EMPRESS OF THE EAST: HOW A EUROPEAN SLAVE GIRL BECAME QUEEN OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE By Leslie Peirce Basic Books, $32, 359 pages In the early 16th century, long before the advent of newspapers, one of ...
A Ukrainian girl is kidnapped from her village at the age of 15, taken as a slave to the Ottoman Empire, but ends up marrying Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The story is 500 years old, and often ...
A girl born and raised in what is now western Ukraine, was, “abducted, snatched away, ” says Leslie Peirce,” Roxelana is what she was called by the Europeans but among the Ottomans she was called ...