Born in the Black Sea city of Trabzon. He gained military experience first in the Ottoman army of his grandfather, and then in his father's. Having ascended the throne, Suleiman I immediately began to prepare for aggressive campaigns and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The luck of the Turkish ruler was expressed not only in his numerous military campaigns and won battles. He was served by the gifted Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, who took on his shoulders all the burdens and concerns of the government of the Ottoman Porte.

Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent declared his first war on Hungary. The pretext for starting it was that his messengers were allegedly badly treated in this country. In 1521, a huge Turkish army found itself on the banks of the Danube and captured the city of Belgrade there. The Ottomans have not yet moved beyond the Danube.

This was followed by the conquest of the island of Rhodes, inhabited by the Greeks and belonging to the Knights of St. John. Rhodes then served as the main obstacle to the establishment of Turkish domination in the Mediterranean.

The Turks had already tried to seize this island off the coast of Asia Minor in 1480, but then they had to leave the island after three months of the siege of the fortress city of Rhodes and its two assaults.

The second siege of the fortress of Rhodes began on July 28, 1522. Suleiman the Magnificent landed his best troops on the island, and the city was securely blocked from the sea with his fleet. The Knights of St. John, led by Villiers de Lisle Adam, stubbornly held out until December 21, repelling many Turkish assaults and being heavily bombarded. However, having exhausted all food supplies, the knights were forced to surrender. Their decision was also influenced by the great diplomatic skill of the Sultan himself, who agreed to give the Johnites the opportunity to leave the island.

Rhodes became part of the Ottoman state and now there was no one to dispute its maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean. According to some obviously inflated reports, the Turks lost over 60 thousand people during the siege of the Rhodes fortress. The siege of Rhodes is significant in that explosive bombs were used here for the first time in bombardments.

In 1526, the 80,000th (according to other sources - 100,000th) Turkish army with 300 guns again invaded Hungary. She was opposed by the 25-30 thousandth Hungarian army led by King Lajos II, who had only 80 guns. The Hungarian feudal lords could not muster large forces. A third of the royal army consisted of Czech, Italian, German and Polish mercenary knights with their detachments of squires and armed servants.

Before going to Hungary, Suleiman I the Magnificent prudently concluded an agreement with Poland on its neutrality in the coming war, so that the Polish troops could not come to the aid of Hungary.

On August 29 of the same 1526, south of the Hungarian city of Mohacs, a decisive battle took place between the two armies. The battle began with an attack by the heavy knightly cavalry of the Hungarians, which immediately came under the deadly fire of the Sultan's artillery. After that, the Turkish army attacked the Hungarian army with superior forces, which had taken up a fighting position near Mohacs. Going on the offensive, the Turks defeated the enemy army with a strong flank blow of their cavalry and captured its camp. This battle is notable for the extensive use of artillery throughout the battlefield.

The Hungarians and their allies, the mercenary European knights, heroically resisted, but in the end, the threefold numerical superiority of the Ottomans, who acted most successfully during the flank attacks, affected. The Hungarian army lost in the battle more than half of its composition - 16 thousand people, most of the military leaders and was defeated. 7 Catholic bishops, 28 Magyar magnates and over 500 nobles were killed. King Lajos II himself, fleeing, drowned in a swamp (according to other sources, he was killed).

The defeat in the Battle of Mohacs was a genuine national catastrophe for Hungary. After the victory in the battle, Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent, at the head of his huge army, moved to the Hungarian capital Buda, captured it and put his henchman, the Transylvanian prince Janos Zapolya, on the throne of this country. Hungary surrendered to the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. After that, the Turkish troops returned to Istanbul with victory.

After the Battle of Mohacs, Hungary lost its independence for almost 400 years. Part of its territory was captured by the Turkish conquerors, the other was annexed by the Austrians. Only a few Hungarian lands became part of the principality, which was still independent from the Ottoman Empire, formed in Transylvania, surrounded on three sides by the Carpathian Mountains.

Three years later, the warlike ruler of the Ottoman Turks began a big war against the Austrian Empire of the Habsburg dynasty. The reason for the new Austro-Turkish war was as follows. The Hungarian feudal lords, who advocated an alliance with Austria, turned to the Habsburgs for help and elected the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand I as the Hungarian king. After that, the Austrian troops entered Buda and expelled the Turkish protege from there.

By the beginning of a new war with Austria, the Ottoman Porte was a strong military power. It had a large army, consisting of regular troops (up to 50 thousand people, mostly Janissary infantry) and a feudal cavalry militia of up to 120 thousand people. Turkey by that time also had a strong navy, which consisted of up to 300 sailing and rowing ships.

Initially, the Turkish army made a campaign across Hungary itself, without encountering significant and organized resistance from local feudal lords, each of whom had military detachments. After that, the Ottomans occupied the Hungarian capital of Buda and restored the Transylvanian prince Janos Zapolya to the royal throne. Only after this did the Turkish army begin an invasion of Austria close to Buda.

Its rulers from the Habsburg dynasty did not dare to engage in a field battle with the Turks on the border along the banks of the Danube. In September 1529, an army of almost 120,000 led by Suleiman I the Magnificent laid siege to the Austrian capital of Vienna. It was defended by a 16,000-strong garrison under the command of the imperial commander Count de Salma, who decided to resist the huge Muslim army to the end.

Suleiman's army besieged Vienna from 27 September to 14 October. The Austrian garrison steadfastly withstood all the bombardments of Turkish heavy artillery and successfully repelled all enemy attacks. The Comte de Salma was an example for the besieged. The Austrians were helped by the fact that their capital had considerable stocks of food and ammunition. The general assault on a well-fortified city for the Turks ended in complete failure and cost them heavy losses.

After that, Sultan Suleiman I ordered his commanders to lift the siege from Vienna and withdraw the tired troops across the Danube. Although the Ottoman Porte did not achieve a complete victory in the war with Austria, the signed peace treaty confirmed its rights to Hungary. Now the borders of the Ottoman power in Europe have moved far beyond the Balkan territories.

In 1532, the Turkish army again invaded Austria. The Ottomans captured the city of Köseg from the battle. However, this Austro-Turkish war was short-lived. Under the terms of the peace treaty concluded in 1533, the Austrian Habsburgs received the territory of Western and Northwestern Hungary, but had to pay a considerable tribute to Suleiman I the Magnificent for this.

After successful wars on the European continent with the Hungarians and Austrians, Suleiman I the Magnificent undertook aggressive campaigns in the East. In 1534-1538, he successfully fought with the Shah's Persia and took away part of its large possessions. The Persian army was unable to offer staunch resistance to the Ottomans. Turkish troops captured such important centers of Persia as the cities of Tabriz and Baghdad.

During these war years, the Turkish Sultan won another brilliant victory, this time in the diplomatic field. He concluded with France in the person of Francis I an alliance against the Holy Roman Empire, that is, against Austria, which existed for several centuries. This Franco-Turkish alliance brought many military and foreign policy benefits to the Ottoman Porte in solving its European problems.

In 1540-1547, Suleiman I the Magnificent launched another war against the Austrian Empire, but this time in alliance with the French kingdom. Taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of Austria were pinned down by military operations in Northern Italy and on the eastern border of France, the Turks launched a successful offensive. They invaded Western Hungary and captured the city of Buda in 1541, and two years later the city of Esztergom.

In June 1547, the warring parties signed the Adrianople Peace Treaty, which reaffirmed the division of Hungary and the loss of its state independence. The western and northern parts of Hungary went to Austria, the central part became a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, and the rulers of Eastern Hungary - the widow and son of Prince Janos Zapolya - were vassals of the Ottoman sultan.

The war with Persia, now flaring up, then fading, continued until 1555. Only in that year, the warring parties signed a peace treaty that fully met the desires and requirements of Istanbul. Under this peace treaty, the Ottoman Empire received vast territories - Eastern and Western Armenia with the cities of Yerevan (Erivan) and Van on the shores of the lake of the same name, all of Georgia, the city of Erzurum and a number of other regions. The conquests of Suleiman I the Magnificent in the war with Persia were indeed enormous.

In 1551-1562 another Austro-Turkish war took place. Its duration indicated that part of the Turkish army went on a campaign against Persia. In 1552, the Turks took the city of Temesvar and the fortress of Veszprem. Then they laid siege to the fortified city of Eger, whose defenders put up truly heroic resistance to the Ottomans. The Turks, with their numerous artillery, failed to capture Eger during several assaults.

While fighting on land, the Sultan simultaneously waged constant wars of conquest in the Mediterranean. A numerous Turkish fleet under the command of Admiral of the Maghreb pirates Barbarossa operated quite successfully there. With its help, Turkey established full control over the Mediterranean Sea for 30 years, breaking the resistance of the naval forces of Venice and Genoa, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. Allied France, which also had a navy in the Mediterranean, did not get involved in these wars at sea.

In September 1538, the fleet of the pirate admiral Barbarossa won a complete victory at the Battle of Preveza over the combined fleets of Venice and the Austrian Empire. The crews of Barbarossa's ships, manned by Maghreb pirates, Greeks from the islands of the Aegean and Turks, fought furiously, wanting to capture rich war booty.

Then the victorious Turkish fleet, led by the successful naval commander Barbarossa and the leaders of the Maghreb pirates subordinate to him, made many predatory raids against the countries of Southern Europe, attacking the coast of North Africa. At the same time, thousands of slaves were captured and seagoing ships were destroyed. Sea campaigns of the Ottomans, more reminiscent of a pirate raids, continued in the Mediterranean Sea for about two decades.

In 1560, the Sultan's fleet won another great naval victory. Off the coast of North Africa, near the island of Djerba, the Turkish armada entered into battle with the combined squadrons of Malta, Venice, Genoa and Florence. As a result, European Christian sailors were defeated. The victory at Djerba brought the Turks a significant military advantage in the Mediterranean, where busy sea trade routes passed.

At the end of his warlike life, the 72-year-old Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent began a new war against the Austrian Empire. He personally led a 100,000-strong army on a campaign, gathered from all over the vast Ottoman possessions and well trained. It included Janissary infantry, numerous heavy and light cavalry. The pride of the Sultan's army was artillery with its heavy siege weapons, it's like being proud of the ford s-max now

The Austro-Turkish war of 1566-1568 was fought for the possession of the Principality of Transylvania (modern central and northwestern part of Romania), which had been under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan since 1541. Vienna disputed this right on the grounds that the population of Transylvania was predominantly Hungarian and entirely Christian. Turkey, however, saw in this vast principality an excellent springboard for all subsequent military incursions into Europe and, above all, into the neighboring Austrian Empire.

On August 3, 1566, the Turkish army besieged the small Hungarian fortress of Szigetvar. It was courageously defended by a small garrison of Hungarian soldiers under the command of Count Miklos Zrinya, who became one of the national heroes of Hungary. The Turks vigorously besieged the fortress of Szigetvar, which delayed their march to the Austrian borders, to the capital of the Habsburgs, Vienna. However, the besieged garrison and the armed townspeople held firm, fought off the attacks and did not want to surrender to the mercy of the winner. The Hungarians held out for more than a month.

The siege of the Hungarian fortress of Szigetvar became fatal and the last page not only in the military biography of Suleiman I the Magnificent, but also in his life full of military successes. On September 5, the famous Ottoman conqueror died unexpectedly in the camp of his army, without waiting for the capture of this small Hungarian fortress.

The day after the death of the adored Sultan, the Turkish army stormed the Szigetvar fortress with a furious and unceasing for an hour storm. Count Zrinyi and his last fearless Hungarian warriors perished in the fires. The city was sacked, and the inhabitants exterminated or taken into slavery.

The last war of the Ottoman conqueror ended in complete success for Turkey. The city of Gyula and the fortress of Szigetvar were taken. The Sultan's army had good prospects for continuing the campaign. Under the terms of the peace treaty concluded at the end of 1568, the Austrian emperors from the Habsburg dynasty were obliged to pay a large annual tribute to Istanbul. After that, the Turkish army left the possessions of the Austrian Empire.

Suleiman I the Magnificent, having received a well-organized and numerous army from his father Selim I, further strengthened the military power of the Ottoman Empire. To the army, he added a strong navy, which, thanks to the efforts of the former pirate admiral of the Maghreb Barbarossa, gained dominance in the Mediterranean. In more than forty years of his reign, the great Ottoman ruler conducted thirty military campaigns, most of which ended with impressive successes.

At home, Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent received the nickname "Legislator" for the skillful organization of the management of a huge power. His undoubted advantage was the ability to select government officials for key positions in the country. This largely ensured stability in the Ottoman Port. The militant sultan is known in history for the fact that he encouraged the arts and education. Suleiman I the Magnificent ruled with a really firm hand, being despotic, cruel with the recalcitrant (he sentenced even his two sons to execution).

Suleiman I the Magnificent was the most prominent of the numerous Turkish sultans. After him, the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the Balkans, North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, began to gradually decline, steadily decreasing in size.

Alexey Shishov. 100 great warlords

Information about the life of one of the most famous Ottoman sultans, Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566, born in 1494, died in 1566). Suleiman also became famous for his relationship with the Ukrainian (according to other sources, Polish or Ruthenian) slave Roksolana - Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska.

We will quote here a few pages from a very respected book, including in modern Turkey, by the English author Lord Kinross, The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire (published in 1977), as well as some excerpts from the Voice of Turkey radio broadcasts.

Subheadings and stipulated notes in the text, as well as notes to illustrations site

The old miniature depicts Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the last year of his life and reign. On ill. it is shown how Suleiman in 1556 receives the ruler of Transylvania, the Hungarian John II (Janos II) Zapolya.

Here is the background of this event.

John II Zapolya was the son of the voivode Zapolya, who, in the last period before the Ottoman invasion, ruled over the region of Transylvania, part of the Kingdom of Hungary, but with a large Romanian population.

After the conquest of Hungary by the young sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1526, Zapolya became a vassal of the sultan, and his region, the only one of the entire former Hungarian kingdom, retained statehood. (Another part of Hungary then became part of the Ottoman Empire as the Pashalyk of Buda, and another part went to the Habsburgs).

In 1529, during his unsuccessful campaign to conquer Vienna, Suleiman the Magnificent, visiting Buda, solemnly crowned the Hungarian kings in Zápolya.

After the death of Janos Zapolya and the end of his mother's regency period, Zapolya's son, John II Zapolya, shown here, became the ruler of Transylvania. Suleiman, even in the years of infancy of this ruler of Transylvania, in the course of a ceremony with kissing this child, who was left without a father early, blessed John II Zapolya to the throne. On ill. the moment is shown as John II (Janos II) Zapolya, who had already reached middle age by that time, kneels three times before the Sultan between the fatherly blessings of the Sultan.

Suleiman was then in Hungary, waging his last war against the Habsburgs. Returning from a campaign, near Belgrade, the Sultan soon died.

In 1570, John II Zápolya would hand over his nominal crown of kings of Hungary to the Habsburgs, remaining Prince of Transylvania (he would die in 1571). Transylvania would be autonomous for another 130 years. The weakening of the Turks in Central Europe will allow the Habsburgs to annex the Hungarian lands.

Unlike Hungary, Southeast Europe, conquered by the Ottoman Empire earlier, would remain under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for much longer - until the 19th century. Read more about the conquest of Hungary by Suleiman on pages 2,3,7,10 of this review.

On the illustration: a drawing from the engraving "Turkish Sultan's Bath".

This engraving illustrates Kinross' book, Russian edition. The engraving for the book was taken from an old edition of de Osson's "The General Picture of the Ottoman Empire" (Tableau Général de l'Empire Othoman). Here (on the left) we see the Ottoman sultan in the bath, in the middle of the harem.

De Osson (Ignatius Muradcan Tosunyan, born 1740-1807) was an Istanbul-born Christian Armenian who served as an interpreter for the Swedish mission at the Ottoman court. Then De Osson left Istanbul and went to France, where he published his mentioned work “The General Picture of the Ottoman Empire”.

Sultan Selim III liked his collection of engravings.

Lord Kinross writes:

Suleiman's ascent to the top of the Ottoman Sultanate in 1520 coincided with a turning point in the history of European civilization. The darkness of the late Middle Ages, with its dying feudal institutions, gave way to the golden light of the Renaissance.

In the West, it was to become an inseparable element of the Christian balance of power. In the Islamic East, great things were predicted to Suleiman. The tenth Turkish sultan, who ruled at the beginning of the 10th century AH, he was in the eyes of Muslims a living personification of the blessed number ten - the number of human fingers and toes; ten senses and ten parts of the Qur'an and its variants; ten commandments of the five books; ten disciples of the Prophet, ten heavens of Islamic paradise and ten spirits sitting on them and guarding them.

Eastern tradition claims that at the beginning of each age, a great man appears, destined to "take him by the horns", control him and become his incarnation. And such a person appeared in the guise of Suleiman - "the most perfect of the perfect", therefore, an angel of heaven.

Map showing the expansion of the Ottoman Empire (beginning in 1359, when the Ottomans already had a small state in Anatolia).

But the history of the Ottoman state began a little earlier.

From a small beylik (principality) under the rule of Ertogrul, and then Osman (ruled in 1281-1326, the dynasty and the state were named from him), under the vassalage of the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia.

The Ottomans came to Anatolia (present-day Western Turkey), fleeing from the Mongols.

Here they came under the scepter of the Seljuks, who were already weakened and paid tribute to the Mongols.

Then, in parts of Anatolia, Byzantium still continued to exist, but in a truncated form, which was able to survive, having won several battles with the Arabs before (the Arabs and Mongols later clashed with each other, leaving Byzantium alone).

Against the background of the defeat by the Mongols of the Arab Caliphate with its capital in Baghdad, and the weakening of the Seljuks, the Ottomans gradually began to build their own state.

Despite the unsuccessful war with Tamerlane (Timur), representing the Central Asian ulus of the Mongol dynasty of Genghisides, the Ottoman statehood in Anatolia survived.

The Ottomans then subjugated all the other Turkic beyliks of Anatolia, and with the capture of Constantinople in 1453 (although the Ottomans initially maintained friendly relations with the Greek nation of the Byzantines), marked the beginning of a cardinal growth of the empire.

The map also shows the conquests from 1520 to 1566 in a special color, i.e. during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, which is discussed in this review.

From the fall of Constantinople and the subsequent conquests of Mehmed, the Western powers were forced to draw serious conclusions from the advance of the Ottoman Turks.

Seeing it as a constant source of concern, they prepared to counter this advance not only in the sense of defense by military means, but also by diplomatic action.

During this period of religious ferment there were people who believed that a Turkish invasion would be God's punishment for the sins of Europe; there were places where "Turkish bells" called believers every day to repentance and prayer.

The legends of the crusaders said that the conquering Turks would advance so far as to reach the holy city of Cologne, but that here their invasion would be repulsed by a great victory of the Christian emperor - not the pope - and their forces driven back beyond Jerusalem ...

Here is what the Venetian envoy Bartolomeo Contarini wrote about Suleiman a few weeks after Suleiman's ascension to the throne:

"He's twenty-five years old, O tall, strong, with a pleasant expression. His neck is slightly longer than usual, his face is thin, his nose is aquiline. He has a mustache and a small beard; nevertheless, the facial expression is pleasing, although the skin tends to be excessively pale. They say about him that he is a wise ruler who loves to learn, and all people hope for his good reign.

Educated at the palace school in Istanbul, he spent most of his youth in books and activities that contributed to the development of his spiritual world, and began to be perceived by the inhabitants of Istanbul and Edirne (Adrianople) with respect and love.

Suleiman also received a good training in administrative matters as a junior governor of three different provinces. He thus had to grow into a statesman who combined experience and knowledge, a man of action. At the same time, he remains a cultured and tactful person, worthy of the Renaissance, in which he was born.

“The first Ottoman rulers - Osman, Orkhan, Murat, were as skillful politicians and administrators as they were successful and talented commanders and strategists. Besides, they were driven by a hot impulse, characteristic of the Muslim leaders of that time.

At the same time, the Ottoman state in the first period of its existence was not destabilized, unlike other Seljuk principalities and Byzantium, by the struggle for power and ensured internal political unity.

Among the factors that contributed to the success of the Ottoman cause, one can also point out that even opponents saw in the Ottomans Islamic warriors, not burdened with purely clerical or fundamentalist views, which distinguished the Ottomans from the Arabs, which Christians had to deal with before. The Ottomans did not convert Christians subject to them by force to the true faith, they allowed their non-Muslim subjects to profess their religions and cultivate their traditions.

It should be said (and this is a historical fact) that the Thracian peasants, languishing from the unbearable burden of Byzantine taxes, perceived the Ottomans as their liberators.

Ottomans, uniting on a rational basis purely Turkic traditions of nomadism with Western standards of administration created a pragmatic model of public administration.

Byzantium was able to exist due to the fact that at one time it filled the vacuum that had formed in the region with the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Seljuks were able to establish their Turkish-Islamic state by taking advantage of the vacuum created by the weakening of the Arab Caliphate.

Well, the Ottomans strengthened their state, skillfully taking advantage of the fact that both to the east and west of their area of ​​​​residence a political vacuum was formed, associated with the weakening of the Byzantines, Seljuks, Mongols, and Arabs. And the territory that was included in this very vacuum was very, very significant, including all the Balkans, the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa.

Finally, Suleiman was a man of sincere religious convictions, which developed in him a spirit of kindness and tolerance, without any trace of paternal fanaticism.

Most of all, he was highly inspired by the idea of ​​his own duty as the "Leader of the Faithful".

Following the traditions of the ghazis of his ancestors, he was a holy warrior, obliged from the very beginning of his reign to prove his military might compared to that of the Christians. He sought to achieve in the West with the help of imperial conquests the same thing that his father, Selim, managed to achieve in the East.

In achieving the first goal, he could take advantage of the current weakness of Hungary as a link in the chain of defensive positions of the Habsburgs.

In a swift and decisive campaign, he surrounded Belgrade, then bombarded it with heavy artillery from an island on the Danube.

“The enemy,” he noted in his diary, “renounced the defense of the city and set fire to it; they retreated into the citation.”

Here, the explosions of mines, brought under the walls, predetermined the surrender of the garrison, which received no help from the Hungarian government. Leaving Belgrade with a Janissary garrison, Suleiman returned to a triumphant meeting in Istanbul, confident that the Hungarian plains and the upper Danube basin now lay defenseless against Turkish troops.

Nevertheless, another four years passed before the Sultan was able to resume his invasion.

Suleiman and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska.

Suleiman and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska. From a painting by German artist Anton Hickel. This picture was painted in 1780, more than two hundred years after the death of Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska and Suleiman, and is only a variation on the actual appearance of the characters depicted.

Note that the Ottoman harem was closed to artists who lived during the time of Suleiman, and there are only some lifetime engravings depicting Suleiman and variations on the theme of the appearance of Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska.

His attention at this time was switched from Central Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean..

Here, on the way of communication by sea between Istanbul and the new Turkish territories of Egypt and Syria, lay the reliably fortified outpost of Christianity, the island of Rhodes. His Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, skilled and formidable sailors and warriors, notorious to the Turks as "professional thugs and pirates," now constantly threatened the Turks' trade with Alexandria; intercepted Turkish cargo ships carrying timber and other goods to Egypt, and pilgrims on their way to Mecca via Suez; hindered the operations of the Sultan's own corsairs; supported the uprising against the Turkish authorities in Syria.

Suleiman the Magnificent captures the island of Rhodes

Thus, Suleiman, by all means, decided to capture Rhodes. To this end, he sent south an armada of almost four hundred ships, while he himself led an army of one hundred thousand men overland through Asia Minor to a place on the coast opposite the island.

The knights had a new Grand Master, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, a man of action, resolute and courageous, wholly devoted in a militant spirit to the cause of the Christian faith. To the ultimatum from the Sultan, which preceded the attack and included the usual offer of peace prescribed by the Qur'anic tradition, the Grand Master responded only by speeding up the implementation of his plans for the defense of the fortress, the walls of which were additionally strengthened after the previous siege by Mehmed the Conqueror ...

“After the presentation to the Sultan of the concubines who gave birth to him, the concubines were called “ikbal” or “haseki” (“beloved concubine”). The concubine who received this title kissed the floor of the Sultan's caftan, while the Sultan granted her a cloak with sable and a separate room in the palace. This meant that from now on she would be subordinate to the Sultan.

The highest title that a concubine could be awarded was "the mother of the Sultan" (valide sultan). The concubine could receive this title in the event of her son's accession to the throne. In the harem, after the sultan's hall, the largest area was given to the mother of the sultan. There were many concubines under her command. In addition to managing the harem, she also interfered in state affairs. If someone else became the sultan, she was sent to the Old Palace, where she led a quiet life.

During the period of transition from the beyliks (Turkic principalities on the territory of Anatolia. Approx. site) to the empire, little is known about the women of the rulers, with the exception of Orkhan Bey's wife, Nilufer Khatun.

But during the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, in the era of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan (Queen) is known for her vibrant and eventful life.

It is known that the love of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska lasted for 40 years. Also Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan is considered the creator of the harem in the Topkapi Palace. Her role in the struggle for the enthronement of her sons, her letters, the charitable organizations founded by her are known. One of the districts of Istanbul, Haseki, is named after her. She became a source of inspiration for writers and artists. Thus, it is safe to say that Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan tops the list of women of the Ottoman dynasty.

This list can be continued by the wife of the son of Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska, Sultan Selim II - Nurbanu and the subsequent favorite concubines of the Ottoman sultans - Safiye, Mahpeyker, Hatice Turhan, Emetullah Gulnush, Saliha, Mihrishah, Bezmialem, who received the title of mother of the Sultan (Queen Mother).

Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan began to be called the Queen Mother during the life of her husband. In the West and East, she is known as "Queen Suleiman the Magnificent." The love of a married couple - Suleiman the Magnificent and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska - has not cooled over the years, despite many problems and ups and downs. It is noteworthy that after the death of Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Suleiman did not take a new wife and spent the last years of his life as the dowager sultan...

Entered the harem of the Ottoman palace in 1520 Roksolana, Ukrainian or Polish by origin, thanks to the sparkle in her eyes and the smile that constantly played on her sweet face, received the name "Hürrem" (which means "cheerful and happy").

All that is known about her past is that she was taken prisoner by the Crimean Tatars on the coast of the Dniester.

As for her residence in the harem as the beloved wife of the Sultan, there is a lot of information and documents on this subject. In 1521-1525, with a break of a year, Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska gave birth to Mehmed, (daughter) Mihrimah, Abdullah, Selim, Bayazid, and in 1531 - Jangir, confirming her feelings with these fruits of love (In a number of other lists, Abdullah does not appear among the children of Roxalana. Note . website).

Mahidevran and (she) Gyulbahar-Hyurrem skillfully managed to deprive the Sultan of love of her rivals in the harem, while, according to the testimony of the Venetian ambassador Pietro Brangadino, it often came to assault. But Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska did not stop there.

The only beloved of the Sultan, the mother of the five crown princes, did not want to remain in the rank of a concubine, as the religious rules and customs of the harem prescribed, Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska was able to gain freedom and become the wife of the ruler in the full sense of the word. In 1530, the wedding took place and the religious marriage of Suleiman the Magnificent and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska was concluded., who was thus officially proclaimed queen ("sultan").

The Austrian ambassador Busbek, the author of the Turkish Letters and one of those who introduced Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan to Europe, wrote the following in this regard: “The Sultan loved Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska so much that, in violation of all palace and dynastic rules, he married according to Turkish tradition and prepared a dowry.

Hans Dernshvam, who arrived in Istanbul in 1555, wrote the following in his travel notes: “Suleiman, more than other concubines, fell in love with this girl with Russian roots, from an unknown family. Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska was able to obtain a document of freedom and become his legal wife in the palace. In addition to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, there is no padishah in history who would listen to the opinion of his wife so much. Whatever she wished, he immediately fulfilled.

In order to be closer to Suleiman, Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska moved the harem from the Old Palace to Topkapi. Some believed that Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska bewitched the Sultan. But whatever it really was, Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska, thanks to her intelligence, ambition and love, was able to achieve her goal.

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska expressed their feelings in poetry and letters.

To please his beloved wife, Suleiman read poetry to her, and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska wrote to him: “My state, my Sultan. Many months have passed without any news from my Sultan. Not seeing my beloved face, I cry all night long until morning and from morning to night, I have lost hope for life, the world has narrowed in my eyes, and I don’t know what to do. I cry, and my eyes are always turned to the door, waiting. With these words, she expresses her condition in anticipation of Suleiman the Magnificent.

And in another letter Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska writes: “Bending down to the ground, I want to kiss your feet, my State, my sun, my Sultan, the guarantee of my happiness! My condition is worse than that of Majnun (I'm going crazy with love) ”(Majnun is an Arabic lyrical literary hero. Note ..

The ambassadors who came to Istanbul brought Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska, called the queen, valuable gifts. She corresponded with the queens and the sister of the Persian Shah. And for the Persian prince Elkas Mirza, who was hiding in the Ottoman Empire, she sewed a silk shirt and vest with her own hands, thereby demonstrating to him maternal love.

Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan wore unusual capes, jewelry and loose-fitting clothes, becoming the trendsetter of palace fashion and directing the activities of tailors.

In a painting by Jacopo Tintoretto, she is shown wearing a long-sleeved dress with a turn-down collar and cape. Melchior Loris depicted her with a rose in her hand, with a cape on her head, adorned with precious stones, with pear-shaped earrings, with her hair in a braid, a little plump...

In the portrait in Topkapı Palace, we see her long face, large black eyes, small mouth, cape decorated with pearls and precious stones, crescent-shaped earrings in her ears - the picture reflects Hürrem's personality, her beauty and scrupulousness in choosing clothes... Cape with with precious stones, crescent-shaped earrings and a rose in her hands are symbols of the queen.

Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska played an important role in the removal of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha and the son of Mahidevran, the senior Crown Prince Mustafa, as well as in the elevation of her daughter Mihrimah's husband, Rustem Pasha, to the position of Grand Vizier.

Her efforts to enthrone her son Bayezid are known.

Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska was very worried about the death of her two sons, Mehmed and Cangir, at a young age.

She spent the last years of her life in illness. (She died in 1558. Approx. site).

At her own expense, Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska built a complex in Aksaray in Istanbul, a bathhouse in Hagia Sofya, water pipes in Edirne and Istanbul, a caravanserai of Jisri Mustafa Pasha in Bulgaria, founded foundations for the poor in Mecca and Medina ... Her life deserves close study. .. Some historians claim that the "Women's Sultanate" was founded in the Ottoman Empire by Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska ... ", the station notes.

The Turks, when their fleet was assembled, landed engineers on the island, who scouted out suitable places for their batteries for a month. At the end of July 1522, reinforcements from the main forces of the Sultan approached ....

(Bombardment) was only a prelude to the main mining operation of the fortress.

It involved the digging of invisible tunnels in the stony ground by sappers, through which batteries of mines could be moved closer to the walls and then placed mines at selected points inside and under the walls.

It was an underground approach rarely used in siege warfare until this time.

The most thankless and dangerous work of digging fell on that part of the Sultan's troops, which was called up for military service mainly from the Christian origin of the peasants of such provinces subject to him as Bosnia, Bulgaria and Wallachia.

Only at the beginning of September it became possible to move the necessary forces close to the walls in order to start digging.

Soon most of the ramparts were riddled with almost fifty tunnels going in different directions. However, the knights enlisted the assistance of an Italian but mine specialist from the Venetian service named Martinegro, who also led the mines.

Martinegro soon created his own subterranean labyrinth of tunnels, criss-crossing and opposing the Turkish at various points, often at little more than the thickness of a plank.

He had his own network of listening posts, equipped with mine detectors of his own invention - parchment tubes, which signaled with their reflected sounds about any blow to the enemy pickaxe, and a team of Rhodians whom he trained to use them. Martinegro also installed countermines and "ventilated" the discovered mines by drilling spiral vents to dampen the force of their explosion.

The series of attacks, costly to the Turks, reached its climax at dawn on September 24, during the decisive general assault, announced the day before by the explosions of several newly laid mines.

At the head of the assault, undertaken against four separate bastions, under the cover of a curtain of black smoke, artillery bombardment, the Janissaries marched, hoisting their banners in several places.

But after six hours of fighting as fanatical as any in the history of Christian and Muslim warfare, the attackers were driven back with thousands of casualties.

In the next two months, the Sultan no longer risked new general attacks, but limited himself to mining operations, which penetrated deeper and deeper under the city and were accompanied by unsuccessful local assaults. The morale of the Turkish troops was low; besides, winter was approaching.

But the knights were also discouraged. Their losses, although only a tenth of those of the Turks, were heavy enough in relation to their numbers. Supplies and food supplies were dwindling.

Moreover, among the defenders of the city there were those who would prefer to surrender. It has been fairly argued that Rhodes was lucky that he could exist so long after the fall of Constantinople; that the Christian powers of Europe will now never again resolve their conflicting interests; that the Ottoman Empire, after its conquest of Egypt, has now become the only sovereign Islamic power in the Eastern Mediterranean.

After the resumption of the general assault, which failed, on December 10, the Sultan hoisted a white flag on the tower of the church, located outside the city walls, as an invitation to discuss the terms of surrender on honorable terms.

But the Grand Master convened a council: the knights, in turn, threw out the white flag, and a three-day truce was declared.

Suleiman's proposals, which were now able to be conveyed to them, included permission for the knights and inhabitants of the fortress to leave it, along with the property that they could carry.

Those who chose to stay were guaranteed the preservation of their homes and property without any encroachment, complete religious freedom and tax exemption for five years.

After a heated debate, the majority of the council agreed that "it would be a more acceptable thing for God to ask for peace and spare the lives of the common people, women and children."

So, on Christmas Day, after a siege that lasted 145 days, the surrender of Rhodes was signed, the Sultan confirmed his promise and, moreover, offered ships for the departure of the inhabitants. An exchange of hostages was made, and a small detachment of highly disciplined Janissaries was sent to the city. The Sultan scrupulously complied with the conditions he had put forward, which were violated only once - and he did not know about it - by a small detachment of troops who went out of obedience, rushed through the streets and committed a series of atrocities, before they were again called to order.

After the ceremonial entry of Turkish troops into the city, the Grand Master performed the formalities of surrender to the Sultan, who paid him the appropriate honors.

On January 1, 1523, De l'Isle-Adam left Rhodes forever, leaving the city together with the surviving knights, carrying waving banners in their hands, and fellow travelers. Shipwrecked in a hurricane near Crete, they lost much of their remaining property, but were able to continue their journey as far as Sicily and Rome.

For five years, the detachment of knights had no shelter. Finally they were given shelter in Malta, where they again had to fight the Turks. Their departure from Rhodes was a blow to the Christian world, nothing now posed a serious threat to the Turkish naval forces in the Aegean and in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Having established the superiority of his weapons in two successful campaigns, the young Suleiman chose to do nothing. During the three summer seasons, before embarking on the third campaign, he busied himself with improvements in the internal organization of his government. For the first time after entering power, he visited Edirne (Adrianople), where he indulged in hunting fun. Then he sent troops to Egypt to suppress the uprising of the Turkish governor Ahmed Pasha, who had renounced his allegiance to the Sultan. He appointed his grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, to command the suppression of the uprising to restore order in Cairo and reorganize the provincial administration.

Ibrahim Pasha and Suleiman: The Beginning

But on his return from Edirne to Istanbul, the Sultan encountered a revolt of the Janissaries. These militant, privileged foot soldiers (recruited from Christian children 12-16 years old in Turkish, mainly European, provinces. Converted to Islam at a young age, given first to Turkish families, and then to the army, losing touch with their The first family (approx. site) counted on annual campaigns to not only satisfy their thirst for battle, but also to secure additional income from robberies. So they resented the Sultan's prolonged inactivity.

The Janissaries became perceptibly stronger and more aware of their power, since they now made up a quarter of the Sultan's standing army. In wartime, they were generally devoted and loyal servants of their master, although they might not obey his orders forbidding the sack of captured cities, and on occasion limited his conquests, protesting against the continuation of overly strenuous campaigns. But in peacetime, languishing from inactivity, no longer living in an atmosphere of strict discipline, but being in relative idleness, the Janissaries more and more acquired the property of a threatening and insatiable mass - especially during the interval between the death of one sultan and the accession to the throne of another.

Now, in the spring of 1525, they started a rebellion, looting the customs, the Jewish quarter, and the houses of high officials and other people. A group of Janissaries forcibly made their way to the anteroom of the Sultan, who is said to have killed three of them with his own hand, but was forced to withdraw when the others began to threaten his life with their bows pointed at him.

Tomb of Suleiman (large photo).

Tomb of Suleiman (large photo). The tomb is located in the courtyard of the Suleimaniya mosque in Istanbul, built by the famous architect Sinan at the direction of Suleiman in 1550-1557 (By the way, the tomb of Sinan is also located next to this mosque).

Near the tomb of Suleiman there is a very similar tomb of Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska (the tomb of Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska is not shown in the photo).

Insets: from top to bottom - the turbe of Suleiman in his tomb and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska - in hers. So, tombstones in Turkish are called "turbe".

Next to the turbe of Suleiman is the turbe of his daughter Mihrimah. Turbe of Suleiman is crowned with a turban-turban (white) as a sign of his sultan status. The inscription on the turbe reads: Kanuni Sultan Süleyman - 10 Osmanlı padişahı, i.e. in the translation Sultan Suleiman the Legislator - 10 Ottoman Padishah.

The turbe of Roxalana-Hyurrem is also crowned with a turban-turban as a sign of the Sultan's status of Hurrem (As already noted, Suleiman officially took this concubine as his wife, which was unprecedented for the Ottoman sultans. Thus, Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska became a sultana). The inscription on the turba of Roxalana reads: Hürrem Sultan.

The mutiny was crushed by the execution of their agha (commander) and several officers suspected of complicity, while other officers were dismissed from their posts. The soldiers were reassured by cash offerings, but also by the prospect of a campaign the following year. Ibrahim Pasha was recalled from Egypt and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Empire, acting as second only to the Sultan...

Ibrahim Pasha is one of the most brilliant and powerful figures of Suleiman's reign. He was a Christian Greek by birth, the son of a sailor from Parga, in the Ionian Sea. He was born in the same year - and even, as he claimed, in the same week - as Suleiman himself. Captured as a child by Turkish corsairs, Ibrahim was sold as a slave to a widow and Magnesia (near Izmir, in Turkey. Also known as Manissa. Approx. site), who gave him a good education and taught him how to play a musical instrument.

Some time later, at the time of his youth, Ibrahim met Suleiman, at that time the heir to the throne and governor of Magnesia, who was fascinated by him and his talents, and made him his property. Suleiman made Ibrahim one of his personal pages, then an attorney and the closest favorite.

After the accession of Suleiman to the throne, the young man was appointed to the post of senior falconer, then successively held a number of posts in the imperial chambers.

Ibrahim managed to establish unusually friendly relations with his master, spending the night in Suleiman's apartment, having dinner with him at the same table, sharing leisure time with him, exchanging notes with him through dumb servants. Suleiman, reserved by nature, silent and prone to manifestations of melancholy, needed precisely such confidential communication.

Under his patronage, Ibrahim was married with marked pomp and splendor to a girl who was considered one of the Sultan's sisters.

His rise to power was in fact so swift that it caused some anxiety in Ibrahim himself.

Well aware of the vagaries of the ups and downs of the Ottoman court, Ibrahim once went so far as to beg Suleiman not to put him in too high a position, as a fall would be ruin for him.

In response, Suleiman is said to have praised his favorite for his modesty and vowed that Ibrahim would not be put to death while he reigned, no matter what charges might be brought against him.

But, as the historian of the next century will note in the light of further events: "The position of kings, who are human and subject to change, and the position of favorites, who are proud and ungrateful, will cause Suleiman not to fulfill his promise, and Ibrahim will lose his faith and loyalty" (About the final see the fate of Ibrahim Pasha later in this review, in the section "Execution of Ibrahim Pasha". Note site).

See next page for continuation. page .

When Sultan Suleiman I ascended the throne of the Ottoman Empire in 1520 at the age of about 25, outside observers were convinced "that he would only be able to resist vices and a disorderly lifestyle for a short time." He was, in their opinion, "not inclined to wars, preferring to live in seraglios." However, they were wrong. When Suleiman died 46 years later at the gates of a Hungarian fortress, he managed to take part in 13 large military campaigns on three continents, as well as in countless smaller expeditions. In total, he spent ten years in field camps, raising the Ottoman Empire to the pinnacle of power. By the time of his death, it stretched from Algiers to the border with Iran and from Egypt almost to the gates of Vienna.

High-ranking representatives of the empire revered him as the vicegerent of God on Earth, one Venetian diplomat argued, citing a very accurate comparison: his authority was so great that high-ranking subordinates agreed that the "last slave" on the orders of Suleiman "captured and executed the most important dignitary of the empire. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Suleiman I was his role model, especially since the Ottoman sultan, who bore the nickname "Magnificent", personifies the power and might of Islam even more than a critic of religion and the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Kemal Atatürk.

The mere departure of Suleiman from life gave many reasons for absolutely fantastic conjectures. The Sultan was 71 years old, and he led a campaign against Hungary. His army laid siege to the fortress of Szegetvar. Although he suffered from gout and could not ride a horse, he was convinced that he must die only in the course of a military campaign. And he achieved his goal.

Most likely, Suleiman died in the early morning of September 6, 1566, when his army was preparing for the decisive assault on the fortress, from dysentery. To prevent an uprising of disillusioned warriors, the doctors who treated the Sultan were killed so that information about his death would not be disclosed. The messengers reported this news to the heir to the throne, Selim. And only when he established his regime in the capital, the army was informed of the death of Suleiman, and it poured out all its anger on the besieged fortress.

Suleiman's embalmed body was taken to Istanbul, but his "heart, liver, stomach and other internal organs were placed in a golden vessel and buried in the place where Suleiman's tent stood," wrote the Ottoman chronicler Evliya Celebi. A mausoleum was later erected on this site, and next to it a mosque, a dervish monastery and a small barracks. A few years ago, the remains of Suleiman were discovered and excavated by archaeologists. At the same time, it was announced that it was in this place that Suleiman's heart was "probably" buried.

Context

Untold facts about the Ottoman Empire

Milliyet 14.02.2016

Legacy of Ottoman colonialism

Milliyet 26.08.2014

Fratricide in the Ottoman Empire

Bugun 23.01.2014
Thus, the greatest of all Ottoman sultans still haunts his descendants. He was one in many faces. In over 2,000 poems, he sang of love in rose gardens and courtly elegance. At the same time, he ordered the death of his first son. Nicknamed Kanuni (Legislator), he ruled his empire while destroying its financial foundations with his wars. Being caliph and commanding such cities as Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Damascus, he kept the “shadow of Allah on Earth”, but for many years he was in close relations with the Russian slave Roksolana, demonstrating to his contemporaries an amazing example of “monogamous” love, unusual even for Christian.

Although these relationships in the future became one of the favorite topics of erotic literature and fiction (a great many novels and operas are devoted to the topic of sex in harems), Suleiman left his main mark on history in the role of a military leader. And this applies not only to Europe. Although many of his campaigns were directed against Christian states, the most significant and costly ones were directed against Muslim rivals, primarily against the Salafis in Iran. Suleiman conquered Tabriz and present-day Iraq. The Black and Eastern Mediterranean became, in fact, the inland waters of the Ottoman Empire, and its naval bases were located in Algeria and Tunisia. Only Vienna in 1529, Malta, Yemen and Ethiopia, the Sultan failed to conquer.

However, due to active hostilities, the Ottomans were no longer able to finance their huge army to the same extent as was possible only ten years earlier, at the time of the formation of the empire. According to some estimates, the maintenance of a 200,000-strong army - including numerous detachments of Janissary military slaves - cost two-thirds of the entire state budget in peacetime. And as soon as military campaigns ceased to be victorious and contribute to the enrichment of the empire, but turned into only a “muscle game”, the state budget began to suffer dangerous losses. Huge hospitality expenses were added to this - it was no coincidence that Suleiman had the nickname "Magnificent". During these times, luxurious mosques were built in different cities of the empire, on which his favorite architect Sinan worked.

Thanks to field artillery, armed with the latest weapons for those times, the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century became the prototype of the “Powder Empire” - a state whose development of society was primarily due to the need to conduct military operations. During the time of Suleiman, the phrase "Turks at the gates" became an enduring horror for Europeans. Horror stories about the cruelty of the Turks towards the civilian population, multiplied by the large number of their troops, have become a byword. For Martin Luther and his contemporaries, the aquiline-nosed, long-bearded ruler was comparable to the Antichrist. At the same time, the French king Franz I was not afraid to enter into an alliance with Suleiman against the Habsburgs, thanks to which the road to Europe was opened for the Turks.

The current Erdogan Turkey is characterized by the complete absence of any criticism of the Ottoman ruler. When the TV series The Magnificent Age was released there in 2011, in which the Sultan appeared in the company of hundreds of barely dressed concubines, the president was furious and demanded that the show be banned - however, television ratings said that this should not be done. To relieve tension, the authors of the series were forced to make an explanation that the drinks that the Sultan on the screen drank from golden goblets are nothing more than fruit juices.

He became, if not the greatest, then one of the greatest monarchs of Turkey in its entire history. In Europe, he is known as the "Magnificent" conqueror, remembering large-scale military campaigns, conquests in the Balkans, in Hungary, the siege of Vienna. At home, he is still known as a wise legislator.

Family and children of Suleiman the Magnificent

As befits a Muslim ruler, the Sultan had many wives and concubines. Any Russian-speaking reader is familiar with the name of Roksolana, a slave concubine who became the beloved wife of the ruler and an important person in the management of state affairs. And thanks to the incredible popularity of the TV series "The Magnificent Century", the intrigues of the Sultan's harem and the long-term confrontation between the Slavic Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan (Roksolana) and the Circassian Mahidevran Sultan became widely known. Of course, over time, all the children of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent were drawn into this long-term feud. Their fates were different. Someone remained in the shadow of their blood relatives, while someone managed to vividly write their name into the pages of Turkish history. Below is the story of the children of Suleiman the Magnificent. Those of them who managed to leave any significant mark.

Children of Suleiman the Magnificent: Shehzade Mustafa and Selim II

These princes became rivals in a dispute started by their mothers. These are those of Suleiman the Magnificent who were drawn into the bitter feud between Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska and Mahidevran. Both were not the firstborn of their mothers and were not initially considered direct contenders for the throne. But the vicissitudes of fate made them so. However, it was largely resolved by those who started it. Roksolana managed to win the sultan's sympathy and become his beloved wife. Mahidevran was actually exiled to Manisa along with her son Mustafa. However, the tragic vicissitudes of Prince Mustafa's fate were just beginning. Soon, rumors begin to spread throughout the empire that Mustafa is plotting against his father. Suleiman believed these rumors and ordered the execution of his son when they were both on one of the military campaigns. Thus, Selim's competitor to the throne was eliminated. did not later become such a wise and decisive ruler as his father. On the contrary, it is with his reign that historians connect the beginning of the sunset of the majestic Ottoman port. And the reason for this was not only objective socio-economic prerequisites, but also the personal qualities of the heir: weak character, laziness, short-sightedness and, most importantly, unrestrained drunkenness. He was remembered as a drunkard by the Turkish people.

Children of Suleiman the Magnificent: Shehzade Mehmed and Shehzade Bayazid

Both of them were the sons of the Sultan from Roksolana. Mehmed was her first son, but he could not be considered an heir, since his son Mahidevran Mustafa was older than him. However, when the latter fell into disgrace, it was Mehmed who became the favorite of his father. He was appointed governor of the city of Manisa in 1541. However, he was never destined to become a great sultan, nor did he die of illness in 1543. The heir, Bayazid, from an early age grew up as a brave and desperate young man. Already at an early

age, he took part in military campaigns, proving himself a talented commander. After the death of Mustafa, he began to be considered the main contender for his father's legacy. For the throne in subsequent years, a real war broke out between the brothers Bayazid and Selim, in which the latter won.

Mihrimah Sultan

She became the only daughter of the magnificent Sultan. Her mother was Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska. Mihrimah received an excellent education, thanks to which she later became an important assistant to her mother in managing state affairs (at a time when Suleiman was on his countless campaigns).

Brazil is considered to be the birthplace of cashews. There, this tree still grows wild, and the wild cashew nut is also found in the islands of the Caribbean. For the first time they began to cultivate it in Brazil, and today more than 30 countries are the main suppliers of raw materials to the world market. It is exported by such countries with a warm climate as India, Vietnam, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, etc. This type of walnut does not grow on the territory of Russia, and from the countries of the former USSR it is grown only in the south of Azerbaijan.

The cashew nut shell contains a pungent balm with poisonous substances (cardol), which causes skin irritation.

The cutting of nuts is done manually, and this process is very dangerous: even among experienced "nut splitters" cases of cardol burns are often observed. Because of this, nuts are collected with gloves on and boiled in a special liquid before use, after which the shell becomes harmless and fragile.

If you go to some tropical country and you have the opportunity to peel cashews yourself, do not even try, as it is very unhealthy!

Benefits of cashew nuts

The stable use of these nuts improves brain activity, increases memory and concentration.

Cashews are of particular benefit to people with high cholesterol, as well as those suffering from atherosclerosis and poor vascular conditions (the presence of atherosclerotic plaques, thrombosis and heart disease).

Walnut is very useful and has an anti-sclerotic effect. It effectively affects the work of the cardiovascular system: it strengthens the walls of blood vessels, makes them elastic, and also improves blood circulation. The high content of potassium in the composition has a healing effect on cardiac activity: the production of hemoglobin is normalized, the composition of the blood improves.

Frequent use of the cashew fruit strengthens the immune system, and also helps with bronchitis, anemia (anemia), etc.