Fatma Achba

Princess Fatma Pesend Achba - Anchabadze ( born April 17, 1876 in Istanbul, † November 5, 1924 ibid ) was the 11th wife of Sultan Abdulhamid II

Life

Her full name was Fatma kadriye Pesend, but she was known only lovingly Pesend. Pesend came on April 17, 1876 at the Palais Achba in Istanbul to the world. Her father, Prince Khalid Sami Achba - Anchabadze, belonged to an old Abkhaz princely family. Her mother, the Princess Fatima Ismailewna Mamleewa, came from an old Tartar high noble family, whose ancestors belonged to the Golden Horde.

Early Fatma Pesend was brought into contact with the art, which is why they 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 could send her to Europe for more intensive studies to relatives, she learned at a court society the Sultan know and love.

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. Pesend the 11th wife of the ruler should be, but that did not seem to bother them further. On July 20, 1896, the wedding took place in the Yıldız Palace. On their wedding day Pesend received the title of an Ottoman Sultan and wife Grand Duchess.

A year after her marriage she gave birth to a daughter, but lived only eight months. Sultan Abdulhamid II mourned long for his daughter and let build the first children's hospital in the Ottoman Empire on the occasion of their terminal illness. Princess Pesend 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 the Grand Duchess Pesend.

But Pesend was not able to like their predecessors also to be able to keep the aging Sultan happy. But at least they managed to make Abdulhamid himself, so for four years took another wife until 1900. However, in early 1900 Abdulhamid married name with the very young Behice Maan, who came from the noble house Maan.

Grand Duchess Pesend accompanied her husband into exile in 1909 to Salonika, where they endured but 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 - Anchabadze they reported in detail about all the misfortune that had befallen her.

As of 1918 her husband, the ex -Sultan Abdulhamid, died in Beylerbeyi Palace, graying her long curly blond hair. Pesend cut her hair off, wove them into a crown and had them thrown into the Bosphorus.

During the occupation of Istanbul by the Allied Powers in 1920 to 1922, Grand Duchess Pesend kept her reputation. Only when the Turkish Republic was proclaimed in 1923, they threatened her, like the rest of the Sultan's family also, to send them into exile. But since it was already seriously ill, probably from tuberculosis, and widowed, she got reprieve. A long time they did not survive the expulsion of the royal family, she died on November 5, 1924 in her villa to Vanıköy in Istanbul.

Grand Duchess Pesend was buried at the request of her siblings on the Karacaahmed Cemetery next to her mother.