Lehistan Stories · Episode 4
Gifts for the king
Istanbul and Kraków, around 1520 to 1548: Hürrem Sultan, Roxelana, writes to the new Polish king as a friend, and sends him gifts.
1520–1548 · 82 s
The story
Around 1520, a young captive arrived at the sultan's palace in Istanbul.
Tradition says she came from Ruthenia, then part of the Kingdom of Poland.
Europe called her Roxelana. The Turks called her Hürrem, the joyful one.
Sultan Suleiman fell in love, and broke palace custom to marry her.
In 1548, the Polish king Sigismund the Old died, and his son Sigismund Augustus took the throne.
Hürrem wrote to congratulate the new king, and sent her trusted man, Hasan Agha.
The king wrote back in friendship.
In her reply, she passed on the sultan's words: with the old king, they were like brothers; with this one, like father and son.
And so the letter would not arrive empty-handed, she sent gifts: shirts and trousers with sashes, six handkerchiefs and a towel.
Not worthy of a king, she wrote, but next time she would have something made specially.
Her letters are still kept in the archives in Warsaw.
A captive from Poland's borderlands, writing to a Polish king as a friend.
What is documented, and what is told
Hürrem's letters to Sigismund Augustus are documented: the originals are in the Central Archives of Historical Records (AGAD) in Warsaw, and N. R. Uçtum published them in Belleten in 1980. The congratulations, Hasan Agha, the sultan's words about brothers and about father and son, the list of gifts and her apology for them come from those letters, in our paraphrase. That she came from Ruthenia, then part of the Kingdom of Poland, is the usual account but rests on later and literary sources, which is why the film says "tradition says". The film gives no date for the letters: the date of 1 April 1548 found in some popular accounts is the day Sigismund the Old died, so it cannot be the date of a reply to his son. Her daughter, Mihrimah Sultan, also wrote to the king with similar gifts.
Sources
- N. R. Uçtum, the letters of Hürrem and Mihrimah Sultan to King Sigismund II Augustus, Belleten 44 (1980), from the originals in AGAD
- Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych (AGAD), Warsaw: Turkish documents
- Wikipedia, Hürrem Sultan
- Marzanna Pomorska, Maciej Kwaśniewski, Za co Polacy kochają Turcję / Polonyalılar Türkiye'yi neden sever (2023)
Credits and rights
The stories draw on Za co Polacy kochają Turcję / Polonyalılar Türkiye'yi neden sever by Marzanna Pomorska and Maciej Kwaśniewski (2023). The book is its authors' work: we tell the stories in our own words, check every fact independently and reproduce none of its text or pages.
Historical paintings are in the public domain. Each is credited with its artist, collection and source.
Archive pictures
- Istanbul, Matrakçı Nasuh, c. 1537 (public domain)
- Roxelana, Follower of Titian, 16th century (public domain)
- Suleiman the Magnificent, Workshop of Titian, c. 1538–40 (public domain)
- Cracovia, Nuremberg Chronicle (colour added), Hartmann Schedel, 1493 (public domain)
- Sigismund II Augustus, Lucas Cranach the Younger, c. 1553 (public domain)
- Letter of Hürrem Sultan to Sigismund II Augustus, AGAD, Warsaw (public domain)
- Napkin or hand towel, Ottoman, 18th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (public domain)
Scenes marked "Illustration" are AI-generated and show no real people. The voice-over and the music were produced with AI tools.
The films and texts are © TURKPOL, shared under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 licence: you may share and adapt them for non-commercial purposes, crediting "TURKPOL, Lehistan Stories" with a link to this page.
Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0 · For any other use, write to info@turkpol.org.pl.