Filizten Kalfa

Filizten Kalfa was born in 1861 or 1862[1] in Pitsunda, Abkhazia, to an Abkhazian princely family, Çaabalurhva. Born as Naime Çaabalurhva, she was the daughter of Prince Şahin Bey Çaabalurhva and Princess Adilhan Hanım Loo, an Abkhazian. She was also the cousin of Peyveste Hanım, ninth wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, whose mother Hesna was a relative of her father.[2]

Naime came to Istanbul at a very young age. She was given the name Filizten (meaning "Tendril bodied"), and was presented at the age of fourteen or fifteen in the entourage of Sultan Murad V shortly after his accession to the throne, which occurred on 30 May 1876. 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.[1]

Filizten was appointed a "Duty Kalfa". After Murad's deposition, she was promoted to the rank of "Senior Kalfa". She was interested in playing piano and oud. She was medium-tall, and had blonde hair.[1] Filizten spent 28 years confined in the Çırağan Palace along with Sultan Murad V, and the other members Murad's entourage.

In her seventies, Filizten also 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.[3]

Filizten died in around 1945[1] at Erenköy, Istanbul.[4]

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.[5]

In the 2012 Movie The Sultan's Women Filizten is portrayed by a Turkish Actress Deniz Aylan.[6]

• Harun Açba (2007). Kadın efendiler: 1839–1924. Profil. ISBN 978-975-996-109-1.
• 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.