05:39.960 which was Hurem so just for continuity we're gonna I'm just gonna call her Hurem as her name

00:05:45.240 throughout because at least we know that's what some people called her who knew her uh so a note

00:05:50.320 on sources spoiler Hurem ends up in the harem of the Ottoman Empire a legendarily secretive

00:05:57.560 and private place so like they were not writing records about themselves for other people to know

00:06:02.380 because it was nobody's business also note I'm choosing to pronounce this word as best I can

00:06:06.760 as to how it's pronounced in Turkish harem so not to be confused with the name of this week's

00:06:11.740 featured person who ram and i did do there was the episode ages ago early in pandemic times i

00:06:18.740 did the one about um the smallpox vaccine where we talked a bit about how women were enslaved and

00:06:24.300 brought to uh the court of the ottoman sultan and in that episode i pronounced harem but here i'm

00:06:32.420 pronouncing it harem anyway so some overlap with that episode from ages ago um yeah so lots of

00:06:38.460 european ambassadors and diplomats visited istanbul because it was a really important place

00:06:42.720 but none of them ever went to the harem or met her but at the same time people of the ottoman empire

00:06:48.580 didn't write about her during her life because that was just not what you did in that culture

00:06:53.580 like it was disrespectful so what this means is that most of the writing about her from her lifetime

00:06:58.980 comes from european visitors who never met her but who relied on gossip from palace servants

00:07:05.520 um courtiers and or their own imagination so which is not to say that they didn't get some

00:07:10.800 good juicy details but it's just to say like this is all already kind of third-hand information

00:07:16.380 and then especially from the first half of her life like before she got to the harem it's like

00:07:21.800 here's what we imagine it was like also related to the lack of for sure accurate records about

00:07:27.700 her life from her lifetime there are also no portraits um that actually look like her because

00:07:32.780 european artists were also denied access to see what she looked like so you like the cover of the

00:07:37.980 book embers of the east there's a picture of her like if you look on the wikipedia page pictures

00:07:41.000 of her like there's pictures of her all over the place but and a lot of those or several of those

00:07:45.420 are portraits made in her lifetime but those are basically just invented guesses of what people

00:07:50.100 think she looks like like there's uh one of the famous ones is by titian titian the painter and

00:07:55.660 it's like well if you look at the face of this woman it looks a lot like the face of like his

00:07:58.880 wife or something so it's like people just kind of guessing well we know she had red hair 0.99

00:08:02.480 here's how we think she dressed so like maybe she looked like this i don't know but she was

00:08:07.380 there's a lot of interest in her so people are painting her but again what did she look like we

00:08:11.400 don't know so yeah so it's a bit of a melancine scenario again where the woman herself is kind

00:08:16.680 of a blank slate in some ways where historians can easily fit in with a narrative to fit their

00:08:23.180 purposes of what they think she was like but like in the story of melancine we do know many of the

00:08:28.500 actions that harem did um things that happened to her so we can build up an idea of who she was

00:08:33.260 and unlike in the story of melancine um some of harem's writings do um still exist so we're able

00:08:39.920 to actually see how she wrote a bit of what her personality was like so all that out of the way

00:08:45.300 let's begin at the beginning actually no i'm going to say one more thing which is like in

00:08:50.780 kind of every episode this season where I'm researching a situation that I just have never

00:08:56.940 read up on before like I really delved into learn kind of okay what was what was the situation here

00:09:02.980 like let's learn about the Ottoman Empire and I ended up with something like 27 pages of notes

00:09:07.040 like for the for reference sake generally these episodes I have like 12 to 15 pages so I was like

00:09:14.320 okay I need to just like really go through and prune out stuff that's just like interesting

00:09:18.600 facts but not to do with harem's life situation so i'm gonna sort of sprinkle in facts like on

00:09:25.160 a need-to-know basis about what the deal is with the ottoman empire and stuff but if you want to

00:09:30.120 learn more about it all those sources i mentioned are great for that and i just checked and frankly

00:09:34.340 i still have 23 pages of notes so like buckle up this is going to be a long one so harem was born

00:09:41.520 around 1502 probably and what's really interesting what's sort of coincidental about this

00:09:48.500 is a few other people we've discussed were born at around the same time, including Malenzine,

00:09:53.640 whose story has got definite similarities to this one. This is also around the same time that Anne

00:09:59.440 Boleyn was also born. We haven't done her story in the podcast, but I feel like if you're here

00:10:04.000 with me, season five, learning about lesser known women from history, I feel comfortable

00:10:10.820 assuming we all have a general understanding of Anne Boleyn's whole deal without me having done

00:10:16.160 an episode on her but i mentioned both of these two because mouncine and anne boleyn both their

00:10:22.100 stories are really there's some overlap with what happens to harem so interestingly they're all born

00:10:28.380 around the same time they're all like in the world existing simultaneously which just blows my mind

00:10:32.960 i think they're all just out there breathing the same oxygen saida el hora was also around at the

00:10:37.180 same time but she was a bit older so where was harem born basically ukraine but it's complicated

00:10:46.020 so as i'm recording this in um march of 2022 there's a lot going on in ukraine and

00:10:55.620 so reading about the history of ukraine and russia was sort of had a different sort of

00:11:03.420 connotation for me learning about it now in the context of what's happening in ukraine

00:11:06.700 right now so for this episode i'm going to be talking about what the countries were when harem

00:11:14.560 was alive not like what the borders are now which are causing so much devastation this battle so

00:11:22.280 we're looking at 16th century that region of the world so starting with a people called the russ

00:11:29.640 who are or the rus are us apostrophe so the rus are the indigenous people who lived in the areas

00:11:36.800 that are now ukraine belarus and russia and so they called this area like their homeland

00:11:43.260 kiev and rus which people who spoke latin were like what did you say kiev and rus great ruthenia

00:11:49.380 is what we're going to call that and so that is where harem was born which is why she's sometimes

00:11:54.260 referred to as Ruthenian. She's also sometimes referred to as Russian, but note in this context

00:12:01.140 of the 16th century, that means a person from Kiev and Rus, not a person from a country that

00:12:07.100 is called Russia, because there wasn't a country called Russia until Peter the Great in the 1700s.

00:12:13.280 Haram's birthplace is generally thought to have been Rohatin, a city on the western edge of Kiev

00:12:18.780 and Rus, and which is today in the western part of Ukraine, and there is actually a statue

00:12:23.240 built in her honor there so not then this was done recently because people didn't know her name

00:12:31.000 and we still don't know what name she was given as a child or went by western european writers

00:12:35.320 called her roxelana which means the maiden from ruthenia so you see that a lot when people are

00:12:40.120 talking about her like so many people from this podcast nothing is known about her childhood or

00:12:46.920 the first part of her life later on some stories would emerge that haram had been the daughter of

00:12:51.800 a ukrainian orthodox priest her name was maybe alexandra but we don't know that for sure once

00:12:57.540 she became spoiler better known and very powerful retroactively some stories started to spread to

00:13:04.160 make it sound like she'd had an impressive life from the start to kind of make the early years

00:13:08.900 match up with what she got to later and that's a lot to do with the whole myth of a meritocracy

00:13:13.520 where it's like we still see this today with royal families and stuff where the whole point

00:13:17.540 of the royal family is they were like chosen by god because they were more important and better

00:13:21.780 so when somebody who's not royal marries in then it's like distressing to that myth because the

00:13:28.260 royal family is supposed to be just for people who were very important from the beginning so

00:13:32.860 people when they see how haram becomes powerful later they're like but that doesn't match with

00:13:37.120 our concept so she had to have been important from the very beginning and that's also we see

00:13:40.580 that with melancene who people said retroactively like oh her parents must have been like really

00:13:46.020 important kings and queens because she became like it just and these things are possible like

00:13:51.140 they could be true as well but a lot of where it's coming from is this sort of trying to make

00:13:55.920 somebody who started from maybe nothing and became powerful trying to match that up because otherwise

00:14:01.720 it just challenges the worldview of people who believe in the divine right of kings so we're

00:14:06.740 pretty sure harem had reddish goldish hair and fair skin it is not lost on me that i set out to

00:14:13.600 do this season to help um try and start representing better the international audience of this podcast

00:14:19.900 and we wound up with another person who looked effectively like me but here we are i feel

00:14:25.580 represented so according to some sources harem was very beautiful according to other sources

00:14:30.820 she was not beautiful but very charismatic so again it's the evergreen cleopatra thing of like 0.76

00:14:39.640 if somebody if a woman is very charismatic then you kind of like you round up how beautiful she 0.84

00:14:46.700 is because of the effect of what she's like as a person. For sure, Harem had a very charismatic

00:14:51.820 personality. Otherwise, nothing about her life makes any sense what she was able to achieve

00:14:57.060 later on. This also comes across in the writings of hers. We still have Around to Read, which we'll

00:15:01.360 talk about later. So she was either very beautiful or not very beautiful. Depends on who was looking

00:15:07.360 at her, I guess. Here's the first thing we know for sure. When she was around 12 or 13 years old,

00:15:11.900 she was captured by crimean tatars during a slave raid and taken away from rohatin and she never

00:15:17.760 went back there again who were the crimean tatars the crimean and i'm gonna put maps on maps on maps

00:15:25.500 up on instagram to just sort of show all these regions because this is a story this is an

00:15:30.460 international story haram starts off in kiev and rus and winds up somewhere else and makes a lot

00:15:36.980 of stops in other places along the way so the crimean peninsula which is still called that

00:15:41.280 is located along the north coast of the black sea in eastern europe the crimean tatars are the

00:15:47.540 indigenous people of this region in harem's era crimea was known for its merchant and mercantile

00:15:52.980 activity which makes sense because they're like right on the ocean and that's you know from saida

00:15:57.120 and stuff like that's where how people were trading merchants were all on ships and so were

00:16:02.240 the corsairs so this activity included slave traders who bought and sold human cargo from

00:16:08.920 nearby Christian states, including Kiev and Rus. These enslaved people were then trafficked to the

00:16:14.060 Islamic Ottoman Empire. And just again, I mentioned this in the Sayyid al-Hura episode, but I'll

00:16:19.420 mention it again just to be really clear. Like this isn't, Crimean Tatars were not the only people

00:16:23.860 enslaving people and selling them, and the Ottoman Empire were not the only people buying enslaved 0.59

00:16:28.060 people. This was happening all over the place, and these just happened to be the people who were

00:16:32.440 talking about in this story. The tactics of the Tatar slavers went like this. The raiding season

00:16:38.560 was typically winter when the freezing over rivers and otherwise soggy terrain facilitated 0.99

00:16:43.140 swifter advances the tatars moved quickly laying waste to what they didn't plunder so like just 0.98

00:16:48.240 sort of like falling upon a town or village and just like taking all the stuff including people 1.00

00:16:53.560 the prisoners they took were poorly fed and marched on foot in chains before being put on

00:16:57.980 ships to the coastal city of kafa which is modern-day feodosia on the crimean peninsula

00:17:03.640 which is where the main slave marketplace was so these captured people would be either sold

00:17:09.040 directly to new to owners at this slave marketplace or they'd be shipped to istanbul to go up for sale

00:17:15.940 there male slaves captured in slavic europe by the tatars would face usually one of two fates

00:17:22.900 either they would become members of the janissaries which were the enslaved troops of the ottoman army

00:17:28.920 or they would become labor or naval slaves captured female slaves faced different options

00:17:35.040 either toil as labor slaves or become servants or concubines for the sultan of the ottoman

00:17:40.900 empire which brings us to the ottoman empire this was one of the mightiest and longest lasting

00:17:46.720 dynasties in world history by the time harem was born the superpower had been ruling large areas of

00:17:52.580 the middle east eastern europe and north africa for about 200 years the leader known as the sultan

00:17:58.720 was given absolute religious and political authority over his people the religious aspect

00:18:04.000 is what makes a sultan different from a king because he was seen as both the religious and

00:18:09.220 political leader of the empire christians and jews living in the empire were permitted to

00:18:14.440 continue practicing their religion but they had to pay a special tax to get to be able to do that

00:18:21.260 the ottoman empire made numerous achievements in the art science religion and culture

00:18:25.240 the capital of the ottoman empire was istanbul formerly known as constantinople and when it

00:18:31.080 was constantinople that was the capital of the byzantine empire which was now defunct because

00:18:36.960 the ottoman empire had taken over and defeated them so the ottoman empire super wealthy they

00:18:44.440 held riches beyond anything imaginable in europe the wealthy and powerful wore expensive silks

00:18:50.140 bathed in warm scented baths ate food seasoned with delicious spices and read manuscripts inherited

00:18:55.080 from the collapsed roman empire the reason much like today's billionaires that they are able to

00:19:01.520 do to make to be so wealthy was because of the people who the underpaid people who worked for 0.81

00:19:09.260 them in this era it was these enslaved people who supported the infrastructure enslaved people not 0.52

00:19:14.860 only like helped build these magnificent palaces and buildings and things but also

00:19:19.740 they really became the backbone of the administration so this had been happening

00:19:25.320 like enslaved people building stuff had been happening for a long time not just in the

00:19:28.880 Ottoman Empire but everywhere but about two generations before Harem the sultan was Mehmed

00:19:35.540 the conqueror and during his reign this is where enslaved and converted Christians and Jews became 0.97

00:19:41.000 the backbone of the administration the reason why this is who they enslaved rather than Muslim 0.87

00:19:46.080 people is that they followed the islamic rule that a muslim cannot enslave another muslim 0.74

00:19:50.480 so enslaving christians and jews was kind of a loophole to that rule the benefit of surrounding 0.83

00:19:56.920 the royal family with entirely enslaved foreigners and so like when i say they formed the backbone

00:20:02.500 of the administration i mean the like advisors were all enslaved people or like formerly enslaved

00:20:07.700 people like everyone around them like there wasn't like in the story of inez de castro where there is

00:20:14.060 like the de castros were so um important and then you know the king was worried that they were

00:20:19.760 getting too much favor or like in any story in english history where you have it's like oh no

00:20:24.780 it's like the boleyns it's the howards it's like these families you had to always sort of like 0.87

00:20:28.880 please them or they would turn against you so to just like get rid of that threat entirely 0.91

00:20:34.440 under the reign of mimet the conqueror they're like what if everyone around us has no connection

00:20:39.280 to any powerful family anywhere because they were all captured and enslaved and so that's what he

00:20:43.740 it and this meant that they didn't have to deal with the whole like in the episodes in scotland 0.81

00:20:49.980 the asshole lords they didn't have to deal with um like in the story of ditta like the damara 0.70

00:20:54.520 types like there wasn't these noble families competing with each other for the royal favor 0.98

00:20:58.780 and or trying to dethrone him so it just led to more solidified power with kind of less

00:21:04.540 things to worry about and also there was enough fighting within the royal family that they didn't

00:21:09.560 need rivals from other families as well because again just to compare this to past podcast episodes

00:21:16.260 because that's how my brain sorts this all out so you know in the story of Fredegund how there

00:21:21.800 wasn't like one son inherited everything it's like how many sons do I have great I'll divide

00:21:25.960 the country into that many countries and then those sons fought against each other their whole

00:21:29.580 lives and it was all kind of wasteful and ridiculous and Fredegund and Brunhild were like

00:21:34.560 what about not doing that so here in the ottoman empire at this time so they didn't do the thing

00:21:41.320 where the oldest son of the sultan automatically becomes the heir instead any of the sultan's sons

00:21:46.660 could become the heir which meant they spent their life in as rivals against each other and then when

00:21:52.460 they became older they would attack one another with armies and or assassinate one another trying

00:21:57.220 to be like the last until one emerged supreme and then when a new sultan was chosen he would have

00:22:03.080 any of his surviving brothers put to death to avoid competition so like this is a situation

00:22:09.280 where like yes you don't have the like warring noble families but you do have like brothers

00:22:15.640 literally killing each other so you know one or the other that's the option they chose so this

00:22:21.500 setup the situation is a big part of why the sultan did not have more than one son with any

00:22:25.700 woman and why the sultan did not take a wife so the mothers of all these children were enslaved

00:22:32.360 concubines who after they gave birth to a shezadeh which means the son of the sultan which is kind of 1.00

00:22:39.120 like a prince um that woman would stop sleeping with him like that's the rule like that would 0.99

00:22:44.780 happen and then she would devote her life to motherhood and helping her son become the next 0.99

00:22:48.660 sultan so as soon as you if you if they had a daughter then you could sleep with the sultan 0.95

00:22:53.720 again until you had a son but this meant each shezade had a different mother so in this way

00:23:03.140 no single woman would become too influential because as soon as she had a son the sultan 0.99

00:23:07.180 stopped seeing her so she wouldn't be able to like share his bed you know like influence his 0.56

00:23:11.580 decisions etc this also meant the same as with the other enslaved people the mothers of these

00:23:17.560 children had no ties back to powerful families in other countries who might step in to defend

00:23:21.600 their daughters or to advocate for the sons so like remember how in the inez de castro story

00:23:27.440 when costanza married that shitty guy and her father came in and attacked etc like this is

00:23:33.300 just avoiding all of that so it just it just simplified things for the ornaments not have to 0.67

00:23:37.980 deal with in-laws basically because all the mothers of all the heirs had been forcibly removed from

00:23:43.340 their families and their families likely weren't powerful to begin with but since every time a 0.99

00:23:48.160 concubine had a son she retired from being a concubine there was a need for consistent new

00:23:53.580 streams of concubines which brings us back to harem so at the time she was captured the sultan

00:24:00.180 was named selim aka selim the grim aka selim the resolute and i really have to say i appreciate

00:24:07.500 in ottoman history that unlike in for instance english history where it's all like henry the

00:24:12.960 fourth henry the fifth henry the sixth and i'm just like which is which the sultans have a

00:24:18.520 descriptor so it's easy even though a couple people have repeating names like but they don't

00:24:24.120 have repeating descriptors so selim the grim aka selim the resolute is who the sultan was

00:24:29.660 and at this point he only had one remaining son so they were skipping the whole battle to the death

00:24:35.760 scenario his son was shezade suleiman and harem and the other girls taken at the same time were

00:24:43.100 likely bought to be concubines for him for the son suleiman was in his early 20s and he was living

00:24:49.940 in manisa which is in western turkey with his mother hafza sultan and so that's the thing like

00:24:55.940 where a concubine had a son then when that son came of age the son would be sent off somewhere

00:25:02.020 to become governor and oversee his old household and his mother would go with him to be a strong

00:25:07.020 political advocate for him so because there was just one son selim did not need more sons and if 0.95

00:25:14.420 he did it's like why would you do that like suleiman is going to defeat this like baby

00:25:18.460 so he didn't need new concubines but suleiman did so suleiman was described by a venetian ambassador

00:25:26.200 who saw him people saw him unlike harem um he was tall and slender but tough with a thin and bony

00:25:33.120 face facial hair is evident but only barely he appears friendly and in good humor rumor has it

00:25:38.800 this is all the venetian ambassador's notes this is not me rumor has it that suleiman is aptly named

00:25:43.800 enjoys reading is knowledgeable and shows good judgment and the reason he says he's aptly named

00:25:48.920 is that Suleyman is the Arabic version of the Hebrew name Solomon, and in Christian Jewish and

00:25:56.180 Muslim traditions, Solomon was a king famous for his wisdom. Suleyman also had, I have to say,

00:26:01.980 in the portrait you most often see of him, an extremely magnificent hat, which is very

00:26:09.580 impressive. So as I've either said or you've figured out by now, harem wound up in the harem.

00:26:15.840 She may have been identified as a potential concubine back when she was first in Kaffa and purchased by somebody for that task.

00:26:24.240 Or she might have been bought in Kaffa by somebody who like saw that but wanted to like resell her.

00:26:29.520 So they brought her to Istanbul to like resell her at whichever slave market she was displayed at. 0.97

00:26:36.440 Harem, like all the other captured people, would have been displayed nude alongside the other captives to be inspected for purchase. 1.00

00:26:42.960 and if she was being inspected as a potential concubine she probably would have had the like

00:26:47.200 very invasive virginity check of her hymen but at some point either in kafa or in istanbul or 0.99

00:26:53.620 both someone noticed her beauty or her intelligence or her charisma or something and she was purchased

00:26:59.800 to become a member of the imperial harem this was not like when melanzine was given as a gift to 1.00

00:27:06.920 cortez and was like baptized and immediately sent off to be a sex slave girls chosen for the imperial 0.77

00:27:12.500 harem were required to convert to islam and go through several years of apprenticeship and 0.88

00:27:17.000 training to be educated in the tenets of islam to learn spoken and written turkish and to learn 0.87

00:27:23.000 about the etiquette required to live in the palace so she was not brought directly to like the bed 0.60

00:27:28.540 of whoever she had been bought for she was put into kind of four years of sort of enslaved princess

00:27:35.540 diaries type lessons this was because unlike when melancine and the other women were sold

00:27:43.000 as sex slaves the girls chosen to be concubines were being chosen to become the mothers of 0.97

00:27:50.640 princes which was not just a job of like he here have sex with this person it was a job of like 0.99

00:27:55.900 and then raise this son advocate for him politically potentially become the mother of 0.99

00:28:00.120 the sultan like they before they were presented to become potential mothers of heirs they needed 1.00

00:28:07.920 to be like highly trained and then figured out who is the best of them as a new trainee haram

00:28:13.320 was brought to what was known as the old palace to live and learn the old palace which is later

00:28:20.460 called topkapi palace which you can visit now in istanbul and in one of the videos i watched on

00:28:27.140 that uh youtube account it's gargantuous it's like it's so huge so you really get a sense of

00:28:35.520 the scale of things when you watch a video of it so the old palace was where a lot of people lived

00:28:40.960 the sultan's mother uh the unmarried or widowed sisters of the sultan the concubines and the

00:28:46.940 children of the concubines the sultan salim the grim lived along with all of his male advisors

00:28:52.320 in a separate building called the new palace where he did like politics etc the old palace

00:28:57.460 also had administrative staff female servants who served the privileged women as well as eunuchs

00:29:02.960 who were enslaved men who had been castrated as boys to oversee things for the sultan and to 0.95

00:29:07.780 protect the women who lived there in royal palaces like this one the harem might consist of hundreds

00:29:13.160 or even thousands of people so it's a big group of people now the term harem has been used a whole

00:29:21.200 lot by people who don't know what it actually was and this is partly because the ottoman empire

00:29:26.180 which i respect kept their business to themselves and didn't explain how things work to outsiders

00:29:31.860 like even at the time people in the empire didn't know exactly what the deal was with the harem 0.56

00:29:36.800 because it was none of their business so western visitors started imagining that the harem was a

00:29:42.720 place of like non-stop orgies and sex stuff which truly says more about them than does about what

00:29:48.060 the harem was actually like the arabic roots of the word harem and its usage over time conveyed

00:29:54.120 two general and clearly related meanings a space that is forbidden or unlawful and a space that

00:29:59.920 has been declared sacred inviolable or taboo a harem was a zone in which certain individuals or

00:30:06.680 certain kinds of conduct were forbidden in other words a kind of sanctuary the women who lived in

00:30:12.300 the harem were provided with female servants ornate furniture luxurious baths expensive clothing rich

00:30:18.780 food and of course servants aka enslaved people normal activities for the royals included 1.00

00:30:26.400 supervising the housework looking after the royal children and embroidering although the royal women 0.84

00:30:32.120 could go visit some female relatives or go to Turkish baths like baths were a big deal and 1.00

00:30:37.480 still are um they rarely left the harem because why would they like everything they needed was

00:30:42.460 there if you look at videos or pictures of the old palace which is now a museum in istanbul

00:30:46.740 it's truly massive it's like if you imagine the biggest shopping mall you've ever you could ever

00:30:53.880 conceive of and then add like condos to that um and like in modern day terms like and like i don't

00:31:02.480 know a movie theater and a skating rink and a bowling alley it's like yeah why would they ever

00:31:06.600 leave like literally everything was there like there's a school there there's a mosque there like

00:31:10.120 it's huge so it's not like oh no these poor people sorry i'm talking about the royal women

00:31:16.400 it's not like oh no these poor royal women like trapped in this place and they can't leave it's 0.90

00:31:20.680 like um this is the best place in the city why would they go anywhere else the enslaved people 0.87

00:31:25.640 also couldn't leave but that was not their choice the most important person in the harem was 1.00

00:31:32.060 valide sultan the mother of the sultan this would be a former concubine who like harem she would 0.84

00:31:41.380 have started off as a concubine but then having been successful in the sense of like her son is

00:31:45.940 the one who became sultan the valide sultan was the role model of all the concubines everyone 0.99

00:31:51.680 wanted to be like her because she was the most powerful woman in the harem slash the most powerful 0.87

00:31:56.000 woman in the ottoman empire but she had started out just like them after her in importance next 1.00

00:32:00.800 was the oldest son of the sultan followed by the mothers of his younger children then women who

00:32:06.820 shared his bed but hadn't yet had children and then women who might share his bed in the future 0.97

00:32:11.340 at the bottom was harem's rank upon arrival the novices she underwent years of intense instruction

00:32:18.240 by palace staff and outside instructors and i think it was at this period where she started

00:32:22.940 to be called harem which is a persian name that means the joyful one so apparently that was her

00:32:29.940 most noticeable personality trait was just this she was like a smiley cheerful type person or

00:32:35.960 made herself appear like that among the things she would have learned over these years so she

00:32:39.840 learned how to hold herself how to dress this is sort of like i mean this is ottoman empire but 0.96

00:32:45.640 like every fancy palace would be the same there's similar stuff like with the machika people in

00:32:50.540 melinstein's story this is similar to like downton abbey honestly it's just like there's so many sort

00:32:55.900 of unspoken rules that you have to be taught for the first time where it's like this is you know

00:32:59.920 when there's 17 forks it's like if you use the wrong fork that's like a huge deal and your

00:33:04.700 reputation is ruined or whatever harem was taught when to lower her gaze when to bow whose hand to 0.99

00:33:10.700 kiss and touch to her forehead as a sign of respect she would learn who she could speak to

00:33:14.800 on what occasions using what words and when to remain silent so a former venetian captive 0.90

00:33:21.000 described this schooling as quote the most senior women who are accomplished teach the new and 0.98

00:33:27.240 unrefined to speak and read and also teach them to sew an embroider and to play the harp and to

00:33:32.060 sing they instruct them in all their ceremonies and customs to the degree that these girls have

00:33:36.220 the inclination to learn in this way the old palace was an institution of higher learning

00:33:40.740 for women who hadn't chosen to attend and who were unable to leave it was the one place in the empire

00:33:46.520 that offered a systematic education for large numbers of girls and women and it was international

00:33:51.440 in its makeup intentionally because the people there were had been taken from all different

00:33:55.640 places so there's people there from asia europe and africa a new resident like harem would likely

00:34:01.100 be able to find others who spoke her mother language and understood her cultural context

00:34:05.840 that quote said like to the degree that the girls have inclination to learn so it's like some people

00:34:11.480 just talk to this better than other people and i have to compare it to america's next top model 0.99

00:34:16.900 because as the training progressed those of lesser talent grace or good looks became domestic servants

00:34:22.240 they were just kind of like you're just never going to make it as a concubine so like let's

00:34:27.440 just get you scrubbing some floors sort of thing so there's less and less people kind of in the

00:34:32.080 running for the concubine job as the training went on like they just found who this was suited to and 1.00

00:34:37.020 who it's not her em clearly showed aptitude so she and other people like her would be assigned 0.94

00:34:42.740 to get sort of the next level of training which was they were assigned to dress to do the hair

00:34:48.440 and sometimes to entertain the royal mistresses by you know playing harp and dancing and this would 1.00

00:34:54.040 yeah so as she got closer to the job so she would get more advanced instruction in etiquette by 1.00

00:35:00.300 spending time more time with the actual royal women and in that sense the royal women the 0.86

00:35:06.380 sultan's mother sisters or whoever would get to know her and maybe they would sort of see her

00:35:13.180 potential so after she had been living in the harem for about three or four years

00:35:19.140 selim the grim died and 26 year old suleiman was called back to istanbul to become the new sultan

00:35:25.200 so he came along with his mother hafza who became the new valley day sultan so bear in mind for the

00:35:31.420 four years harem had been in training to become his concubine she had not yet met suleiman or his

00:35:37.780 mother or any of the women who already had his children because they were off living in a different

00:35:41.300 city so Suleyman had four children already three sons and one daughter and they were Mahmud age

00:35:48.520 eight Mustafa age five Murad who has a baby and then also a girl whose name and age we do not know

00:35:55.180 so these children would now join the harem at the old palace where their mothers would oversee their

00:36:00.180 training as they had done in the previous city where they were living in terms of Suleyman

00:36:04.480 fathering more children like he didn't just like be like hey guess what I'm here the harem like

00:36:09.580 let's go like he couldn't just stop by whenever it was all there's like rigid protocols so it

00:36:14.460 would all be carefully scheduled and arranged his mother or one of his sisters would organize a

00:36:19.100 reception like a formal reception like again Downton Abbey like everything had to be just so

00:36:25.520 the there would be entertainment at the reception this allowed him the opportunity to survey the

00:36:31.420 young trainees who served food or sang or played instruments or danced as entertainment and clearly

00:36:37.940 at one of these visits he laid eyes on harem for the first time she was now about 17 years old

00:36:43.520 probably so there's a tv show called magnificent century that was on a bit ago um it's a turkish

00:36:50.840 language tv show and i remember it was really big on tumblr at the same time that i was on tumblr a

00:36:56.020 lot when rain was on tv that's how i've heard of magnificent century i have not i've watched

00:37:00.960 clips of it i haven't had time to watch the show but it looks amazing the clips i've seen i'm just

00:37:05.260 like this is great and maybe people listening out there watch magnificent century and you kind of

00:37:10.260 know this story and you're kind of cheering on harem because you know in that show she's like

00:37:14.440 the best so the show is incredibly sexy schemey very soap opera-y everyone should watch it i

00:37:21.540 believe it's on youtube so in the show harem is this incredibly engaging scheming character

00:37:27.640 and on the show she kind of like schemes up a meet cute with suleiman and then later when there's 0.90

00:37:33.020 the entertainment she like does a sexy dance and like make sexy eyes at him which captures his

00:37:38.000 attention so on the show it's shown she intentionally makes herself stand out because 1.00

00:37:42.640 she knows like having sex with him and giving birth to his son is her ticket to more power in 0.99

00:37:47.980 this situation in real life this could have been what happened because the real life harem knew this 1.00

00:37:54.320 as well like all of them all of the trainees and concubines would know like their ticket to 0.97

00:37:59.780 getting more power in this world in which they are that they didn't choose to be in but like 0.93

00:38:06.520 to make the biggest power maybe you can make would be to have the son of the sultan harem knew that 1.00

00:38:12.220 did she capture his attention with a sexy dance i mean god i hope so but she might have also have 0.94

00:38:17.800 been presented to him by his mother or one of his sisters who would have spent time with her when

00:38:22.920 she was serving them and they might have thought like he oh i think he's gonna like her like she

00:38:27.820 seems really smart and interesting or maybe he just noticed her himself while she was doing

00:38:31.340 something else I'm guessing what really happened was somewhere in the middle of these things

00:38:36.560 like did she just kind of like sit around blandly doing nothing unlikely of what we know of her 1.00

00:38:42.660 character did she like intentionally make eye contact during a sexy dance like maybe or was 0.95

00:38:48.620 she just presented by a family member yeah so she would have known that having his son was kind of

00:38:56.100 like her best and only option to improve her situation. And after the chaotic series of events

00:39:02.000 that she had lived through by now, age 17, like she, I would imagine she wanted some sort of

00:39:08.060 security for herself, some sort of safety, because being a enslaved person with no children,

00:39:16.060 like she could be sold off, she could be whatever, like she, anyway, clearly she knew this is what

00:39:21.780 she should do. And within five months of Suleiman becoming sultan, Haram was pregnant, which 0.75

00:39:28.160 immediately improved her situation. So her salary was increased, she gained new prestige as the

00:39:33.420 mother of a potential new heir, and she would now be served upon as a lady. So no more was she 0.93

00:39:38.340 serving other people. If the child was a daughter, then the child would be raised as a princess and 0.55

00:39:44.280 Haram would be permitted to sleep with Suleiman again until they had a son. If her child was a 0.94

00:39:49.020 son the shezade then haram would spend the rest of her life training and maneuvering politically 0.97

00:39:54.520 for him but then not sleep with suleiman again and throughout all this though she was still

00:40:00.260 however like as much as it's like oh now she's getting more she's being served as a person it's

00:40:04.820 like she's still enslaved like she's not a free person the way that this works is she would remain

00:40:11.960 enslaved until the death of suleiman at which point she would automatically be freed so even

00:40:16.740 though she gets more prestige and more glamour and more privileges like bear in mind she's still

00:40:23.160 enslaved at this point like the issue of like the point of being enslaved is that she can't ever

00:40:30.740 leave but her son was a son shezade mehmed who was born while suleiman was off on a military

00:40:38.340 campaign and note we aren't getting into suleiman's actions expanding the ottoman empire but just note

00:40:44.320 that he did a lot of that and that meant he was out of town a lot and he became known as Suleyman

00:40:48.320 the Magnificent because he was very successful. He was away but even with him away when Mehmed was

00:40:54.940 born cannons were sounded to announce the royal birth because this was a big deal. Mehmed was not

00:41:00.180 Suleyman's first son but this was his first son born after he became sultan and the first son of

00:41:05.520 a sultan to be born in Istanbul in a decade. So already although he had other children Harem and

00:41:11.840 Mehmed were overshadowing the sons born to Suleiman's other baby mamas and when Suleiman 0.96

00:41:18.180 returned from this military campaign which was successful his campaigns were I think always

00:41:22.420 successful he was very skilled so he returned around the one year anniversary of him becoming

00:41:27.300 sultan and there's this new baby son it was like wow like look at the first 365 days like look at

00:41:32.440 how successful this guy is like what a good sultan we have got but then things got sad very quickly

00:41:38.760 Within a few months of his return, three of his other four children died from one of the epidemics that was going around at that time,

00:41:47.080 meaning he was left with just two surviving children, Haram's baby son Mehmed and a six-year-old born named Shehzadeh Mustafa,

00:41:55.180 whose mother was Mahidavran, who is a character on Magnificent Century.

00:42:00.220 So if you watch that show, then you know where this is headed.

00:42:02.580 but this new state of affairs meant harem was suddenly the third most important woman in the

00:42:08.560 ottoman empire after the mom and then mahidevran the mother of the older son but as suleiman had

00:42:15.420 gone from having four sons to just two everyone expected him to bring in new concubines to start 0.97

00:42:20.040 having more sons as backup heirs because he couldn't sleep with harem or mahidevran again

00:42:25.840 that was just that was the rules they both had sons but then suleiman summoned harem to his bed

00:42:32.440 again and everyone was like what is happening so why did he call her again back to his bed

00:42:40.160 i mean clearly he liked her and she was great and who can blame him but like why would he break 1.00

00:42:47.040 protocol in this way well so harem had been chosen to join the harem due to her potential like she

00:42:52.760 was spotted maybe just because of her looks or i don't know how much an enslaved person can show 1.00

00:42:58.340 off their personality when they're there. But when she got to the palace, her potential became

00:43:03.340 apparent. So she got the extra training to become a concubine because her intelligence and her 1.00

00:43:07.720 cleverness impressed her teachers, eventually potentially impressed the other relatives of

00:43:12.560 the sultan. So she's clearly charismatic, interesting, fun, and had this potential to

00:43:18.700 take on this political role of being the mother of a future heir. Apparently she's also really

00:43:23.480 into poetry which is one of Suleiman's great passions but he liked her doesn't explain why

00:43:29.680 he would break with a long-standing tradition to have another child with a woman who had already

00:43:33.200 given him a son everyone was literally like what is he doing this is not what you do and then

00:43:40.060 harem got pregnant again and suddenly everyone was like wait what is happening is that Suleiman

00:43:45.860 and harem are in a monogamous relationship and like no this is the first time a sultan of the

00:43:52.000 Ottoman Empire had ever been in a monogamous relationship. As his favorite, Harem acquired 0.96

00:43:57.620 the title hasaki, which comes from the Arabic word kasa, suffixed with a Persian gi, and it means to

00:44:06.340 attribute something exclusively to. So hasaki, therefore, is one who belongs exclusively to

00:44:12.480 the sultan. And this is like, before this, I think, Mahi Devran, at least on the TV show,

00:44:17.900 had had that title like it's just like whoever the salt the favorite of the sultan is gets that

00:44:22.060 title but she got that title because that's like the closest thing they could say to be like this

00:44:26.140 is the sultan's like one girlfriend so not sure if it was during this second pregnancy or another

00:44:31.480 one but so we get a lot of the gossip on the situation from venetian ambassadors and so a

00:44:37.080 venetian ambassador had a story to share that happened while haram was pregnant what happened

00:44:41.740 was that Hafsa, the Suleiman's mother, presented two Russian maidens as gifts to Suleiman.

00:44:49.820 Harem was apparently so upset about this that she flung herself to the ground weeping. Hafsa

00:44:55.220 and Suleiman both worked to soothe her. Hafsa apologized to Harem for offending her and sent

00:45:01.000 the maidens off to be servants elsewhere because Harem would have perished from sorrow if they had

00:45:06.140 remained again is this true or not who knows but it's notable the story was shared at all

00:45:12.360 it shows harem's passionate and maybe manipulative nature but also it shows that hafza agreed to do

00:45:18.980 what she wanted so kind of shows how much power harem might have had and also underlined the fact

00:45:23.360 that suleiman was not sleeping with anyone else even while harem was pregnant but not that he

00:45:28.920 would have had much opportunity to do that because he was out of town all the time um he was out of

00:45:34.520 for military campaigns for most of the second pregnancy and was not back again when she gave

00:45:39.540 birth this time to a daughter named mirama when he returned they conceived another child and the

00:45:45.220 sequence just kept happening so over the next three years they had three more sons selim abdullah

00:45:50.580 who died as a toddler and bayezid such that haram age like 23 was now the mother of four surviving

00:45:58.100 children three of them shezade the potential new sultan note birth control was a thing at this time

00:46:05.740 and place so these children were intentional and or planned in the old palace haram would have had

00:46:12.380 access to the best women's doctors in the empire as well as access to various birth control methods

00:46:17.040 and access to abortion so it's not just like oh no she's pregnant oh no what an accident 0.79

00:46:22.480 so the situation was like Suleiman and Haram were intentionally having more children which just led 0.68

00:46:29.460 to how confusing this was to everybody else like they were making this like nuclear family Suleiman

00:46:35.220 was not having children with anyone else it was just like like you can't like the level of confusion

00:46:40.960 of everyone around them was would have just been so monumental and not just the people not just

00:46:46.440 like in the Ottoman Empire palace but the people like in the Ottoman Empire the people like

00:46:50.140 ambassadors to other countries were also just like this isn't how we thought any of this worked

00:46:54.180 like even though they didn't know how the harem worked exactly they knew that the sultan didn't

00:46:57.740 have sons with more than one woman the everyday people of istanbul didn't know harem's name

00:47:02.560 or what she looked like but they knew that all these children had been born to the same woman

00:47:06.780 hasaki the favorite so guess what to the surprise of literally nobody listening to this podcast 0.99

00:47:12.900 right now rumors began to spread that harem had stop me if you've heard this before bewitched him 1.00

00:47:19.200 because she was a sexy witch um she was an evil sexy witch because why else would the sultan be 1.00

00:47:24.360 so infatuated with her as to thoroughly break with tradition she had to be a witch god forbid 0.81

00:47:30.760 sulaiman just decided this on his own so this school of thinking set aside the fact that sulaiman

00:47:35.520 had reasons for wanting to change things like the custom of succession to the throne like his father

00:47:40.520 selim had had a whirlwind of violence and his coming to the throne so sulaiman was like what

00:47:45.600 if we don't just let all the heirs battle it out but instead have like one stable family unit and

00:47:50.740 the eldest inherits like what would that be like so part of this whole thing is that haram was the

00:47:57.140 right woman in the right place at the right time like you could look at this story like she was

00:48:01.860 purely passive and just happened to catch his attention and it just so happened he was in the 0.96

00:48:06.740 mood to be monogamous and surprise coincidence she was also super smart and clever and wound up 0.93

00:48:11.660 being his perfect political partner that's a lot of coincidences and that also takes away from both

00:48:17.720 of their agency and intelligence though some historians do kind of think this was all just

00:48:23.140 a happy coincidence but I think this was Suleiman wanted a certain kind of partner he figured out

00:48:30.920 Harem was that kind of partner and then they began working together and that is kind of like

00:48:37.080 Occam's razor what makes the most sense to me so the concept that this is all just a coincidence

00:48:41.460 or that she was a sexy witch this also disregards the agency and intelligence of both harem and

00:48:46.920 suleiman bearing in mind like she she was enslaved so like within that what agency did she have she 0.94

00:48:53.520 had some control over some things in her orbit and one of them was knowing that having his child was

00:48:58.520 the one way she would be able to improve her situation after three years of training and 1.00

00:49:03.020 watching the powerful women around her she would know what sorts of women were being selected 1.00

00:49:06.640 to bear the sultan's children and it wasn't just about beauty these women were clever politically 0.98

00:49:12.380 astute because the whole point of them was to one day hopefully become the mother of the sultan 0.96

00:49:16.300 and suleiman's mother and sisters and the highest up female administrators knew

00:49:20.840 that these were the sorts of women that they should um introduce him to so these are sorts 0.98

00:49:26.840 of women they wanted him to have children with so in order for harem to become seemingly the

00:49:32.120 first woman he chose to sleep with after becoming a sultan means either she had a powerful advocate 0.97

00:49:38.420 within the harem like one of the sisters of the mother who saw her potential and introduced her 0.99

00:49:43.940 to suleiman because they knew that she had the goods and or harem herself knew she had to capture

00:49:50.100 his attention on her own and both of these situations depend a lot on harem's scheminess

00:49:54.700 either to gain his attention or to gain the attention in support of a powerful patron 0.99

00:50:01.680 so she was already displaying these qualities that were kind of what he was looking for in a partner

00:50:08.580 and then on Suleiman's part yes he had to pick the mother of his children from a pre-selected

00:50:13.120 pool of enslaved women who had already been vetted for their potential and he would also

00:50:16.880 trust his mother and sister and administrator's judgment for who they thought would be good

00:50:20.260 choices and or he would have had to know what qualities he specifically wanted and try and

00:50:25.800 find out who is like that because he clearly came into this job wanting to change and modernize a

00:50:31.340 bunch of things and potentially part of that was not just the idea to simplify succession but also

00:50:37.860 potentially part of that was he just wanted to have one monogamous partner so even if he wasn't

00:50:43.880 consciously looking for a woman like harem some part of him knew what sort of person he would need

00:50:48.140 by his side as he implemented these changes so him picking her and her making herself notable to be

00:50:53.720 picked speaks to both of them being very smart and all of this happening on purpose not just like

00:51:00.320 like what a coincidence i guess she's a sexy witch so yeah the other narrative is that like

00:51:07.020 she was pretty and caught his attention because she was pretty and then she was so sexy he decided

00:51:12.860 to change everything about being sultan while at the same time she just happened to be extremely

00:51:18.640 capable and taking on a larger political role happy coincidence like that doesn't that relies

00:51:24.620 too much on coincidence for it to make the most sense as what might have happened so there's also

00:51:29.900 counterpoint so there's the the one this is another story where i was reading it where what

00:51:35.300 the stuff i was reading was like yeah a lot of historians say this and a lot of historians say

00:51:38.200 that and i'm like okay i didn't i'm i didn't read those first so i didn't know historians said that

00:51:42.560 so there's a concept that she was just like a sexy witch and then there's the other narrative 0.99

00:51:47.760 that she was overly scheming like that she tricked him into falling for her she used her seductive 0.98

00:51:53.400 powers to make him do what she said um she used him like a puppet for her wild ambition

00:51:58.540 and again if you watch magnificent century there's a bit of that it seems like from me

00:52:04.500 having read a summary of magnificent century but that removes soleimon's agency and what we know

00:52:09.620 about his intelligence and wisdom that he would be so easily led to like change everything about

00:52:14.860 being sultan just because she's like pouts at him and like offers sex so anyway the truth is

00:52:23.400 somewhere in the middle of all of this but note that for haram to succeed to the level that she

00:52:31.140 did even at this point having two sons with a sultan means that she did really well in a very

00:52:36.600 in a situation where you had to be manipulative to get ahead and everything i just said is also

00:52:41.180 true of mahi davran don't forget about her the mother of sulaiman's only other surviving child

00:52:46.520 Mustafa so Mahi Devran had gained his attention before he was sultan and had had his child and so

00:52:54.160 she was she had been busy at this point for like six years to to her job which was to train Mustafa

00:53:01.840 to be the next sultan to like make political connections so that other people would support

00:53:06.880 him when he came of age and she clearly did a great job because by the time Mustafa was 12 years

00:53:11.520 old he was already very popular among the politically influential janissaries so the

00:53:16.820 janissaries were the enslaved army troops and this was another situation where i read this and i'm

00:53:22.800 like oh this is like in game of thrones and i had to be like no and game of thrones is like this

00:53:27.620 because you remember there's the part where the khaleesi frees that that like famous enslaved

00:53:34.100 group of soldiers who were also had all been castrated and that's where gray worm comes from

00:53:39.080 so they were like the best the janissaries were like super powerful and really good troops of

00:53:44.620 soldiers and they also had some political influence so this is a situation where there's not other

00:53:49.900 politically important noble families but in the absence of that it's just like someone has to

00:53:55.440 to take on this balance of power and that became the janissary so sort of like

00:53:59.600 the damras in the sort of runny data the janissaries were a very politically powerful

00:54:04.920 group who could be swayed to support one person over another their support was incredibly important

00:54:09.700 and they like potentially a lot of just kind of like the everyday people supported Mustafa

00:54:16.220 and his mother because they were doing what was expected they were playing the game by the rules

00:54:20.580 Mahitavran had done exactly what was traditionally expected of a concubine mother

00:54:24.980 she did not return to Suleiman's bed after she had his son she worked to make strong connections for

00:54:30.500 her son so others would support his claim to be sultan next and this is really when i read this

00:54:36.860 comparison i was like oh totally so at this same time this is like the 1520s over in england like

00:54:45.760 exactly when this is all happening a situation with many similarities was playing out so this

00:54:50.960 is where henry the eighth had separated from his first wife catherine of aragon a woman who was

00:54:56.020 popular with the people and who had always done everything right and played by the rules

00:55:00.700 he'd separated from her in favor of his mistress and boleyn with whom henry was set to change

00:55:07.120 long-standing traditions like of the religion everyone was really confused and in both

00:55:12.420 situations the general consensus both at the time and then for a lot of like i would say like 20th

00:55:17.680 century up to the 20th century historians the general consensus was not to blame the otherwise

00:55:23.180 popular monarch because they were men and they were powerful but rather to put the blame on the 0.60

00:55:28.060 other woman so this is anne boleyn's fault for being a sexy witch this is harem's fault for being 0.75

00:55:33.040 a sexy witch and it was actually even easier at the time to cast blame on harem because unlike 1.00

00:55:39.720 anne boleyn harem had no powerful family also lobbying for her or to back her up harem was

00:55:45.340 enslaved had no power at all other than what was conferred upon her by soleyman but he was powerful

00:55:50.260 and as long as she was hasaki his favorite she was going to be cared for so obviously there

00:55:56.520 were hard feelings between harem and mahi devran how could there not be as suleiman made it 0.58

00:56:03.440 officially with harem he started marrying off many of the other concubines and enslaved women

00:56:08.420 so just kind of like letting them know like you just don't have a chance here like you're never

00:56:13.320 gonna have his children like get out of here so sort of like now i'm thinking it's kind of like

00:56:18.780 in the bachelor where it's like when less and less women are there then the competition between 0.94

00:56:23.080 who's left becomes even more fierce so harem and mahi divan were kind of it re concubines like 0.98

00:56:30.020 there just weren't any other ones around which make their rivalry even more ferocious one would 0.85

00:56:34.820 assume given that they already had the sort of personality that would have gotten them the job

00:56:39.220 of sleeping with him in the first place so the whole thing with the secrecy and the privacy of

00:56:44.300 the harem means we don't know what their relationship was like at all but there were

00:56:47.800 clues just from what we know of what these women would have been like what they had to have been

00:56:51.840 like to have been chosen to have his children so Mahidevran like her whole point of her life at 0.91

00:56:58.200 this point was to advocate for her son to have him become the next sultan but Harem's status as the 0.95

00:57:03.660 favorite was a huge obstacle for her after all how could Mustafa compete with the children of a woman

00:57:09.300 who spent so much time with the sultan now no idea how this guy got this info but it's a great story 0.98

00:57:15.180 and from around this time the ambassador from venice messy bitch living for drama sharing all

00:57:20.660 the gossip reported that the following happened quote i'm just this this is his quote like when 0.75

00:57:26.860 he says russian again remember he means like person from kiev and ruse the sultan has a russian

00:57:32.500 so loved by his majesty that there has never been in the ottoman house a woman who has enjoyed

00:57:36.740 greater authority the way in which she entered into the favor of the sultan i understand to have

00:57:41.220 been the following mahi devran understood that harem had pleased the sultan wherefore she insulted

00:57:46.560 her with injurious words and words escalating to deeds scratched her all over her face and

00:57:51.640 must her clothing saying traitor sold meat you want to compete with me so if you were following 0.99

00:57:58.440 that or not he's just saying that mahi devran hearing that harem had had sex with suleiman 0.95

00:58:05.960 yelled at her called her sold meat was like you want to compete with me and then scratched her

00:58:10.960 the face and pulled out her hair does this sequence happen in magnificent century did i watch a clip of 0.98

00:58:16.640 it yes i did so the russian bastard continues a few days later the sultan had harem summoned for 0.91

00:58:23.720 his pleasure she did not let this opportunity pass and angrily told the eunuch who had come to fetch 1.00

00:58:28.520 her that she wasn't worthy to come into the presence of the sultan because being sold meat 1.00

00:58:33.540 and having her face completely spoiled and being almost bald she recognized that she would offend

00:58:38.020 the majesty of such a sultan by coming before him these words were related to the sultan and

00:58:43.240 induced in him an even greater desire to have her come to him and he commanded again that she come

00:58:47.400 he wanted to understand why she would not come and why she had sent him such a message

00:58:51.340 harem related what had happened with mahi devran accompanying her words with tears and showing the

00:58:56.140 sultan her face which still bore the scratches and how her hair had been pulled out the angry

00:59:01.340 sultan sent for mahi devran and asked her if what the other woman had said was true mahi devran

00:59:06.860 responded it was and that she had done no less to her than she deserved she believed that all the

00:59:11.500 women should yield to her and recognize her as mistress and she had been in service to his

00:59:15.020 majesty first so that's mehidevran believed all the women should yield to her mehidevran because

00:59:21.120 she had been in service to his majesty first these words inflamed the sultan even more for the reason

00:59:26.320 that he no longer wanted her and he gave all his love to harem so this extremely exciting sequence

00:59:33.720 of events was written in like three decades after it allegedly happened but this is one of the main

00:59:39.160 stories anyone has ever written about what harem was actually like and what the the mood was between 0.98

00:59:44.200 her and mahi davran and it has become a famous story and the way that harem allegedly acts here

00:59:50.520 which seems to be manipulating the sultan and the eunuch who came to fetch her for sympathy

00:59:56.360 makes sense because the training of royal mothers prepared them to be manipulative because they had 0.96

01:00:02.140 to be because their whole job advocating for their sons was to make these political connections 1.00

01:00:08.260 Mahitavran's insult calling her sold meat implies that harem had been bought directly from the slave

01:00:15.580 market whereas presumably Mahitavran had arrived in the palace in a more refined way like you know

01:00:21.420 being officially presented as a slave rather than being sold meat but the story also shows that how

01:00:28.640 much Suleyman cared for Harem like hearing that she'd been attacked he took her side immediately

01:00:33.900 so bear in mind Harem and Mahidevran would have lived together for like 13 years in the old palace

01:00:43.560 while Harem had child after child and Mahidevran still had just the one and why just for 13 years

01:00:49.280 because after 13 years Mustafa came of age and he was sent off to be governor of Manisa

01:00:54.640 with his mother accompanying him and this was again the traditional thing that was supposed

01:00:58.800 to happen the son would go off somewhere and the mother would accompany him so the reading of harem's 0.99

01:01:04.720 life that she was this non-stop evil schemer um some historians have claimed that she manipulated 0.99

01:01:09.920 suleiman into sending mahi devran away like banished her because she was her rival but in

01:01:15.840 fact this was literally this is just what happened mustafa came of age this is what happened the

01:01:20.540 mother would accompany the son but having her gone would have presumably allowed harem to relax a

01:01:27.020 little bit with one rival out of sight not having to see the woman who had like pulled out her hair

01:01:31.900 and scratched her face every day and that same year which is 1533 harem gave birth to her sixth

01:01:37.820 child a son named chihangir this was 10 years after her first child so maybe a surprise happy

01:01:44.600 accident later in life baby bearing in mind she's 33 that's not later in life or maybe she was like

01:01:50.180 let's have one more like i miss having a baby around chihangir was born with some sort of

01:01:54.920 disability potentially a hunchback which did not get in his way at all because they had the best

01:01:59.800 doctors on the scene and he was treated with the best medical care anyone could be in istanbul in

01:02:04.860 the 16th century and then one year after chihangir's birth suleiman's mother hafza validei

01:02:11.000 sultan passed away so just a bit about hafza she had been born probably in venice and then was

01:02:18.720 enslaved and captured she was and then her son became the new sultan and she was seen by everyone

01:02:25.940 as the ideal model of a royal concubine slash mother she had labored for the empire for nearly

01:02:30.800 40 years with dignity and determination and through her personality and intelligence which 0.53

01:02:35.860 again these are the sorts of people chosen to have the sons she raised the position um she

01:02:42.200 might have been the first person called valide sultan like she's the one who maybe made that

01:02:46.360 role be as influential and powerful as it was one of the roles she served during the 14 years 0.95

01:02:51.480 as valide sultan was she would um she was an important advisor to her son and she also acted

01:02:58.640 as her son's eyes and ears while he was away from istanbul but also let him know what was happening

01:03:04.240 within the harem so she was the one woman he knew he could always trust so he went to her for advice

01:03:10.000 and relied on her for letters and updates so hafza had developed networks of contacts and ways to

01:03:16.520 gather intelligence e.g spies so she had kind of this network already set up that she was using

01:03:24.980 and had used for 14 years to help support her son who was again killing it as sultan so she died

01:03:32.200 march 19th 1534 probably in her 60s or so and her death marked the final connection to the old regime

01:03:41.340 although i would say based on kind of what she the role that she herself developed like maybe

01:03:46.020 it was partially her influence that got sulaiman thinking like why don't i change modernize

01:03:50.380 something anyway after she died sulaiman worked to change things very quickly starting with

01:03:56.000 freeing harem from enslavement because he couldn't marry someone who was enslaved and then yes

01:04:02.520 marrying her and i'm just going to leave you in suspense for a week because this is a really long

01:04:10.000 story what happens after this wedding is literally another hour-long episode so stay tuned for that

01:04:18.500 um and in the meantime i would love to know what you think so far about the story of harem what

01:04:25.420 do you think of the chances of Suleiman getting the Lady Jane Seymour Memorial Award for Outstanding

01:04:29.640 Supporting Performance? Has he at this point earned it, do you think? Is he on the level

01:04:35.140 of Pedro, Tonga, Thomas Keyes, and Lady Jane Seymour? Let me know. So you can always send me

01:04:43.920 messages. My DMs are open on Instagram where I'm at vulgarhistorypod. That's where I'll also be

01:04:50.020 posting maps on maps on maps to explain. You know what? This is another good reason to have this be

01:04:55.060 split into because there's just like a lot of um place setting that i felt needed to be done to

01:05:02.080 really get into the story next week is just gonna be like harem non-stop excellence so anyway

01:05:07.760 instagram vulgar history pod we're also on twitter at vulgar history new thing since the last episode

01:05:15.460 is i have joined tiktok um i'm on tiktok at vulgar history i have not yet posted anything but like

01:05:22.840 i'm there squatting on that name and if you follow me then you'll be the first people to

01:05:29.240 realize when i get around to posting something i'm also on youtube again nothing posted there

01:05:33.840 yet but i have plans so both of those is just vulgar history both places and yeah so if you

01:05:41.880 go to the website vulgarhistory.com that's where you can get see all the research stuff show notes

01:05:48.560 links to all kinds of things there and there's also the contact button so you can send me

01:05:53.260 suggestions of people who you think would be good to discuss on this podcast um and also frankly if

01:06:00.420 you just want to give feedback on what we've talked about so far about with harem maybe we

01:06:04.000 can include some of that on the next episode and also so vulgarhistory.store is where you can get 1.00

01:06:11.900 your vulgar history season five merch you can use code tits out for free shipping in the u.s or tits

01:06:17.840 So 10 for 10% off.

01:06:20.180 Then also, I don't think I've mentioned this in a bit, but if you go to, so all the book

01:06:25.980 links, like from the show notes or from the website, they all go through a place called

01:06:31.320 bookshop.org, which is a place where you can buy your books if you want to support, not

01:06:38.580 Amazon.

01:06:39.200 So if you buy your books from bookshop.org, if you go to bookshop.org slash shop slash

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01:06:48.820 another way to support me and this podcast financially which you can also do through

01:06:54.920 patreon.com slash ann foster writer there's a really growing little community there i really

01:07:00.100 enjoy how when i post stuff there you know discussions get going in the comments it's fun

01:07:04.980 so that's where you can pledge so any dollar amount that you pledge means you get early

01:07:11.260 access to vulgar history episodes um and if you pledge five dollars or more per month then you

01:07:16.720 also get the special minisodes so this asshole hernan cortez for instance is recently there

01:07:22.060 and also the vulgar peace theater costume drama reviews i do with allison epstein atlanta with

01:07:27.100 johnson keep your eyes out for the next one of those coming soon and yeah i'll be back next week 0.98

01:07:33.400 with harem sultan part two and keep your mask on keep your tits out talk to you next time 0.99

01:07:44.000 Thank you. 1.00

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01:08:58.780 Download it now. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies

01:09:07.320 scattered like bones in the dust.

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01:09:14.180 praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

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Vulgar History - March 30, 2022

International, part 5： Hürrem Sultan： From Slavery To Queen (pt 1⧸2)

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