Roksolana

"Роксолана. Українка в Османській імперії."

Maryna Lukach

"Roxolana: A Ukrainian Woman in the Ottoman Empire." Textile Art by Maryna Lukach. When she was just fifteen, Crimean Tatars raided the small town of Rohatyn, where she lived with her family. The young woman was taken captive and, after changing hands several times, eventually ended up in the Turkish Sultan's harem. It was there that she acquired her new name—Hürrem. Hürrem Haseki Sultan (also known as Roxolana) was a concubine and later the wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent, as well as the mother of Sultan Selim II. She was one of the most influential women in the history of the Ottoman Empire. What did Roxolana do for Ukraine? Quite a lot. She did everything in her power to halt the incursions of Turkish and Tatar troops into our lands. There is reliable evidence that Suleiman restrained the Tatar horde from attacking territories subject to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which encompassed most of Ukraine at the time. Unlike her predecessors—or the mothers of *şehzades* (princes), who were permitted to commission buildings only within the provinces where they resided with their sons—Hürrem was granted the right to commission religious and charitable structures in Istanbul and other major cities of the Ottoman Empire.