Sultan Suleiman, whose life story is inextricably linked with the Golden Age of the Ottoman dynasty, is the greatest ruler of his country in its entire history. It was under him that the Turkish Empire reached its highest political power and large-scale territorial conquests.
The early life story of Sultan Suleiman
The future ruler was born in the city of Trabzon (the former Greek colony of Trebizond, known for the preaching of St. Andrew the First-Called) in 1494. His father was Sultan Selim I, and his mother was the daughter of the Crimean Tatar Khan Mengli Giray. Until the age of eighteen, the young man was a beylerbey (governor) in the city of Kaffa, and later was sent to Manisa, becoming the governor of his father there. It should be noted that Manisa was, according to Ottoman traditions, a kind of "educational nursery" for the future sultans of the empire, where the princes practiced in the management of public affairs. By the way, it is here that the future Sultan Suleiman, whose history is connected with the peak of the empire, meets two European slaves, who subsequently greatly influenced both his life and the fate of the whole state: the Slavic Roksolana, who became his beloved wife, actually regent in the palace during long military campaigns of the Sultan, and the mother of the next ruler Selim II of, and the slave of Italian origin, who was destined to become friends with the young prince, and later to become his brilliant vizier and in fact perhaps the most important yshim person in the country, known by the name of Ibrahim Pasha. Selim I died in 1520, and Suleiman becomes the great Sultan at the age of 26.
History of the Ottoman Empire: Sultan Suleiman and his rule
He became the ninth ruler of the state. As soon as he ascended the throne, he immediately began preparations for large-scale conquests and the expansion of the Ottoman territories. After a year of his tenure in power, Hungary was declared war, after which the Turkish army seizes vast territories right up to the Danube. Then follows the conquest of the Mediterranean island of Rhodes, on which the knightly order of the Hospitallers, who restrained Turkish rule in this sea, has long been settled. The Turks tried to take possession of the island earlier, during the time of Selim I, but only the new young ruler succeeded in 1522. Four years later, the Sultan Suleiman, whose history of transformations changes the whole face of Europe during this period, making the continental powers tremble before the appearance of a militant ruler, again breaks into the 80,000th army in Hungary, effectively destroying this state and coming close to the borders of the Habsburg empire.
The next military campaign begins after three years already against Austria. For a crescent, from September 27 to October 14, the famous siege of Vienna continues, but the Turks failed to take the well-fortified city. As history will show, Vienna has become the last frontier of the brilliant conquests of the Ottoman Port. In the following decades, three more Austro-Turkish wars took place (in the forties, fifties and sixties of the sixteenth century), as a result of which Hungary was again divided, and the Turks gained new possessions in Europe.
In addition to the constant invasions of the Balkans, Suleiman the Magnificent had political interests in the East. This led to constant clashes with Safavid Persia, as a result of which the latter was destroyed. In 1538, the Ottoman Porte made a tremendous campaign in Arabia and India. As a result of all these campaigns, the state extended its territorial possessions to a significant part of the Hungarian kingdom, Transcaucasia, Mesopotamia, North Africa, and Arabia. At this moment, the Ottoman Empire reached its maximum power in its entire history.
Sultan Suleiman: a story of personal life
As befits the eastern ruler, Suleiman was a very loving sovereign. In his life there were many mistresses from the harem. Among them, it is especially worth highlighting two rivals - the Circassian Makhidevran-Sultan and the Slavic Hurrem (aka Roksolana). The latter, as a result of many years of intrigue, became the beloved wife of the Sultan and an extremely important person in public administration, in fact replacing the ruler during his military campaigns. The latter, by the way, was destined to die during one of his campaigns. This happened in 1566, during the siege of Sigetvara - a fortress in eastern Hungary.