|
|
|
Royal French Women in the Ottoman Sultans' Harem: The Political Uses of Fabricated Accounts from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-first Century
CHRISTINE ISOM-VERHAAREN
Benedictine University
| The Ottoman sultans' harem, characterized by the seclusion of the women who resided there who had limited contact with outsiders, has provided fertile ground for the invention of tales that have often been incorporated into the historical tradition. The purported presence of French women with royal connections in the Ottoman imperial harem has been used for political purposes from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. While the fantasies concerning these women are fascinating in and of themselves, including dramatic captures at sea in some versions, this article argues that their greater interest lies in their utility to support the political aspirations of states as varied as the Ottoman Empire, France, and the United States for over four centuries. These tales fall into two groups: (1) myths about a fictional fifteenth-century French princess and (2) fantasies concerning Nakshidil, a nineteenth-century valide sultan (mother of the reigning Ottoman ruler), who some authors claim was a relative of Napoleon's wife Josephine. The earlier myths, whose purpose was to explain the alliance between the Ottoman sultan and the king of France, lost political significance at about the time that Nakshidil entered the imperial harem, as the French Revolution and Napoleon's attack on Egypt disrupted diplomatic relations between the Ottoman Empire and France. Fables about Nakshidil continue to have political implications to the present, because authors from the late twentieth to the twenty-first century have appropriated this myth to symbolize the oppression of women by Islam. |
1
|
|
In this article I trace the development of these narratives indicating the changes in the political goals of the two myths of French royal women in the harem. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Ottoman authors such as Selaniki, Mustafa Ali, Peçevi, and Evliya Çelebi used a supposed genealogical link between the Ottoman and French ruling houses to justify an alliance with the rulers of France. French diplomats, even if they did not believe a French princess had ever entered an Ottoman sultan's harem, also employed this connection to ensure their diplomatic preeminence in Istanbul. In the nineteenth century, another purported genealogical bond between the Ottoman and French ruling houses was based on a claim that a relative of Napoleon's wife Josephine, Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, had entered the imperial harem and become the mother of Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839). This second link was used by Napoleon III (r. 1852–1870) to enhance his prestige and by Abdul Aziz (r. 1861–1876) to bolster his position relative to predatory European powers in the 1860s. Since 1969, the publication of four novels about Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, The Veiled Sultan, Sultana, Valide, and Seraglio, indicate how the political uses of this myth have been changed to fit current issues.1 While authors such as Domenico of Jerusalem, Montesquieu, and Paul Rycaut used the Ottoman harem as a symbol of Oriental despotism in the seventeenth century, these novels, especially the most recent, Seraglio (2003), indicate that the Ottoman imperial harem continues as a symbol of a Middle East characterized by despotic rulers and oppressed women. Although documentary evidence demonstrates that Aimée could not have been Mahmud's mother, novelists still claim to employ historical scholarship to convince readers that they are accurately portraying harem life. Indeed, these novels perpetuate myths of the imperial harem found in accounts by male European travelers, who had no firsthand knowledge of the harem, while ignoring the more accurate portrayal of harem life by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an Englishwoman who did associate with Ottoman women. These novels demonstrate that the political uses of portraying the Ottoman harem as emblematic of the nature of the Middle East—despotic, cruel, violent, oppressing women—still continue to be powerful in justifying American actions in the Middle East in the modern period. |
. . . |
There are about 15890 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
