Istanbul is a city of emperors, sultans, and conquerors – or so the history books like to tell us. But as is no doubt obvious, there is another history running alongside theirs. It is of women who shaped empires, challenged traditions, and gave this city its fierce, unyielding spirit.
This series celebrates twenty women who have shaped Istanbul across the centuries. However, it is not a ranking, nor a claim to completeness. Rather, it’s a curated selection of women whose work has shaped fields from politics and literature to science, arts, and activism.
Part 1 highlights the trailblazers of Istanbul’s history. These women broke barriers in politics, challenged the norms of their time, and carved out new paths.
Theodora (500-548)
In the roaring arenas of Constantinople, a young performer once drew crowds with her daring and charm. She was the daughter of a bear trainer. Few could imagine this woman would one day stand beside an emperor and shape the fate of the Byzantine Empire. Theodora: a woman who rose from spectacle to sovereignty.
Theodora became the wife of Justinian I. This was already a scandal. But this unapologetically bold woman went further, traumatizing the elite by refusing to sit quietly behind the throne. She became Justinian’s closest political ally — steering diplomacy, shaping laws, and rewriting the rules of power.
In 532, Constantinople burned. The Nika Revolt swept through the city, and the throne shook. While whispers urged flight, Theodora stood her ground. In the heart of the palace, she declared to Justinian: emperors do not flee. She sent General Belisarius into the streets, crushing the uprising and securing the throne.
Theodora defied expectations not only in politics but across society. She outlawed forced prostitution, expanded divorce rights, and gave women control over their property. These laws reshaped daily life in Constantinople, giving women unprecedented freedom and agency.
Anna komnene (1083-1153)
Anna Komnene was born in the Great Palace of Constantinople, heir to the Komnenos dynasty. The eldest daughter of Emperor Alexios I, she grew up surrounded by tutors, scholars, and the intricacies of imperial life. She learnt early that knowledge was power, and she meant to wield it.
Her youth unfolded in an empire under siege. The Seljuk Turks pressed from the east, Crusaders advanced from the west, and Mongols pushed toward the Danube. Byzantium stood at the crossroads of war and faith, and Anna lived in its heart, witnessing both its grandeur and its peril.
Destined to inherit influence, Anna saw her future collapse when her father died and the crown passed to her younger brother, John II. Resolute to the end, she plotted to raise her husband to the imperial throne. The plan failed, and her empire became only a memory.
She turned her confinement at the Kecharitomene Monastery into a forge for memory and meaning. There, Anna wrote The Alexiad — a vivid chronicle of her father’s reign, war, faith, and survival. It is a work of rare insight, written with the sharpness and depth of one who had lived at its heart.
HÜrrem Sultan/Roxelana (1502-1558)
When you think of the Ottoman Empire at its height, you might picture Suleiman the Magnificent ruling from the opulent halls of Topkapı Palace. Behind those walls, however, moved a formidable woman whose intelligence and ambition quietly shaped the empire.
Born around 1502 in what is now Ukraine, she was Alexandra Lisowska. Her life changed forever when a Tatar raid swept through her town, and she was taken to Constantinople to join Sultan’s harem. For most, such a fate meant anonymity. Hürrem’s story was different.
Behind the walls of Topkapı Palace, Alexandra Lisowska learned Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. She immersed herself in music, rhetoric, and the arts. But her deepest pursuit was politics and diplomacy. Unknown to many, Hürrem was quietly preparing to rise far beyond her station.
The turning point came when Suleiman the Magnificent married Hürrem. It was a groundbreaking move that defied the recent tradition of sultans avoiding formal legal marriages.
Hürrem didn’t remain a wife only. Even before marriage, she had advised the Sultan through letters. Now she was a true partner in power. She reshaped the court, corresponded with diplomats, and commissioned lasting works of architecture. Her influence was so immense that it changed the course of the empire itself.
Prince Mustafa, the Sultan’s eldest son and a favorite of both the army and the people, was the rightful heir — so beloved that even his magnificent father feared him. In 1553, Suleiman ordered his execution, an act in which Hürrem is believed to have played a decisive role. For her, it marked the point of no return, cementing her influence over the Sultan and the court.
Some remember her as ruthless, others as visionary. Yet Hürrem Sultan remains one of Istanbul’s most inspiring women. Her journey from captivity to queen left a legacy still spoken of centuries later.
KÖSEM SULTAN (1589-1651)
In the corridors of Topkapı Palace, whispers shaped empires. Kösem Sultan was not afraid to turn whispers into weapons. She rose to embody the height of the “Sultanate of Women” — when imperial mothers became regents, counselors, and kingmakers.
Born Anastasia on the Greek island of Tinos, Kösem Sultan entered the Ottoman court as a concubine. Over time, she became the wife of Sultan Ahmed I, mother to Murad IV and Ibrahim I, and grandmother of Mehmed IV. She left an indelible mark on the empire’s politics and legacy.
Her rise was neither swift nor accidental. She built her legacy step by step. Even in her early tenure, Kösem persuaded Sultan Ahmed I to spare the life of his half-brother, Prince Mustafa. It was an extraordinary choice as fratricide was the rule of succession. This shattered centuries of tradition and changed the course of the throne.
From that moment, her influence spread throughout the empire. She left her mark in both stone and life. In Istanbul, her legacy endures in the Çinili Mosque of Üsküdar and the Büyük Valide Han near the Grand Bazaar. She built shelters for orphaned girls, championed education, and freed her female slaves. She shaped what she could and left the rest to history.
But in the Ottoman court, power had always been fragile and, in her case, deadly. By 1651, political plots closed in. Guards stormed her chambers, and Kösem, once the empire’s most formidable woman, was killed by the very intrigues she had mastered.
Yaşar NEZIHE BÜKÜLMEZ (1882–1971)
Yaşar Nezihe was born into poverty in the narrow alleys of Samatya. At six, her mother died. Left with an alcoholic father and a paralyzed aunt, she sold flowers on the streets and stitched garments for pennies. Istanbul offered little mercy to the poor — especially to women. Yet even in those raw, early battles, her spirit refused to break.
She taught herself to read and write and entered the male-dominated world of literature under the pen name Yaşar. It was a deliberate choice to evade the barriers imposed on women.
With fire in her words, she exposed injustice in vivid detail, naming its architects: the factory owners who exploited workers, the state that silenced voices, and the society that confined women to the shadows.
In 1923, Yaşar Nezihe made history with 1 Mayıs, Turkey’s first openly socialist May Day poem. Her fiery verses, championing labor rights, landed her in court and were seized by the state. However, this was just one episode in a life marked by fearless determination.
Yaşar Nezihe Bükülmez became the first Turkish woman unveiled in the Ottoman press. Not stopping there, she divorced when the world whispered it was impossible. Through it all, she kept writing truths that others only dared to speak.
Rejected by conservatives for her politics and sidelined by leftist elites for her independence, Yaşar Nezihe remained uncompromising. When the Surname Law demanded a last name, she chose Bükülmez (Unbendable) — a name that spoke her story.
HALIDE EDIP ADIVAR (1884–1964)
Halide Edib Adıvar was born in Istanbul to a prominent family. Her father, Mehmet Edib Bey, served as secretary to Sultan Abdül Hamid II; her mother came from a family with Mawlavi ties. From an early age, Halide Edib was surrounded by debate, politics, and ideas of reform.
She started her education at home, guided by private tutors who drilled her in languages, philosophy, and sociology. By her teens, she translated English novels and actively engaged with French philosophy. Her studies and philosophical debates shaped her into a leading figure among Istanbul’s intellectual elite.
But her true mythos emerged during the Turkish War of Independence. As Greek forces occupied İzmir in 1919, Halide Edib climbed the podium at Sultanahmet Square and roared to a sea of citizens: “The Turks have no weapons left… except their foreheads of iron and their chests of steel!” Overnight, she became both the voice and the face of the Turkish nationalist movement.
Dressed in khaki uniform, she nursed the wounded, drafted speeches for Mustafa Kemal, and earned the rank of onbaşı (corporal). In Ateşten Gömlek (The Shirt of Flame), she chronicled the War of Independence with the passion of a nation at its defining hour.
Her nationalist legacy was complex. At one point, she even entertained the idea of an American mandate – a stance that would later haunt her reputation. Yet she was not alone: Her life reflected the contradictions, struggles, and ambitions of her generation.
Şükûfe NIHAL (1896-1973)
As Turkey was reborn from the ruins of the empire, Şükûfe Nihal carved her own path as a poet, teacher, and activist. Independent and fearless, she shaped literature, politics, and the lives of women in Turkey.
Şükûfe’s grandfather was the chief physician to Sultan Murad V, and her father – a well-read doctor with many passions – filled their home with poets, politicians, and thinkers. In that lively intellectual world, languages and ideas came easily. However, one thing was absent: the voices of women.
Determined to forge her own path, Şükûfe Nihal applied to the newly founded women’s university in 1914. Rejected not for lack of merit but for being married, she made a bold move: She divorced her husband, Mithat Sadullah, to continue her studies.
Her ideas soon outgrew the classroom walls. In 1919, she stood beside Halide Edib Adıvar at the historic Sultanahmet and Fatih rallies. Her fiery words urged Turkish women to step into the struggle for the nation’s future.
Her voice for freedom soon turned into a voice for equality. Şükûfe Nihal became a driving force in the Women’s People’s Party, fighting for women’s political rights. She carried that same fight into print, contributing to reform and equality through the feminist periodical Türk Kadın Yolu (The Turkish Women’s Path).
Şükûfe Nihal’s presence was magnetic, commanding attention in literary and political circles. Leading men of letters – Nazım Hikmet, Ahmet Kutsi Tecer, Faruk Nafiz Çamlıbel, and Osman Fahri – respected her ideas and were inspired by her vision. Yet it was her commitment to women’s rights and social progress that has left a profound mark on Turkish society.
NEZIHE MUHIDDIN (1889-1958)
On Mis Street — a narrow alley off Istiklal Avenue — once lived a woman who turned defiance into her daily ritual. Nezihe Muhiddin was a writer, activist, and political pioneer whose vision reshaped the path of Turkish women.
She grew up in Kandilli. Her father, Muhiddin Bey, was a well-read criminal judge. Her mother, Zehra Hanım, was deeply engaged in Istanbul’s intellectual circles. Surrounded by books and ideas, Nezihe Muhiddin quickly realized one thing: women must speak for themselves.
On June 16, 1923, months before the Republic, she founded the Kadınlar Halk Fırkası (Women’s People’s Party). It was a bold, unprecedented step in a country where women had no political rights. The government swiftly shut it down and expected quiet acceptance.
But she didn’t step aside. Instead, she founded the Türk Kadınlar Birliği (Turkish Women’s Union). It became a central force in the campaign for women’s suffrage in Turkey. With Türk Kadın Yolu (The Turkish Woman’s Path), the country’s first feminist periodical, she redefined resistance itself.
Over her lifetime, Nezihe Muhiddin authored more than twenty novels and hundreds of essays, stories, operettas, and screenplays. Her work – like her activism – explored identity, autonomy, love, and injustice, always through the eyes of women navigating the turbulent changes of early 20th-century Istanbul.
Her name, however, is largely absent from history. This erasure partly stems from a dominant narrative that portrays women’s suffrage as a “gift” from Mustafa Kemal. Yet Nezihe Muhiddin and her fellow activists were far from passive: They demanded rights long before the state was ready to listen.
TÜRKAN SAYLAN (1935-2009)
Türkan Saylan was an academic, doctor, and educator — a woman who lived by a simple truth: medicine without compassion, and education without purpose, fail the human spirit. She devoted her life to proving that truth.
Born in 1935, Türkan Saylan dedicated herself to medicine. It was never personal ambition that drove her. She cared little for academic titles, lucrative positions, or hospital prestige. Perhaps it was something simpler — a calling.
For 21 years, she served as the voluntary head physician at the Istanbul Lepra Hospital, treating patients society had abandoned. She also took her work beyond the walls, traveling to Anatolia’s remote villages where medicine was scarce and hope even scarcer.
There, she treated leprosy patients with her own hands, not only healing their bodies but restoring their dignity. She challenged stigma and showed that science, at its best, is an act of love.
Saylan’s most enduring legacy lies in the Association for the Support of Contemporary Living (ÇYDD), which she co-founded in 1989. Through ÇYDD, she opened doors for countless girls to look beyond their villages and envision a different life.
In her final days, this powerful woman faced illness, political pressure, and unjust accusations. ÇYDD was raided by police. Yet, ill and under duress, she stood with unwavering courage until her death on May 18, 2009.
SIRIN TEKELI (1944-2017)
Born in 1944 in Ankara, Şirin Tekeli became a pioneering voice in Turkish feminism, blending academic rigor with a deep commitment to social justice. Her journey significantly reshaped the landscape of gender equality in Turkey.
In 1967, she broke new ground as the first female academic in the political science department at Istanbul University. There, she delved into the intersections of gender, democracy, and Turkish political history. Simultaneously, she translated over 25 seminal works, bridging global feminist theory with Turkey’s unique sociopolitical context.
However, Şirin Tekeli was never confined to the ivory tower. She brought her ideas into public life – into the streets, libraries, and living rooms of Turkey. In 1981, protesting the military regime’s suppression of academic freedom, she resigned from her university position.
In the years that followed, Tekeli became a key organizer of Turkey’s first legal feminist protest after the 1980 coup: the 1987 demonstration against domestic violence. This landmark event not only brought urgent issues into public view but also energized a movement eager for change.
She went on to co-found transformative institutions, such as the Women’s Works Library and Information Center in Balat in 1990. It became a hub and a permanent space to preserve women’s histories and voices.
Tekeli’s life was one of action, vision, and fierce compassion. When she passed away in 2017, she donated her body to medical science – a final act of service, of giving beyond the self.
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