ota, نمت نوزاد خانم , house = Bargu (by birth)
Ottoman (by marriage) , father = Şaban Efendi , mother = Hatice Hanım , birth_name = Nimet Bargu , birth_date = 2 March 1902 , birth_place = Hüseyin Bey Mansion,

Vişnezade Vişnezade is a neighborhood in İstanbul, Turkey. ''Vişne'' means "sour cherry" and the neighborhood is named after İzzeti Mehmet Efendi (1629-1681) an Ottoman statesman nicknamed ''Vişnezade'' who was known to cultivate sour cherry in the pla ...

Beşiktaş Beşiktaş () is a district and municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, located on the European shore of the Bosphorus strait. It is bordered on the north by Sarıyer and Şişli, on the west by Kağıthane and Şişli, on the south by Beyoğlu, and ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

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Göksu The Göksu ( Turkish for "sky water" also called ''Geuk Su'', ''Goksu Nehri''; la, Saleph, grc, Καλύκαδνος, translit=Calycadnus) is a river on the Taşeli plateau (Turkey). Both its sources arise in the Taurus Mountains—the northern ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

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Karacaahmet Cemetery The Karacaahmet Cemetery ( tr, Karacaahmet Mezarlığı) is a 700-year-old historic cemetery, located in Üsküdar, the Asian side of Istanbul. Karacaahmet cemetery is the oldest and largest in Istanbul at , and the largest burial ground in Turkey ...

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Sunni Islam Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagre ...

Nevzad Hanım ( ota, نمت نوزاد خانم; "''young heroine''"; born Nimet Bargu and previously Nevzad Kalfa and after 1928 Nimet Seferoğlu; 2 March 1902 – 23 June 1992) was the fifth and last consort of Sultan

Mehmed VI Mehmed VI Vahideddin ( ota, محمد سادس ''Meḥmed-i sâdis'' or ''Vaḥîdü'd-Dîn''; tr, VI. Mehmed or /; 14 January 1861 – 16 May 1926), also known as Şahbaba () among the Osmanoğlu family, was the 36th and last Sultan of the O ...

of the

. She was the last woman to marry an Ottoman sultan.

Early life

Nevzad Hanım was born on 2 March 1902 in Istanbul. Her origins was Albanian. Born as Nimet Bargu, she was the daughter of Şaban Efendi, a palace gardener, and her his wife Hatice Hanım. She had a sister, Nesrin Hanım, two years younger than her, and a brother, Salih Bey. Hüseyin Bey, who was the husband of her paternal aunt, presented Nimet and her sister Nesrin in the imperial harem, where according to the custom of the Ottoman court her name was changed to Nevzad. She was then sent to the harem of

Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin ( ota, شهزادہ محمد ضیاالدین; 26 August 1873 – 30 January 1938) was an Ottoman prince, eldest son of Sultan Mehmed V and his senior consort Kamures Kadın. Early life Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin was bor ...

, where she served as

Kalfa Kalfa ( Turkish for 'apprentice, assistant master') was a general term in the Ottoman Empire for the women attendants and supervisors in service in the imperial palace. Novice girls had to await promotion to the rank of . It was a rank below th ...

in the entourage of Safiye Ünüvar's student princesses and had taken the same classes and training as they. She was educated by a woman named Ceylanyar Hanım. After Mehmed's accession to the throne in 1918, she became one of the kalfas and went over to his palace.

First marriage

Nevzad married on 1 September 1921 in the

Yıldız Palace Yıldız Palace ( tr, Yıldız Sarayı, ) is a vast complex of former imperial Ottoman pavilions and villas in Istanbul, Turkey, built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was used as a residence by the sultan and his court in the late 19th ...

. She was the last woman to marry an Ottoman sultan. She was given the title of "Second Ikbal", although, as fourth consort, she should have had that of Quarta Kadın. Mehmed was sixty-one while Nevzad was nineteen years old. The act of marrying her exacerbated the already frosty, and resentful relations between the children of later Sultan Mehmed V Reşad, and Mehmed VI's own family. Furthermore, Mehmed was so smitten by his new young consort as to be causing gossip in the capital due to his refusal to leave the harem and so part from her company. Nevzad remained childless. She had a villa on the grounds of the Yıldız Palace. Her sister Nesrin, who had been renamed Sadiru, became senior lady-in-waiting to her. When Mehmed was deposed in 1922, she and other members of his family were imprisoned in the Feriye Palace, but managed to sneak out disguised as Kalfa. When the imperial family went to exile in March 1924, she stayed at Istanbul. On Mehmed's persisted requests, she and her sister Nesrin joined the deposed Sultan in San Remo, in May 1924. Nevzad was with Mehmed at the time of his death on 15 May 1926. Sultanzade Sami Bey, son of the sultan's sister

Mediha Sultan Mediha Sultan ( ota, مدیحه سطان; "''the praised one''"; 30 July 1856 – 9 November 1928) was an Ottoman princess, the daughter of Sultan Abdulmejid I and Gülistü Kadin. She was the full sister of Sultan Mehmed VI and the half-si ...

confronted Nevzad, and attracted attention to the possibility of his uncle's having been murdered. Sami Bey, doubted that Nevzad was involved in his death. He interrogated her, and then sealed her personal property after the sultan's cupboards. Soon after Mehmed's death, Nevzad returned to Istanbul with her sister.

Second marriage

In 1928 she married captain Ziya Bey Seferoğlu, and took the name Nimet Seferoğlu. With him, she had a son and a daughter.

Memoirs

In 1937, Nevzad published her memoirs under the title ''Yıldız'dan San Remo'ya''. The memoirs were published in ''Tan'' newspaper, and noteworthy information about Sultan Mehmed VI is gained. However, serious discussions were made about the memories' reliability at that period. Apart memoirs, all her life Nevzad refused to talk about the sultan and, when a journalist, in 1974 asked her what life had been like with Sultan Mehmed VI Vahideddin, she replied: “I buried that time in the depths of my heart”.

Death

Nevzad Hanım died at the age of ninety, on 23 June 1992 in her mansion in

Issue

Nevzad Hanım had no child by Mehmed VI, but she had a son and a daughter by her second marriage.

Honour

* Order of Charity, 1st Class, ''4 September 1921''

References

Sources

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanim, Nevzad 1902 births 1992 deaths Remarried royal consorts Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Italy Nevzad 20th-century memoirists