Female Sultanate: Power and Love

This edition contains letters from representatives of the “Women’s Sultanate” in the Ottoman Empire, which shed light on the style of conducting affairs and even their character, and are being printed in Ukrainian for the first time.

This concerns the love correspondence of Hürrem (Roksolana) with her husband, Sultan Suleiman, and diplomatic correspondence with the Hungarian Queen Isabella Jagiellon, the Polish King Sigismund II Augustus, and the Persian Princess Sultan. At the same time, there are messages from Roksolana’s successors — the valides Nurbanu and Safia, addressed to the Venetian Doge, the French Queen Catherine de Medici, and the English Queen Elizabeth I. The letters of the Ukrainian valide Kösem and the Ukrainian Hatice Turhan (Nadiya), which they wrote to the grand viziers and other dignitaries, are also translated.

The book extensively highlights facts from the biography of these women that were previously unknown in Ukraine, which stem not only from their personal correspondence, but also from archival documents from Turkey, Italy, France, England, and Poland, Ottoman chronicles, and discoveries by Turkish scientists. All this will allow the reader to assess the role and influence of women on state affairs and better understand the processes that took place at that time in the Ottoman Empire and the world during the 16th–17th centuries.