home › It's cozy at home › How women lived in eastern harems, or what they don't talk about in romantic films. Real photos of concubines - iran, bukhara, china, turkey Harem girls

How women lived in eastern harems, or what they don't talk about in romantic films. Real photos of concubines - iran, bukhara, china, turkey Harem girls

We have all seen films about sultans and emirs who had their own harems. And, for sure, most men at least sometimes dreamed of acquiring their own collection of cute and beautiful wives.

But do not rush to envy the sultans - it was not just that before all the concubines wore a veil. And I must say that such a situation in the harems of the last century was not only among the Arabs, but also among the Asians.

However, men used to have a strange idea of \u200b\u200bfemale beauty. And never believe the movies - there are a lot of lies. :)

The Iranian Shah Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar, who ascended the throne in 1848 and ruled the country for the next 47 years, was a highly educated person for his time and a great connoisseur of art. At the invitation of the Russian Emperor Alexander II in 1873, the Shah visited St. Petersburg, where he saw ballet for the first time in his life.

Upon returning home, Qajar ordered that all his concubines, and there were about 100 of them, be sewn skirts similar to those of the ballerinas. How the women from the harem of the Iranian ruler, who had a very extraordinary taste, looked like, will be shown by photos taken by Qajar himself or his Russian court photographer Anton Sevryugin.

According to historians, Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar was very well educated for his time and was known as a sybarite. One of the many passions of Shah Qajar was photography. When he came to power, he decided to create the first official photo studio in his palace.
In the 1870s, Russian photographer Anton Sevryugin opened his studio in Tehran, and later became the court photographer of the Iranian ruler. Sevryugin created a photographic chronicle of Iran and was awarded an honorary title for his services.

The Russian photographer was allowed to shoot the shah himself, his male relatives, courtiers and servants. And behind him, Qajar, an ardent admirer of photography, left the right to shoot his harem, in which, according to historians, he had about 100 concubines.
According to Shiite laws, at that time it was not permissible to take pictures of people's faces, and even more so the faces of women. And only the most powerful man in the country could afford to break the law.

Completeness in those years was held in high esteem.

Women were densely fed and limited in physical activity.

On the right is the beloved wife of the Shah, Anis al-Doleh.

The incomparable Anis al-Doleh (sitting).

The concubines often had picnics.

It is known that in 1873, Nasser ed-Din Shah, at the invitation of Alexander II, visited St. Petersburg and attended a ballet. According to legend, he was so fascinated by Russian dancers that he introduced fluffy skirts like tutus for his women.

The skirts of Western ballerinas looked very peculiar on the inhabitants of the harem.

Anis al-Doleh.

Fused eyebrows were also fashionable among Iranian beauties.

According to Shiite laws, it is impossible to photograph the faces of people and especially women, but the shah allowed himself everything

And here is Shah Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar himself.

The Shah is getting ready for a photo shoot.

Front entrance of the Gulistan Palace.

Nasser ad-Din Shah Qajar with some women from the harem.

I can say one thing: in these photographs we see the shah's wives, - Boris Vasilyevich Dolgov, candidate of historical sciences, senior researcher at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told KP.

These are not men and not hermaphrodites, as many people thought when they saw these photos. It cannot be said that there were no such inhabitants in the harem. But these were isolated rare cases that were kept secret, since the Koran, like other religions, forbids such things. Are these women beautiful or not, what's the difference? For taste and color, as they say, there are no comrades. In the vegetation on the face of the concubines of the harem, I also do not see anything surprising. A small mustache is characteristic of oriental women. If women specially painted mustaches on themselves, then the owner of this harem simply liked such ladies. In other harems, I have not heard of such a fashion.

But fused eyebrows can be safely called a fashion element of that time. As for the fullness of the inhabitants of the harem, in the 18th and 19th centuries there were a lot of plump women. Moreover, fullness was considered a sign of beauty. The women were specially densely fed and practically not allowed to move so that they became as full as the ladies in these photographs.

From the photographs, one can judge the tastes of the Iranian monarch - all women are in the body, with fused thick eyebrows and well-marked mustaches. This once again proves that beauty is a subjective concept, and the criteria for attractiveness are radically different in different countries and at different times.

Cute naughty girls

In many photos, the concubines of the harem are depicted in short puffy skirts like a tutu.

Historians also say that there are nudes in the Shah's photo collection, but they are safely hidden. Although, I don’t think that anyone would want to see them - Qajar had a very specific concept of female beauty.

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Bukhara. Emir of Bukhara Said Alim Khan (1880-1944)

The main house of the emir, where his wives and concubines lived. The wives lived on the first floor of the house, and the concubines on the second

Sad story of the last emir Bukhara

China

At the word "harem" most people come to mind colorful pictures - an abundance of seductive half-dressed women, murmuring fountains, sweet wine and constant bliss. In general, heavenly pleasure. But do not forget that the times when harems existed were cruel, and the life of a woman was even harder.

So in fact, the Sultan's harems were far from this idealistic picture.

Translated from Arabic, "harem" means "separated, forbidden." This place in the house was always hidden from prying eyes and carefully guarded by servants. Women lived in this secret room. The main among them was either the wife, who was honored to be the first to marry and occupied a high title together with her betrothed, or eunuchs.

Often in the Sultan's harems there were a huge number of women, the number of which could reach several thousand. Wives and concubines for the Sultan were always chosen by his mother - this is a strict rule. It was very easy to find yourself in a harem - for this you just had to be beautiful. But even in the harem, not everyone managed to establish a relationship with their “husband” and give him an heir.

Such high competition among wives allowed only the most intelligent, prudent, dexterous and cunning women to advance to the top. Those who did not possess such talents were doomed to perform household duties and serve the entire harem. They could never see their betrothed for the rest of their lives.

In the harems there were special orders that could not be violated. So everything was far from being as romantic as, for example, in the popular TV series The Magnificent Century. The ruler could be carried away by a new girl, and those who had their eyes wet could be executed. Moreover, the methods of reprisal were striking in their cruelty.

One of the options to get rid of a boring wife is to immerse her in a leather bag with snakes, tie it tightly, tie a stone to the bag and throw it into the sea. An easy method of execution is strangulation with a silk cord.

Laws in the harem and the state

According to the documents, the first harems arose in the Ottoman Empire. Initially, it was formed exclusively from slaves, and the sultans took only the heirs of the Christian rulers of the states located in the neighborhood as wives. However, during the reign of Bayezid II, the usual attitudes changed. From that time on, the Sultan did not limit himself to marriage bonds at all, but they acquired children from their slaves.

Undoubtedly, the Sultan was the most important in the harem, then his mother, called "Valide", was in the chain of hierarchy. When the ruler in the country changed, his mother would definitely move to a luxurious mansion, and the process of moving was accompanied by a chic procession. After the mother of the Sultan, his betrothed, who were called "kadyn-efendi", were considered the main ones. Next came the disenfranchised slaves, called "jariye", with whom the harem was often simply filled.

The Caucasian princes wanted their daughters to be in the Sultan's Ottoman harem and marry him. Putting their daughters to bed, caring dads sang songs to the little ones about a happy fate, a chic fairy-tale life in which they would find themselves if they were lucky enough to become the sultan's wives.

The masters could buy future slaves when the little ones were five to seven years old, they brought them up and raised them until puberty, that is, until the age of 12-14 years. The parents of the girls gave up their rights to their child in writing after they voluntarily sold their daughter to the Sultan.

While the baby was growing up, she learned not only all the rules of secular communication, but also how to please a man. Upon reaching adolescence, the matured girl was shown in the palace. If, upon examination, a slave showed defects in appearance or on her body, if she never learned etiquette and showed bad behavior, then she was considered unfit for the harem and cost less than others, so her father was paid a smaller amount than the one he expected.

Weekday slaves

The lucky ones, whom the Sultan supposedly thought of taking as his concubines, had to know the Koran perfectly and master the wisdom of women. And if the slave still managed to take the place of honor as a wife, her life changed radically. The Sultan's favorites organized charitable foundations and financed the construction of mosques. They revered Muslim traditions. The sultan's wives were very smart. The high intelligence of these women is confirmed by letters that have survived to this day.

The attitude towards the concubines was relatively decent, they were well taken care of, they were regularly given gifts. Every day, even the simplest slaves received a payment, the amount of which was set by the Sultan personally. On holidays, whether it was a birthday or someone's wedding, the slaves were given money and various gifts. However, if the slave was naughty, regularly violated established orders and laws, the punishment for her was severe - severe beating with whips and sticks.

Marriage and adultery

After 9 years of living in the harem, the slave received the right to leave him, but on condition that the master approved this. In the case of a positive decision by the Sultan, the woman received a paper from him that she was a free person. The Sultan or his mother in this case without fail bought her a luxurious house, additionally gave a dowry, and looked for her husband.

Well, before the onset of heavenly life, especially passionate concubines began intimate relationships with each other or with eunuchs. By the way, all eunuchs were brought from Africa, so they were all black.

This was done for a specific purpose - thus it was not difficult to figure out the person who committed adultery with a servant. After all, in the case of pregnancy, dark-skinned babies were born. But this happened extremely rarely, because often the slaves got into the harem already castrated, so they could not have children. Between concubines and eunuchs, love relationships often began. It even got to the point that women who left the harem left their new husbands, complaining that the eunuch gave them much more pleasure.

Roksolana

Until the 16th century, girls from Russia, Georgia, Croatia and Ukraine got into the harem. Byazid tied the knot with a Byzantine princess, and Orkhan-gazi chose the daughter of Emperor Constantine, Princess Caroline, as his wife. But the most famous Sultan's wife, according to the legends, was from Ukraine. Her name was Roksolana, she stayed in the status of the betrothed of Suleiman the Magnificent for 40 years.

According to the literary works of that time, the real name of Roksolana is Anastasia. She was the daughter of a priest and was distinguished by her beauty. The girl was preparing for the wedding, but shortly before the celebration, she was kidnapped by the Tatars and sent to Istanbul. There, the failed bride ended up in the Muslim market, where the slave trade took place.

As soon as the girl found herself within the walls of the palace, she converted to Islam and learned the Turkish language. Anastasia turned out to be especially cunning and prudent, therefore, through bribery, intrigue and seduction, in a short time she got to the young padishah, who was carried away by her, and then married. She gave her husband three healthy heroes, among whom was the future sultan - Selim II.

There are no more harems in modern Turkey; the last one disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century. A museum was subsequently opened in its place. Nevertheless, among the elite, polygamy is still practiced today. Young 12-year-old charmers, against their will, are given as wives to rich men of age. This is mainly done by poor parents who do not have enough money to feed a large number of children.

In and in a number of other Muslim countries, polygamy is legal, but at the same time it is allowed to have no more than four wives at the same time. All the same law imposes on a polygamous man the obligation to adequately support his ladies and children, but not a word is written about respectful attitude. Therefore, despite the beautiful life, wives are often kept in extreme severity. In the event of a divorce, the children always remain with the father, and the mothers are forbidden to see them. This is the retribution for a comfortable and luxurious life with an influential Arab man.

For them, the harem is a space of absolute sexual freedom, complete power of a man over a woman, dark-skinned men in exotic outfits and luxurious ladies without them. But was it really so, or did you have to pretty much guess under the impression of the exotic? Let's compare with a real photo?

The East permeates our lives, we know almost everything about it, but for a European of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Middle East was an almost unknown, but very alluring place. By this time, the once mighty Ottoman Empire was in decline. Over the next two hundred years, the empire lost almost all previously captured territories, shrinking to modern Turkey. And as you know, the decline of any empire is characterized by an atmosphere of luxury and hedonism.

And rumors about the splendor of the Sultan's court crawled in all directions, reaching Europe, where at that time industrialization was gaining momentum, ugly and depersonalizing. People of art suffocated in the mechanistic atmosphere and found a way out in traveling towards the unexplored world of the East. European scientists, artists, writers went there in search of inspiration, new experiences and just adventures.

This study and the works of art born in its process were later called "orientalism". The period of orientalism lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, culminating in a grandiose surge in fashion for everything oriental.
Everyone who was at least a little interested in the East saw the paintings of Orientalist artists. Jean-Leon Gerome, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres and their contemporaries largely determined the global idea of what the East looks like. Their paintings are full of bright light, swarthy men in exotic outfits and luxurious women without exotic outfits. Writers did not lag behind, the opinion of Europeans about Eastern customs and customs is based on the works of Montesquieu, Gauf, Flaubert and Wilde.

Orientalists, as a rule, were people brought up in strict European Christianity. Faced with customs that were new to them, they perceived them and expounded them in their own way, sometimes even deliberately distorting or conjecturing. When they returned from their travels, their stories formed myths and attracted new "explorers" to the east. It can be assumed that their stories about life in the Ottoman Empire became the source of the harem, which is common in the West, as a place where countless, certainly beautiful, concubines of the Sultan were kept, and where the main man of the Ottoman Empire indulged in endless amusements.

In reality, of course, none of the Western travelers had a chance to observe those scenes that they subsequently painted so vividly with pen and brush. But for sure they found their way to the haunts of Cairo and Istanbul, communicated with dancers, no less exotic for them, but easily accessible.

They also went to the bathroom. Turkish bath - hammam - has survived to this day almost unchanged, with one important exception. At the time of the Orientalists, handsome boys served clients in Turkish baths. They not only lathered and massaged visitors, but also openly offered intimate services. Europeans, this custom could not but plunge into shock.

In addition, when visiting the houses of the nobility, and even the palace of the Sultan, European travelers could not help but notice that a significant part of the premises was closed to outsiders, and especially to men. “If such beautiful lewdness is going on in the city and in the bathhouse, how much more debauchery should be hidden in the imperial harem,” they reflected. Fantastic stories filled their heads and poured onto canvases, and the same street dancers acted as models. And not always the models were of indigenous nationality. They could be Irish, Romanian, and Delacroix, for example, Algerian Jews posed

Only at the end of the 19th century, with the final weakening of the sultanate and the growth of liberal and educational sentiments in Turkey, information about the internal structure of the harem became available to the general public, but the beautiful tales of the Orientalists remain the basis of the Western man's idea of the harem to this day.

But what did happen in the closed chambers of the Sultan's palaces? The word harem comes from the ancient Semitic root "h-r-m". In modern Arabic, there are three main derivatives of this root: haram - "a sacred place or thing" (compare with the Russian word "temple"), haraam - "something forbidden by religion, unworthy, taboo" and hariim - "inviolability of private life." The familiar word "harem" comes from the Turkish version of the last word.

The Ottomans were serious about protecting their privacy. For example, the harem of the Topkapi Palace is built in such a way that it is almost impossible to look, neither from the Palace premises, nor even from the outside of the palace. Similarly sought to protect their harems and other noble people of the empire. As the chronicler Tursun Bey wrote in the 15th century, “If the sun had not been feminine in the Persian language, even it would not have been allowed into the harem.”

But in fact, the harem of the Turkish Sultan was, first of all, only a private residence of the monarch, closed from outsiders. In addition to the wives and concubines of the Sultan, other members of the ruling family also lived in closed chambers: sisters, sometimes brothers of the Sultan, his daughters, sons until they reached adulthood, as well as their numerous servants. The role of the harem is also important as a school that provided its “listeners” with the best education that a woman in the East could receive. The harem in the form in which it existed in the Ottoman Empire is not at all prescribed by the Koran, but is a development of ancient Turkish traditions, taking into account Islam. The Sultan's harem was replenished at the expense of captives captured in the war or slaves bought at the bazaar. The peoples of many peoples subject to the Turks could voluntarily send beauties for the harem as a tribute. At the end of the XIX-XX centuries. poetess Leyla Saz, who came from a noble Turkish family, said in her memoirs: “Some Circassian women specially raised their daughters in luxury and wealth in order to prepare them for a future life in the padishah’s harem.”

Usually the age of young slaves was 12-14 years. They were selected not only for their beauty and health, but also for their intelligence: they didn’t take “fools”, because the Sultan needed not just a woman, but also an interlocutor. Those who entered the harem underwent a two-year training under the guidance of kalf (from the Turkish kalfa - “chief”) - old experienced slaves who still remember the grandfathers of the reigning sultans. The girls were taught the Koran (everyone who got into the harem converted to Islam), dancing, playing musical instruments, belles-lettres (many odalisques wrote good poetry), calligraphy, the art of conversation and needlework. It is especially worth mentioning court etiquette: every slave had to know how to pour rose water for her master, how to bring him shoes, serve coffee or sweets, stuff a pipe or put on a dressing gown.
So in one thing, Western travelers were right - the best women of the empire were really gathered in the Sultan's palace. True, only a few of the inhabitants of the harem at least once saw the Sultan. Most were simply odalisk slaves (from the Turkish “odalik” - “maid”) and were at the lowest rung of the harem hierarchy, in the service of other inhabitants. Only if the girl stood out for her special beauty or other talents did she have a chance to rise higher. Others performed various economic roles, and after a few years in the harem, those of them who did not receive any post were allowed to leave the harem and get married.

The "graduates" of the sultan's harem were highly valued in the empire for their education and comprehensive training, and to receive an odalisque with a dowry from the sultan, especially one that had not yet been in the royal bed, was an incredibly high honor. Those girls who were not distinguished by either high academic performance or economic talents could be married off even before the expiration of the allotted time. The school for boys, located in the same palace, prepared the sons of noble families for the execution of various government posts, and graduates often received such an half-educated odalisque as their first wife before leaving for the far corner of the empire.

If a girl was considered worthy of being in the presence of the Sultan, new prospects opened up for her. The next step up was to get the attention of the Sultan and get an invitation to share his bed with him. From that moment on, the Sultan's concubine was called "ikbal" ("happy") and immediately received a personal room and servants as a sign of a new status. During the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, the number of potential concubines in the harem numbered in the hundreds, and according to some sources it exceeded a thousand, so the Sultan could afford to see most of the concubines only once, and this time was the only chance for further "career growth" - the birth royal child.

If a son was born to a concubine, then she joined the ranks of the harem elite and was called "haseki kadyn" or even "haseki sultan". In fact, the Khaseki Kadyn were full-fledged wives of the Sultan, although this fact was rarely officially recorded. Above them in the female hierarchy of the harem, and indeed the empire as a whole, there was only one person: the mother of the monarch, the valid sultan. Valide Sultan was, in fact, the ruler of the harem and was in charge of his whole life, but her power was not limited to this, because her own son ruled the empire. Having no formal power, the valide sultan could secretly be aware of the most important affairs in the country and exert significant influence both through direct whispering in the ear of the sultan and bypassing the monarch, bribing, persuading, intimidating or even eliminating statesmen and heads of the church. The figure of the Valide Sultan, the Queen Mother, inspired fear and respect far beyond the harem and the palace.

But, you see, the image of a woman standing at the helm of an empire is sharply at odds with the image of a languid half-naked beauty, which was popularized by the Orientalists. The harem, contrary to its reputation, was not at all a house of carnal pleasures, but a cadet corps and an important part of the state system. The inhabitants of the harems did not spend their days in bliss, but made a tangible career in their field. Although they never directly measured their strength with men, their power and influence were no less.

But women did not make up the entire population of the harem. In the chambers of the Sultan there were positions for which women were not suitable. From them, for example, no one would be expected to perform guard duties or hard physical work. At the same time, obviously, the Sultan had to remain the only man who entered the harem. To resolve this contradiction in the palace, in parallel with the army of slave concubines, there was an army of eunuch slaves.

Like slaves for a harem, eunuchs were bought in the markets from merchants, and already in a “ready-made” form, since Islam forbade the castration of slaves. Above all, black eunuchs were valued. They, as a rule, were deprived of any ability to reproduce in childhood, and therefore were allowed to serve in the interior of the harem. The eldest of them was Kyzlar Aga (“chief of the virgins”), whose responsibility was to protect the female population of the harem and look after all the maids and concubines. The white eunuchs who entered the palace were not always completely devoid of sex, and some could even become fathers, so they were entrusted only with the protection of the harem, hence the name of the position of the eldest of them - Capy Aga ("door manager").

It was believed that eunuchs, being neither free people nor men, are devoid of worldly attachments and therefore are faithful only to their master. However, eunuchs often pursued their own interests and were involved in the dirtiest palace and state intrigues.

But all this was not and could not be known by the Orientalists, or rather, the Exoticists. In their harem paintings, peace often reigns, which does not imply any passions. Wives and odalisques (captives or slaves), eunuchs, black servants are completely serene; they usually lie down or swim in the pool; this is just a fantasy world of a shrinking European male, for whom the harem is a space of absolute sexual freedom, full power of a man over a woman.

Everyone must have seen the famous photo with an ugly, fat woman, supposedly the beloved wife of the Sultan, and many had the opinion that all the women there were like that, if this one was beloved. And this is a lie. Harem is a variety of faces, bodies and images. However, see for yourself.

Here is the same photo that formed the opinion of many about harems. Now let's see if that's really the case.

These photos go around the Internet with the caption "Harem". In fact, these are photographs of male actors of the first state theater created on the orders of Shah Nasereddin (a great lover of European culture) at the Dar el-Funun Polytechnic School in 1890, who played satirical plays only for the palace nobility.

The organizer of this theater was Mirza Ali Akbar Khan Naggashbashi, who is considered one of the founders of modern Iranian theater. Since women were forbidden to perform on stage, these roles were played by men. The first women entered the stage in Iran in 1917.

And here are real photos of women from the sultans' harems of different periods. Ottoman odalisque, 1890

There are few photographs, because, firstly, men were forbidden to enter harems, and, secondly, photography was just beginning to develop, but some photographs, paintings and other evidence have survived that only the most beautiful were selected for harems representatives of different nations.

Women in the harem, 1912

Woman in a harem with a hookah, Turkey, 1916

Women from the harem, who went for a walk. Photo from the Museum of Peru (Istanbul)

Concubine, 1875

Gwashemasha Kadin Efendi, wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid II

Her mother, Geverin Nedak Seteney, along with her sister, was kidnapped by Turkish slave traders around 1865 in Circassia, which had been devastated by Russian troops shortly before, and sold into slavery in the harem of Sultan Abdulaziz I. On the way to Istanbul, sister Geverin, not wanting to be slave, threw herself over the side of the ship and drowned.

Circassian women were especially popular in harems for their beauty and grace.

Painting by the French Orientalist Jean-Leon Gerome "Circassian woman under a veil", written by him during his trip to Istanbul in 1875-76. The painting supposedly depicts Nedak Setenei, Gvashemash's mother.

Gulfem Hatun (Ottoman. گلفام خاتون, tour. Gülfem Hatun) - the second concubine of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, mother of Shehzade Murad, a Circassian

A very young Circassian woman in the Sultan's harem

Khyurem Sultan, the same Roksolana (1502-1558) was his favorite concubine, and then the main and legal wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent

Princess Durru Shewar (1914 - 2006) Princess of Berar and Imperial Princess of the Ottoman Empire, wife of Azam Yah, eldest son of the seventh and last Nizam of Hyderabad

And look not at children and members of the royal family. Beauty is! Durryushehvar Sultan, daughter of the last Caliph Abdulmecid Efendi and grandson of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz