Issue Hatice Sultan Religion Sunni Islam | Father Sami Achba Spouse Abdul Hamid II (m. 1896) | |
 | ||
House House of Anchabadze (by birth) House of Osman (by marriage) Mother Fatıma Ismailevna Mamleeva Died 5 November 1924, Istanbul, Turkey Places of burial Karacaahmet Cemetery, Istanbul, Turkey, Üsküdar, Istanbul, Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey, Turkey Similar Abdul Hamid II, Peyveste Hanımefendi, Naciye Hanım, Behice Hanım, Müsfikâ Kadın Efendi | ||
Pesend Hanım (born Princess Fatma Kadriye Achba; 13 February 1876 – 5 November 1924) was the Empress consort of the Ottoman Empire as the eleventh wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
Contents
Early life and education
Empress Pesend Hanım was born on 13 February 1876 in the Achba Palace at Istanbul. Her father, Prince Sami Bey Achba known as "Sami Pasha", belonged to an old Abkhazian princely family and her mother, Princess Fatıma Hanım Mamleeva, daughter of Ismail Bey Mamleeva, came from an old Tartar high noble family, whose ancestors belonged to the Golden Horde. Her paternal grandaunt was Verdicenan Kadınefendi, a wife of Sultan Abdülmecid I.
At a young age Pesend was brought into contact with the art, which is why she also began to paint and draw at the age of seven years. Apart from that she had a penchant for riding. However, before her father was able to send her to his relatives to Europe for more intensive studies, she was given to the palace where she learned at a court society.
Marriage to Abdul Hamid
Although Sultan Abdulhamid II was 34 years older than Pesend, she consented to the will of their parents in the marriage proposal of the Sultan. The marriage took place on 20 July 1896 in the Yıldız Palace. A year after her marriage she gave birth to her only child, Hatice Sultan, but the girl died eight months after birth. After the death of Hatice Sultan, Abdul Hamid II mourned long for his her and build a children's pediatric hospital. Pesend Hanim was commissioned shortly after the completion of the hospital with its leadership. Until the deposition of Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1909 by the Young Turks, the hospital was conducted under the supervision of Fatma Pesend. However, Fatma Pesend had not succeeded in binding the sultan to her, and already in 1900, Abdul Hamid II had moved to another young noblewoman. Soon, he made his new favorite Behice Hanımefendi his 12th wife, who came from the noble house Maan.
Pesend accompanied her husband into an exile in 1909 after Salonika, where they endured only a year and returned to Istanbul. From then on, she led a solitary life and began to mourn. In letters to her sister, Princess Refhan Achba, she reported in detail about all the misfortune that had befallen her. When in 1918 her husband, Sultan Abdulhamid died in the Beylerbeyi Palace, she grizzled her long curly blond hair. She cut her hair off, wove them into a crown and had them thrown into the Bosphorus.
Later years and death
During the occupation of Istanbul by the Allied Powers in 1920 to 1922, Fatma Pesend kept her reputation. Only when the Turkish Republic was proclaimed in 1923, they threatened her, like the rest of the Sultan's family, to send them into exile. Pesend died in her villa at Vaniköy on 5 November 1924 and was buried, at the request of her siblings, at the Karacaahmet Cemetery at Üsküdar next to her mother.