Fatma Pesend

Fatma Pesend (drawing)

Princess Fatma Pesend Achba-Anchabadze (born April 17, 1876 in Istanbul ; † November 5, 1924 there ) was the 11th wife of Sultan Abdülhamid II.

Life

Her full name was Fatma Kadriye Pesend , but she was only affectionately called Pesend. Pesend was born on April 17, 1876 in the Achba Palais in Istanbul. Her father, Prince Sami Halid Achba-Anchabadze, belonged to an old Abkhaz dynasty. Her mother, Princess Fatima Ismailewna Mamleewa, also came from an old Tatar aristocratic family whose ancestors once belonged to the Golden Horde .

Fatma Pesend was brought into contact with art at an early age, which is why she began painting and drawing at the age of seven. Besides that, she had a thing for horse riding. But before her father could send her to Europe for more intensive studies to live with relatives, she met and fell in love with the Sultan at court.

Although Sultan Abdülhamid II was 34 years older than Pesend, she consented to the sultan's proposal against the wishes of her parents. Pesend was supposed to be the ruler's 11th wife, but that didn't seem to bother her. On July 20, 1896, the wedding took place in Yıldız Palace . On their wedding day, Pesend received the title of Ottoman sultan's wife and grand duchess.

A year after their marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, who only lived eight months. Sultan Abdülhamid II mourned his daughter for a long time and had the first children's hospital built in the Ottoman Empire on the occasion of her incurable illness. Princess Pesend was put in charge of managing the hospital shortly after it was completed. Until the ousting of Sultan Abdülhamid II by the Young Turks in 1909 , the hospital was run under the supervision of Grand Duchess Pesend.

At the beginning of 1900 Abdülhamid married the very young Behice Maan , who came from the Maan noble family.

Grand Duchess Pesend accompanied her husband into exile in Saloniki in 1909 , where she only endured a year and returned to Istanbul. From then on she led a lonely life. In the letters to her sister Princess Refhan Achba-Anchabadze, she reports in detail about all the misfortune that had befallen her.

When her husband, the ex-Sultan Abdülhamid, died in the Beylerbeyi Palace in 1918 , her long, curly blonde hair turned gray.

During the occupation of Istanbul by the Allied Powers from 1920 to 1922, Grand Duchess Pesend preserved her reputation. Only when the Turkish Republic was proclaimed in 1923 was it threatened, like the rest of the sultan's family, to be exiled. But since she was seriously ill even then, presumably tuberculosis , and was widowed, she was given a reprieve. She did not survive the expulsion of the ruling family for long; she died on November 5, 1924 in her villa in Vanıköy in Istanbul.

At the request of her siblings, Grand Duchess Pesend was buried next to her mother in the Karacaahmed cemetery.

literature

• Leyla Açba-Ançabadze : Bir Çerkes Prensesinin Harem Hatıraları. 4th ext. Edition, Timaş, ​​Istanbul 2010, ISBN 978-605-114-225-8
• Yılmaz Öztuna: Devletler ve Hanedanlar. Ankara 1989
• Çağatay Uluçay: Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları. Ankara 1992
• Ayşe Osmanoğlu: Babam Sultan Abdülhamid. Istanbul 1994
• Şadiye Osmanoğlu: Saray ve Harem Hatıralarım. Istanbul 1969