Ottoman Women Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World) [Hardcover]

Lucienne Thys-Senocak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0754633101 | ISBN-13: 978-0754633105

Examined here is the historical figure and architectural patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan, the young mother of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, who for most of the latter half of the seventeenth century shaped the political and cultural agenda of the Ottoman court. Captured in Russia at the age of twelve, she first served the reigning sultan's mother in Istanbul. She gradually rose through the ranks of the Ottoman harem, bore a male child to Sultan Ibrahim, and came to power as a valide sultan, or queen mother, in 1648. It was through her generous patronage of architectural works-including a large mosque, a tomb, a market complex in the city of Istanbul and two fortresses at the entrance to the Dardanelles-that she legitimated her new political authority as a valide and then attempted to support that of her son. Central to this narrative is the question of how architecture was used by an imperial woman of the Ottoman court who, because of customary and religious restrictions, was unable to present her physical self before her subjects' gaze. In lieu of displaying an iconic image of herself, as Queen Elizabeth and Catherine de Medici were able to do, Turhan Sultan expressed her political authority and religious piety through the works of architecture she commissioned. Traditionally, historians have portrayed the role of seventeenth-century royal Ottoman women in the politics of the empire as negative and de-stabilizing. But, Thys-Senocak, through her examination of these architectural works as concrete expressions of legitimate power and piety, shows the traditional framework to be both sexist and based on an outdated paradigm of decline. Thys-Senocak's research on Hadice Turhan Sultan's two Ottoman fortresses of Seddulbahir and Kumkale improves in a significant way our understanding of early modern fortifications in the eastern Mediterranean region and will spark further research on many of the Ottoman fortifications built in the area. Plans and elevations of the fortresses are published and analyzed here for the first time. Based on archival research, including letters written by the queen mother, many which are published here for the first time, and archaeological fieldwork, her work is also informed by recent theoretical debates in the fields of art history, cultural history and gender studies.

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About the Author

Lucienne Thys-Senocak is Assistant Professor in the History Department at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey. She also teaches in the graduate program of Anatolian Civilizations and Cultural Heritage Management at the university and is currently directing the restoration project of Hadice Turhan Sultan's Ottoman fortress at Seddulbahir, located on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 326 pages
• Publisher: Ashgate Pub Co (January 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0754633101
• ISBN-13: 978-0754633105
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,965,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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