Fatih Law: In the struggle for power, all means are good. Ottoman executioners: secrets shrouded in darkness When they stopped killing sehzade in the Ottoman Empire

Let's start with a little background. We all remember how in the series “The Magnificent Century” Hurrem desperately fought with Mahimdevran and her son. In season 3, Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska will still manage to get rid of Mustafa forever, he will be executed. Many condemn the insidious Hurrem, but every mother would do the same. After reading this article to the end you will understand why.

After the death of the Sultan, the throne was transferred to the eldest son of the padishah or the eldest male member of the family, and the remaining heirs were immediately executed. Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska knew that according to the law of Mehmed the Conqueror, the throne had to pass to the eldest son of Suleiman, and in order to ensure the throne for his son, he would have to get rid of all the other brothers, no matter who they were. So Prince Mustafa was a death sentence for her male children from the very beginning.

The cruel customs of the Ottomans

Almost all the laws by which the Ottomans lived for many centuries were created by Mehmed the Conqueror. These rules, in particular, allowed the Sultan to kill the entire male half of his relatives in order to secure the throne for his own offspring. The result of this in 1595 was terrible bloodshed, when Mehmed III, following his mother’s moralizing, executed nineteen of his brothers, including infants, and ordered his father’s seven pregnant concubines to be tied up in bags and drowned in the Sea of ​​Marmara.

« After the funeral of the princes, crowds of people gathered near the palace to watch the mothers of the murdered princes and the wives of the old sultan leave their homes. To transport them, all the carriages, carriages, horses and mules that were available in the palace were used. In addition to the wives of the old sultan, twenty-seven of his daughters and more than two hundred odalisques were sent to the Old Palace under the protection of eunuchs... There they could mourn their murdered sons as much as they wanted,” writes Ambassador G.D. Rosedale in Queen Elizabeth and the Levant Company (1604).

How the brothers of the sultans lived.

In 1666, Selim II, by his decree, softened such harsh laws. According to the new decree, the remaining heirs were allowed to live their lives, but until the death of the ruling sultan they were prohibited from participating in public affairs.

From that moment on, the princes were kept in a cafe (golden cage), a room adjacent to the harem, but reliably isolated from it.

Kafesas

Kafesas literally translates as a cage; this room was also called the “Hold Cage”. The princes lived in luxury, but could not even leave there. Often potential heirs living in the cafe began to go crazy locked up and committed suicide.

Life in a golden cage.

The entire life of the princes passed without any connection with other people, except for a few concubines whose ovaries or uterus were removed. If, due to someone's oversight, a woman became pregnant by the imprisoned prince, she was immediately drowned in the sea. The princes were guarded by guards whose eardrums were pierced and their tongues cut. These deaf-mute guards could, if necessary, become murderers of imprisoned princes.

Life in the Golden Cage was a torture of fear and torment. The unfortunate people knew nothing about what was happening behind the walls of the Golden Cage. At any moment, the Sultan or the palace conspirators could kill everyone. If a prince survived in such conditions and became the heir to the throne, he most often was simply not ready to rule a huge empire. When Murad IV died in 1640, his brother and successor Ibrahim I was so afraid of the crowd rushing into the Golden Cage to proclaim him the new Sultan that he barricaded himself in his chambers and did not come out until the dead body was brought and shown to him. Sultan. Suleiman II, having spent thirty-nine years in the cafe, became a real ascetic and became interested in calligraphy. Already being the Sultan, he more than once expressed his desire to return to this quiet activity in solitude. Other princes, like the aforementioned Ibrahim I, having broken free, went on a wild rampage, as if taking revenge on fate for the ruined years. The golden cage devoured its creators and turned them into slaves.

Each residence in the Golden Cage consisted of two to three rooms. The princes were forbidden to leave them; each had separate servants.

People forced to hide all their lives under the mask of an executioner. Who are they?

In the Ottoman Empire, executions played an important part in justice. Many statesmen fell under their influence. Also interesting are those who carry out the execution.

Not everyone could become an executioner. One of the most important requirements for them was muteness and deafness. Thanks to these qualities, the executioners were ruthless. They simply did not hear the suffering of those they were killing and therefore were indifferent.

The rulers of the Ottoman Empire began hiring executioners in the 15th century. By nationality these were people from among the Croats or Greeks. There was also a special detachment consisting of five Janissaries who carried out executions during military campaigns. The executioners had their own boss, he was responsible for their “work.”

The executioners knew human anatomy well, no worse than any doctor. But we always started with the simplest things, acting as an assistant to an experienced colleague, learning all the intricacies of the craft. Thanks to the knowledge gained, the executioners could both bring maximum suffering to the victim and take his life without suffering.

The executioners did not marry, so after their death, future generations would bear the negative stamp of the executioner ancestor. Thus, the executioners seemed to disappear from society.

The order to execute the offender came from the head of the bostanci (the Sultan's guard - editor's note), who gave it to the chief executioner. The position in society of the person sentenced to death was of great importance. So, in the case of the execution of the Grand Vizier, for example, strangulation was most often used. And simple Janissaries had their heads cut off.

Members of the ruling dynasty and other members of the “chosen caste” were subjected to “pure” strangulation using a bow string with which they were strangled. In this case there was no blood.

Most civil servants were killed by beheading with a sword. But those convicted of theft, murder or robbery were not so lucky. They could be hung on a hook by the rib, impaled, or even crucified.

The main prisons during the Ottoman Empire were Edikül, Tersane and Rumeli Hisar. In the Topkapi Palace, between the Babus Salam towers, there was a secret passage to the rooms where the executioners were located and where the convicted Ottoman nobles were taken. The last thing they saw in their lives was the courtyard of the Sultan's palace.

The famous Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha was strangled in this place. Before Babus-Salam, the executioners placed the heads of the people they executed on columns for the edification of the public. Another place of execution was the area near the fountain in front of the palace. It was in it that the executioners washed their bloody swords and axes.

The accused whose cases were pending were kept either in Balykhane Castle or in Ediküle. They recognized their fate by the color of the sherbet that the guards brought them. If the color was white, then it meant acquittal, and if it was red, then it meant conviction and death penalty. The execution took place after the convict drank his sherbet. The body of the executed was thrown into the Sea of ​​Marmara, the heads were sent to the Grand Vizier as proof of the execution.

It is known from history that suspects and accused in medieval Europe were subjected to various types of brutal torture; Amsterdam even has a torture museum.

In the Ottoman state there was no such practice, since the local religion prohibits torture. But in some cases, for political reasons or in order to demonstrate a certain lesson to society, those who committed serious crimes were subjected to torture. One of the most common types of torture was hitting the heels with sticks - “falaka”.

The strength of the Ottoman sultans lay in the fact that when they issued their decrees - the “firmans”, everyone without exception had to obey them and no one dared to disobey, since everyone knew that disobedience was seriously punished.

The executioner knows no rest!..
But still, damn it
Working outdoors
Working with people.

Vladimir Vishnevsky

It should be noted that in recent periods there has been a noticeable increase in interest in history, and in the history of the East in particular. The Ottoman Empire, whose power made the whole world tremble for six centuries, occupies a special niche in this area. But even in the history of this once strong and majestic state, there are pages shrouded in mystery and still little studied by modern historians. Executioners in any society were deprived of popular love, even in one that for six centuries was distinguished by its tolerance, they were unpopular among the people. Maybe that’s why today, when studying the issue of executioners in the Ottoman Empire, we have more questions than answers.

Initially, when selecting candidates for the position of executioners, the Ottomans gave preference to deaf and mutes, so that they would not hear the screams and pleas for mercy of those sentenced to death, thereby being able to quickly and efficiently carry out their work. In the 15th century, executioners were recruited either from among Croat converts or from among the Gypsies. In the 16th century, part of the executioners was formed as part of the Sultan’s personal guard, which consisted of 5 people. However, over the years their number grew, and a head was appointed to manage them, directly reporting to the commander of the Sultan’s personal guard.

The head of the executioners “specialized” exclusively in the execution of high-ranking officials and military leaders. A recruit who ended up in the executioner unit had to undergo training with an experienced executioner, having gained solid experience and having proven his skill, he could independently carry out sentences. It would seem that the simplest profession still required special skills. The executioner had to thoroughly know the anatomy and features of the human body, and in this regard they could compete with any doctor. But representatives of this type of occupation in the Ottoman Empire did not enjoy the love of the people. They had no families or offspring, and after death their bodies were buried in a specially designated place.

The Ottomans attached great importance to the social status of a person, and therefore the type of execution of the condemned person depended on his previously occupied position in this society. For example, the Sultan's associates and viziers accepted death mainly through strangulation, and the Janissaries were executed with special cutlasses, which today can be seen in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. Royalty and, in particular, the children of the sultans were killed by strangulation with a bowstring, because bloodshed by members of the ruling family was considered unacceptable. For ordinary citizens, the most common type of execution was beheading. However, for especially dangerous robbers, pirates and murderers, impalement, crucifixion, hanging on a hook and other more painful forms of death were used, the mere mention of which already spread fear and horror.

It took about three days to consider cases of high-ranking criminals. After which, the commander of the Sultan’s guard brought sherbet to the prisoner awaiting his fate in the Yedikul prison. If the sweet drink was white, it meant the mercy of the ruler and the replacement of the death penalty with exile; the red color of the sherbet symbolized inevitable death at the hands of the executioners. The sentence was carried out as soon as the prisoner drank the sherbet brought to him, and his body was thrown into the well. If an official was not executed in the capital, then as evidence of the execution of the sentence and the will of the ruler, the head or other part of the body of the executed person was sent to the Sultan. A striking example of this is Mezifonlu Kara Pasha, who paid with his life for the failure of the assault on Vienna.

But it should be noted that, unlike the medieval old woman of Europe, torture was not widespread in the Ottoman Empire and was used extremely rarely. The authority of the authorities in the eyes of the people who lived according to the laws of Islam and were saturated with the spirit of this religion was ensured not by intimidation and torture, but by justice and punishment of those who crossed the line of permissibility, where the executioners played an important role, even if not so popular among the people.

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The Ottoman Empire, or as it was more often called in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, for many centuries remained a country - a mystery, full of the most unusual and, at times, terrible secrets.

At the same time, the center of the “darkest” secrets, which were under no circumstances revealed to guests and “business” partners, was the Sultan’s palace. It was here that the bloodiest dramas and events were hidden behind external luxury and splendor.

The law legalizing fratricide, keeping heirs to the throne in harsh conditions, mass murder and racing with the executioner as a way to avoid execution - all this was once practiced on the territory of the empire. And later they tried to forget about all this, but...

Fratricide as a law (Fatih Law)

The internecine struggle between the heirs to the throne was typical for many countries. But in the Porte the situation was complicated by the fact that there were no legalized rules of succession to the throne - each of the sons of a deceased ruler could become the new sultan.

For the first time, in order to strengthen his power, the grandson of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Murad I, decided to shed the blood of his brothers. Later, Bayazid I, nicknamed Lightning, also used his experience in getting rid of rivals.

Sultan Mehmed II, who went down in history as the Conqueror, went much further than his predecessors. He elevated fratricide to the level of law. This law ordered the ruler who ascended the throne to take the lives of his brothers without fail.

The law was adopted with the tacit consent of the clergy and lasted for about 2 centuries (until the middle of the 17th century).

Shimshirlik or cage for shehzade

After deciding to abandon the Law on Fratricide, the Ottoman sultans invented another way to deal with potential contenders for the throne - they began to imprison all sehzade in Kafes (“cages”) - special premises located in the main palace of the empire - Topkapi.

Another name for “cell” is shimshirlik. Here the princes were constantly under reliable protection. As befits the heir to the throne, they were surrounded by luxury and all kinds of amenities. But all this splendor was surrounded on all sides by high walls. And the gates to shimshirlik were closed with heavy chains.

Shehzade were deprived of the opportunity to go outside the doors of their “golden cage” and communicate with anyone, which negatively affected the psyche of the young princes.

Only in the second half of the 18th century. the heirs to the throne received some relief - the walls of the cage became a little lower, more windows appeared in the room itself, and the shehzade themselves were sometimes allowed to go out in order to accompany the Sultan to another palace.

Maddening silence and endless intrigue

Despite his unlimited power, the Sultan’s life in the palace was not much better than the shehzade’s in shimshirlik.

According to the rules that existed at that time, the Sultan was not supposed to talk much - he had to spend his time thinking and thinking about the good of the country.

In order for the sultans to talk as little as possible, a special system of gestures was even developed.

Sultan Mustafa I, having ascended the throne, tried to resist the system and establish a ban on this rule. However, the viziers did not support their ruler and he had to come to terms. As a result, the Sultan soon went crazy.

One of Mustafa's favorite pastimes was walking along the seashore. During the promenade, he threw coins into the water so that “at least the fish could spend them somewhere.”

Along with this order of behavior, numerous intrigues added tension to the palace atmosphere. They never stopped - the struggle for power and influence went on around the clock, 365 days a year. Everyone took part in it - from viziers to eunuchs.

Ambassadors at Topkapi Palace.

Artist Jean Baptiste Vanmour

Combination of positions

Until about the 15th century, there were no executioners at the courts of the Ottoman sultans. However, this does not mean that there were no executions. The duties of executioners were performed by ordinary gardeners.

The most common type of execution was beheading. However, the viziers and relatives of the Sultan were executed by strangulation. It is not surprising that gardeners in those days selected those who not only mastered the art of caring for flowers and plants, but also had significant physical strength.

It is noteworthy that the executions of the guilty and those who were considered guilty were carried out right in the palace. In the main palace complex of the empire, two columns were specially installed on which severed heads were placed. A fountain was provided nearby, intended exclusively for the gardener-executioners, who washed their hands in it.

Subsequently, the positions of palace gardener and executioner were divided. Moreover, people who were deaf began to be selected for the position of the latter, so that they could not hear the groans of their victims.

Escape from execution

The only way to avoid death for high-ranking officials of the Porte, starting from the end of the 18th century, was to learn to run fast. They could only save their lives by running away from the Sultan's chief gardener through the palace gardens.

It all started with an invitation to the vizier to the palace, where they were already waiting for him with a cup of frozen sherbet. If the color of the proposed drink was white, then the official received a temporary reprieve and could try to correct the situation.

If there was a red liquid in the goblet, which meant a death sentence, then the vizier had no choice but to run without looking back to the gate on the opposite side of the garden. Anyone who managed to reach them before the gardener could consider himself saved.

The difficulty was that the gardener was usually much younger than his opponent, and more prepared for this kind of physical exercise.

However, several viziers still managed to emerge victorious from the deadly race. One of the lucky ones was Haji Salih Pasha - the last one who had such a test.

Subsequently, the successful and fast-running vizier became the governor of Damascus.

The Vizier is the cause of all troubles

Viziers occupied a special position in the Ottoman Empire. Their power was practically limitless and was second only to the Sultan's power.

However, sometimes being close to the ruler and having power played a cruel joke on the viziers - often high-ranking officials were made “scapegoats.” They were held responsible for literally everything - for an unsuccessful military campaign, famine, impoverishment of the people, etc.

No one was immune from this, and no one could know in advance what and when he was accused of. It got to the point that many viziers began to constantly carry their own wills with them.

The duty to pacify the crowd also posed a considerable danger for officials - it was the viziers who negotiated with the dissatisfied people, who often came to the Sultan’s palace with demands or discontent.

Love affairs or the Sultan's harem

One of the most exotic and at the same time “secret” places of the Topkapi Palace was the Sultan’s harem. During the heyday of the empire, it was a whole state within a state - up to 2 thousand women lived here at the same time, most of whom were slaves bought at slave markets or kidnapped from territories controlled by the Sultan.

Only a few had access to the harem - those who guarded the women. Strangers who dared to look at the Sultan's concubines and wives were executed without trial.

Most of the inhabitants of the harem might never even meet their master, but there were also those who not only often visited the Sultan’s chambers, but also had quite a strong influence on him.

The first woman who managed to force the ruler of the empire to listen to her opinion was a simple girl from Ukraine Alexandra Lisovskaya, better known as Roksolana or Hurrem Sultan. Once in the harem of Suleiman I, she captivated him so much that he made her his legal wife and his adviser.

The Venetian beauty Cecilia Venier-Baffo, the concubine of Sultan Selim II, also followed in Hurrem's footsteps. In the empire, she bore the name Nurbanu Sultan and was the beloved wife of the ruler.

It was with Nurbanu Sultan, according to historians and experts in the Ottoman Empire, that the period that went down in history as the “female sultanate” began. During this period, almost all affairs of the state were in women's hands.

Nurban was replaced by her fellow countrywoman Sofia Baffo or Safiye Sultan.

The concubine went the furthest, and then the wife of Ahmed I Mahpeyker or Kesem Sultan. After the death of the ruler, who made Kesem his legal wife, she ruled the empire for almost 30 years in the role of regent, first for her sons and then for her grandson.

The last representative of the “female sultanate” Turhan Sultan, who eliminated her predecessor and mother-in-law Kesem. She, like Roksolana, was from Ukraine, and before she got into the Sultan’s harem she was called Nadezhda.

Blood tax

The third ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Murad I, went down in history not only as the sultan who legalized fratricide, but also as the “inventor” of devshirme or blood tribute.

Devshirma was imposed on residents of the empire who did not profess Islam. The essence of the tax was that boys aged 12-14 years were periodically selected from Christian families to serve the Sultan. Most of those selected became Janissaries or went to work on farms, others ended up in the palace and could “rise” to very high government positions.

However, before sending the young men to work or service, they were forcibly converted to the Islamic faith.

The reason for the appearance of the devshirme was the Sultan’s distrust of his Turkic entourage. Sultan Murad and many of his followers believed that converted Christians, deprived of parents and homes, would serve much more zealously and be more faithful to their master.

It is worth noting that the Janissary corps was indeed the most loyal and effective in the Sultan’s army.

Slavery

Slavery became widespread in the Ottoman Empire from the first days of its creation. Moreover, the system existed until the end of the 19th century.

Most of the slaves were slaves brought from Africa and the Caucasus. Also among them were many Russians, Ukrainians and Poles captured during the raids.

It is noteworthy that, according to existing laws, a Muslim could not become a slave - this was the “prerogative” exclusively of people of non-Muslim faith.

Slavery in the Porte differed significantly from its European counterpart. It was easier for Ottoman slaves to gain freedom and even achieve a certain influence. But at the same time, the treatment of slaves was much more cruel - millions of slaves died from hard backbreaking work and terrible working conditions.

Many researchers believe that evidence of the high mortality rate among slaves is that after the abolition of slavery there were practically no people from Africa or the Caucasus in the country. And this despite the fact that they were imported into the empire in the millions!

Genocide in Ottoman style

In general, the Ottomans were quite loyal to representatives of other religions and nationalities. However, in some cases, they betrayed their usual democracy.

Thus, under Selim the Terrible, a mass massacre of Shiites was organized, who dared not recognize the Sultan as the defender of Islam. As a result of the “purge,” more than 40 thousand Shiites and members of their families died. The settlements where they lived were wiped off the face of the earth.

Procession of the Sultan in Istanbul

Artist Jean Baptiste van Moor.

The more the influence of the empire declined, the less tolerance the sultans became towards other peoples living on the territory of the empire.

By the 19th century massacres became practically the norm in Porta. The system reached its peak in 1915, when more than 75% of the country's Armenian population was destroyed (over 1.5 million people died as a result of the genocide).

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For almost 400 years, the Ottoman Empire controlled most of the territories of Southeast Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. It was founded by brave Turkic horsemen, but the empire soon lost much of its original power and vitality, falling into a state of functional dysfunction that held many secrets.

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Fratricide

In the early periods, the Ottoman sultans did not practice the principle of primogeniture, when the eldest son is the only heir. Therefore, all available brothers claimed the throne at once, and the losers then went over to the side of enemy states and for a long time caused many problems for the victorious Sultan.

When Mehmed the Conqueror tried to conquer Constantinople, his uncle fought against him from the walls of the city. Mehmed solved the problem with his characteristic ruthlessness. After ascending the throne, he simply ordered the killing of male relatives, including not sparing his infant brother. Later, he issued a law that deprived more than one generation of life: “And the one of my sons who leads the Sultanate must kill his brothers. Most ulema allow themselves to do this anyway. So let them continue to act like this.”

From that moment on, each new sultan took the throne by killing all his male relatives. Mehmed III tore out his beard out of grief when his younger brother asked not to kill him. But he "did not answer a single word," and the boy was executed along with 18 other brothers. The sight of their 19 wrapped bodies being driven through the streets was said to have made the whole of Istanbul cry.

Even after the first round of murders, the rest of the Sultan's relatives were also dangerous. Suleiman the Magnificent watched silently from behind the screen as his own son was strangled with a bowstring; the boy became too popular in the army, so that the Sultan could not feel safe.

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The principle of fratricide was never popular with the people and the clergy, so it was quietly abolished after the sudden death of Sultan Ahmed in 1617. Instead, potential heirs to the throne were kept at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul in special rooms known as "Kafes" ("cages").

One could spend one's entire life imprisoned in Kafes under the constant supervision of guards. Imprisonment was generally luxurious in terms of conditions, but with very strict restrictions. Many princes went crazy from boredom, or went into debauchery and drunkenness. When the new sultan was brought to the Gate of the Sovereign so that the viziers could pledge their loyalty to him, it may have been the first time he had gone outside in several decades, which did not bode well for the abilities of the new ruler.

In addition, the threat of liquidation from the ruling relative was constant. In 1621, the Grand Mufti refused Osman II's request to strangle his brother. Then he turned to the chief judge, who made the opposite decision, and the prince was strangled. Osman himself was later overthrown by the military, who were to remove his surviving brother from Kafes by dismantling the roof and pulling him out on a rope. The poor man spent two days without food or water, and was probably too distraught to notice that he had become Sultan.

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Silent Hell in the Palace

Even for the Sultan, life in Topkapi could be extremely boring and unbearable. It was then considered that it was indecent for the Sultan to talk too much, so a special sign language was introduced, and the ruler spent most of his time in complete silence. Sultan Mustafa found this completely unbearable and tried to lift such a ban, but his viziers refused. Mustafa soon went crazy and threw coins from the shore to the fish so that they would spend them.

Intrigues were constantly woven in the palace and in large quantities, as viziers, courtiers, and eunuchs fought for power. For 130 years, the women of the harem had great influence, a period that became known as the "female sultanate." Dragoman (chief translator) was always an influential person, and always a Greek. Eunuchs were divided along racial lines, with the chief black eunuch and the chief white eunuch often being bitter rivals.

At the center of this madness, the Sultan was under surveillance wherever he went. Ahmet III wrote to the Grand Vizier: “If I go from one room to another, 40 people line up, when I need to put on my pants, I do not feel the slightest comfort in this environment, so the squire must dismiss everyone, leaving only three or four people to I could be calm." Spending their days in complete silence under constant surveillance and in such a poisonous atmosphere, several Ottoman sultans of the last period lost their minds.

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The authorities in the Ottoman Empire had complete control over both the life and death of their subjects. Moreover, death was quite commonplace. The first courtyard of the Topkapi Palace, where petitioners and guests gathered, was a terrible place. There were two columns on which severed heads hung and a special fountain in which only executioners could wash their hands. During periodic total “cleansings” in the palace, entire mounds of cut-out tongues of the guilty were piled up in this courtyard, and a special cannon fired every time another body was thrown into the sea.

It is interesting that the Turks did not specifically create a corps of executioners. This work was performed by the palace gardeners, who divided their time between executions and growing delicious flowers. They beheaded most of their victims. But shedding the blood of members of the royal family and high-ranking officials was forbidden; they would be strangled. As a result, the head gardener was always a huge, muscular man who was capable of strangling any vizier at a moment's notice.

In the early periods, the viziers were proud of their obedience, and any decision of the Sultan was accepted without complaint. The famous vizier Kara Mustafa very respectfully greeted his executioner with the humble words “Let it be so,” while kneeling with a noose around his neck.

In subsequent years, attitudes towards this type of business management changed. In the 19th century, Governor Ali Pasha fought so hard against the Sultan's men that he had to be shot through the floorboards of his house.

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There was one way for the faithful vizier to avoid the wrath of the Sultan and stay alive. Beginning in the late 18th century, a custom arose that a convicted grand vizier could avoid execution by defeating the head gardener in a race through the palace gardens.

The condemned man was brought to a meeting with the head gardener, and after an exchange of greetings, the vizier was presented with a cup of frozen sherbet. If the sherbet was white, it meant that the Sultan had granted a reprieve. If it is red, then an execution must take place. As soon as the vizier saw the red sherbet, he had to immediately run away.

The viziers ran through the palace gardens between shady cypress trees and rows of tulips, while hundreds of eyes watched them from behind the windows of the harem. The convict's goal was to reach the fish market gate on the other side of the palace. If the vizier reached the gate before the head gardener, he was simply exiled. But the gardener was always younger and stronger, and, as a rule, was already waiting for his victim at the gate with a silk cord.

However, several viziers managed to avoid execution in this way, including Hachi Salih Pasha, the last to participate in this death race. After running with the gardener, he became the governor of one of the provinces.

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Mauling of Viziers

In theory, the Grand Vizier was second in command to the Sultan, but it was he who was executed or thrown into the crowd whenever things went wrong. Under Sultan Selim the Terrible there were so many great viziers that they always began to carry their wills with them. One day one of them asked Selim to let him know in advance if they were going to execute him, to which the Sultan cheerfully replied that there was already a queue lined up to replace him.

The viziers also had to reassure the people of Istanbul, who had the habit of coming to the palace and demanding execution in case of any failures. It must be said that people were not afraid to storm the palace if their demands were not met. In 1730, a rag-clad soldier named Patrona Ali led a crowd into the palace and they were able to take control of the empire for several months. He was stabbed to death after trying to get a butcher to lend him money for the ruler of Wallachia.

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Perhaps the most terrible place in the Topkapi Palace was the imperial harem. It numbered up to 2,000 women - the wives and concubines of the Sultan, most of them were bought or kidnapped as slaves. They were kept locked up in the harem, and for a stranger, one look at them meant immediate death. The harem itself was guarded and controlled by the Chief Black Eunuch, whose position was one of the most powerful in the empire.

Very little information has reached us about the living conditions in the harem and about the events taking place within its walls. It was believed that there were so many concubines that the Sultan had never even seen some of them. And others were so influential that they participated in the administration of the empire. Suleiman the Magnificent fell madly in love with a concubine from Ukraine, whose name was Roksolana, married her, and made her his main adviser.

Roxolana's influence was so great that the Grand Vizier ordered the kidnapping of the Italian beauty Julia Gonzaga in the hope that she could capture the attention of the Sultan. The plan was foiled by a brave Italian who broke into Julia's bedroom and carried her away on horseback just before the kidnappers arrived.

Kösem Sultan had even more influence than Roksolana, effectively ruling the empire as regent for her son and grandson. But Turhan’s daughter-in-law did not give up her position without a fight, and Kösem Sultan was strangled with a curtain by Turhan’s supporters.

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Tax in blood

In the early Ottoman period, there was a devşirme (“blood tax”), a type of tax in which boys from the Christian subjects of the empire were taken into the service of the empire. Most of the boys became janissaries and slave soldiers, who were always at the forefront of all Ottoman conquests. The tax was collected irregularly only when the empire's available number of soldiers fell short. As a rule, boys aged 12-14 were taken from Greece and the Balkans.

Ottoman officials collected all the boys in the village and checked names against baptismal records from the local church. Then the strongest were selected, at the rate of one boy for every 40 households. Selected children were sent on foot to Istanbul, the weakest were left to die on the roadsides. A detailed description of each child was prepared so that they could be tracked if they escaped.

In Istanbul, they were circumcised and forcibly converted to Islam. The most beautiful or intelligent were sent to the palace, where they were trained so that they could join the elite part of the Sultan's subjects. These guys could eventually reach very high ranks, and many of them became pashas or viziers, like the famous Grand Vizier from Croatia Sokollu Mehmed.

The rest of the boys joined the Janissaries. They were first sent to work on farms for eight years, where they learned Turkish and grew up. At the age of 20, they officially became Janissaries - the elite soldiers of the empire with iron discipline and ideology.

There were exceptions to this tax. It was forbidden to take away from the family the only child or children from men who served in the army. For some reason, orphans and Hungarians were not accepted. Residents of Istanbul were also excluded on the grounds that they "have no sense of shame." The system of such tribute ceased to exist at the beginning of the 18th century, when the children of the Janissaries were allowed to become Janissaries

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Slavery remained a major feature of the Ottoman Empire until the end of the 19th century. Most slaves came from Africa or the Caucasus (the Circassians were especially valued), and the Crimean Tatars provided a constant flow of Russians, Ukrainians and even Poles. It was believed that Muslims could not legally be enslaved, but this rule was quietly forgotten when the recruitment of non-Muslims ceased.

Renowned scholar Bernard Lewis argued that Islamic slavery emerged independently of Western slavery and, therefore, had a number of significant differences. For example, it was easier for Ottoman slaves to gain freedom or occupy high positions. But there is no doubt that Ottoman slavery was incredibly cruel. Millions of people died from raids or from

exhausting work in the fields. This is not even mentioning the castration process used to obtain eunuchs. As Lewis pointed out, the Ottomans brought millions of slaves from Africa, but there are now very few people of African descent in modern Turkey. This speaks for itself.

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In general, the Ottoman Empire was quite tolerant. Apart from the devshirme, they made no real attempt to convert their non-Muslim subjects to Islam and welcomed the Jews when they were expelled from Spain. Subjects were never discriminated against, and the empire was practically run by Albanians and Greeks. But when the Turks themselves felt threatened, they could act very cruelly.

Selim the Terrible, for example, was very concerned that the Shiites, who rejected his authority as a defender of Islam, could be double agents for Persia. As a result, he swept through the east of his empire, destroying livestock and killing at least 40,000 Shiites.

As the empire weakened, it lost its former tolerance, and minorities had a hard time. By the 19th century, massacres became more and more common. In the terrible year of 1915, just two years before the collapse of the empire, the massacre of 75 percent of the Armenian population was organized. About 1.5 million people died then, but Turkey still refuses to fully recognize these atrocities as the Armenian genocide.

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Conclusion

This was an article Secrets of the Ottoman Empire. TOP 10 interesting facts. Thank you for your attention!