ASIANOVERLAND.NET WINTER EUROPEAN DAY 35/208:  BOSPHOROUS TO EAST ISTANBUL, ASIA, TURKEY

“15-1-81 ISTANBUL – CRUISE ACROSS BOSPHOROUS TO ASIA  …. FOR LUNCH!!"

Historically, the Bosporus was also known as the "Strait of Constantinople",  the Thracian Bosporus, or the Strait of Istanbul. The Bosphorous  is a narrow, natural strait and an internationally important waterway located in Turkey. It forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, and divides Turkey by separating Anatolia from Thrace. It is the world's narrowest strait used for international navigation. The Bosporus connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and, by extension via the Dardanelles, the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, and by the Kerch Strait, the sea of Azov.

Together with the Dardanelles, the Bosporus forms the Turkish Straits.

Persian King Darius I the Great (522 BC – 486 BC), in an attempt to subdue the Scythian horsemen who roamed across the north of the Black Sea, crossed the Bosporus, then marched towards the River Danube. His army crossed the Bosporus using an enormous bridge made by connecting Achaemenid (Persian) boats. This bridge connected the farthest geographic tip of Asia to Europe, encompassing at least some 1,000 metres of open water. Years later, Xerxes I would construct a similar boat bridge on the Dardanelles strait (480 BC), during his invasion of Greece.

On 29 May 1453, the then-emergent Ottoman Empire conquered the city of Constantinople following a campaign in which the Ottomans constructed fortifications on both sides of the strait, in 1393 and 1451, in preparation for not only the primary battle but to assert long-term control over the Bosporus and surrounding waterways. The final 53-day campaign, which resulted in Ottoman victory, constituted an important turn in world history. The 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople is commonly regarded as an event which brought an end to the Middle Ages, and marked the transition to the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

The event also marked the end of the Byzantines—the final remnants of the Roman Empire—and the transfer of the control of the Bosporus into Ottoman hands, who made Constantinople their new capital, from which they expanded their empire in the centuries that followed.

At its peak between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Ottoman Empire had used the strategic importance of the Bosporus to expand their regional ambitions and to wrest control of the entire Black Sea area, which they regarded as an "Ottoman lake".

The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was composed of the wives, servants (both female slaves and eunuchs), female relatives and the sultan's concubines, who occupied a secluded portion of Topkapi Palace. The Harem played an important social function within the Ottoman court, and wielded political authority in Ottoman affairs, especially during the long period known as the Sultanate of Women (1533 to 1656). The highest authority in the Imperial Harem, the valide sultan, ruled over the other women in the household, and was often of slave origin herself.

The period known as the Sultanate of Women was novel for the Ottoman Empire, but not without precedent. The Seljuks, predecessors to the Ottoman Empire, often had women of nobility playing an active role in public policy and affairs, despite the concern of other male officials.

However, during the fourteenth century, the importance of women in government began to shrink considerably. This was the age of Ottoman expansion where most Sultans elected to "lead from the horse," moving with a court of advisors, viziers, and religious leaders as the army conquered new lands. In addition, Ottoman policy from the fifteenth century onward was to send young princes and their mothers to provincial governorships in Anatolia. In effect, this kept all of the women with connection to the higher levels of government far away from any place where they could hold meaningful power. Additionally, the practice of fratricide—in which an ascendant sultan would execute all his brothers to secure his throne—made the mothers and wives of princes even more dependent on their men.

From the beginning of the 16th century came the end of Ottoman expansion, and the emergence of the imperial harem into the palace proper. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, it became clear that the empire had reached its outer limits, with borders stretching thousands of miles in nearly every direction. The sultan could no longer afford to go on extended military campaigns, especially after the failure of the Siege of Vienna.

In addition, Suleiman's reign famously marked the emergence of the imperial harem into the palace and political sphere, as he became the first sultan to be officially married, to the woman later known as Hurrem Sultan. Prior to the Sultanate of Women, the sultan did not marry, but had a harem of concubines who produced him heirs, with each concubine producing one son only and following her son to the provinces they were assigned to lead instead of remaining in Istanbul.

The first Haseki Sultan was the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, Roxelana, who later became known as Hurrem Sultan after her conversion to Islam. Hurrem was assumed to be of Russian descent, but her ancestry was Ruthenian (Kingdom of Poland). The name by which the Turks referred to her, Hürrem, meant "Laughing One," or "Joyful," a testament to her character. Documents on the birth of her first son acknowledge her presence in 1521. Her significance was established with her marriage to Suleiman after the death of his mother, becoming the first wife of a sultan in more than two hundred years. Since technically all concubines were slaves, Hurrem was first freed from slavery. Then a new title Haseki Sultan (Imperial Consort) was created for her, which continued to be attributed to later wives of sultans. She primarily engaged in philanthropy, particularly in the building of communal spaces where subjects could spend time. The most prominent was the Haseki Sultan Complex in Istanbul, including a women's medical centre, school, mosque, and kitchen to feed the poor, which was built in the 1530s. She died in 1558 in Istanbul.

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