Filizten Hanım

Filizten Kalfa was born in 1861 or 1862[2] in Pitsunda, Abkhazia. Born as Naime Çaabalurhva, she was a member of Abkhazian princely family, Çaabalurhva. Her father was Prince Şahin Bey Çaabalurhva, and her mother was Princess Adilhan Hanım Loo, also an Abkhazian. She was paternal first cousin of Peyveste Hanım, ninth wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.[3]

Naime came to Istanbul, where she was presented at the age of fourteen or fifteen in the entourage of Sultan Murad V shortly before his accession to the throne. She was a gift to the palace from her mistress at the time, a lady formerly a Treasure, and in palace service herself in Murad's entourage, but who had left the palace and married one Tayyar Pasha. Here her name according to the custom of the Ottoman court was changed Filizten.[1] She was medium-tall, had blonde hair,[4] was somewhat heavy,[1] and was incomparably beautiful.[5]

Filizten was appointed a "Duty Kalfa", after Murad's accession to the throne[5] on 30 May 1876, after the deposition of his uncle Sultan Abdulaziz.[6] After reigning for three months, he was deposed on 30 August 1876,[7] due to mental instability and was imprisoned in the Çırağan Palace. Filizten also followed him into confinement.[8] In about 1878, she was elevated to the rank of "Senior Foot".[9] She married Murad in about 1879.[10] She remained childless.[11] She was widowed at Murad's death in 1904, after which her ordeal in the Çırağan Palace came to an end.[12]

At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Filizten as being the adjunct member of the family decided to stay in Istanbul, where she died in around 1945.[2]

In her seventies, Filizten wrote memoirs, which constituted the majority of the biography of Murad compiled by the journalist and avocational historian Ziya Șakir under the title Çırağan Sarayında 28 sene beşinci Murad'ın hayatı (Turkish for "Twenty-Eight Years in the Çırağan Palace:The Life of Murad V"). She was in excellent health, in complete command of her faculties, and aware of what Ziya Șakir called her responsibility to history in retelling the events she witnessed in Çırağan Palace. The memoir is an oral history by one who witnessed the events of many years earlier. In fact Filizten stated in her memoirs that she did not keep a diary.[13]

Ziya Șakir's idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, the authenticity of the memoir itself has never been in doubt. Immediately after publication it formed a primary source for the articles on Murad V published by the eminent historian İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, who directly identified the memoir's author as Filizten Hanım, gözde of Murad V. Today it continues to form a primary source for the life of this Sultan in particular, and for life in the late Ottoman palace harem in general.[14]

• In the 2012 Movie The Sultan's Women Filizten is portrayed by a Turkish Actress Deniz Aylan.[15]

• Ottoman Imperial Harem
• List of consorts of the Ottoman sultans

• Brookes, Douglas Scott (2010). The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-78335-5.