The Polish Slave Girl Who Became the Empress of the Ottoman Empire
Haseki Hurrem Sultan
Sultan Suleiman, the Magnificent, happened to pass by the laundry in his Harem when he heard a charming, beautiful voice singing Ukrainian songs. He “stopped to talk with her in her outlandish speech” as his 1951 biographer Harold Lamb recounted.
The girl in the laundry was none other than the future Ottoman Empress Hurrem Sultan, at that time called Aleksandra Lisovska or Roxolana.
Roxolana was abducted by Crimean Tatar raiders who sold her to a slave market where she was bought by someone from Constantinople (now Istanbul), the Ottoman capital and was gifted to Suleiman. It is believed that she was 15 when she got kidnapped.
Women of the Ottoman Harem were skilful embroiders and so was Aleksandra. She was assigned to the royal laundry where she would chant in her lovely voice while embroidering beautiful patterns on a piece of cloth.
Another piece of cloth had a great significance in her life, it changed her life upside down. It was a handkerchief. It was a tradition of the harem that if the Sultan lays a handkerchief across a consort’s shoulder, she will be chosen by him.
Aleksandra made the best of her time. She pleased Suleiman so much with her cheery persona that he…
