Nevzad Hanım


Nevzad Hanım was the fifth wife of Sultan Mehmed VI of the Ottoman Empire.

Early life

Nevzad Hanım was born on 2 March 1902, in the mansion of Sultan Mehmed V's secretary Hüseyin Bey in Vişnezade, Beşiktaş, Istanbul. Born as Nimet Bargu, she was a member of the Albanian family, Bargu. Her father was Şaban Efendi Bargu, a palace gardener, and her mother was Hatice Hanım. She had two younger sisters, Emine Hayriye Nesrin Hanım and Fatma Tüzehra Nevzer Hanım, and a younger brother, Salih Bey.
Hüseyin Bey's wife Eda Hanım was the sister of her father. In 1913, on Eda Hanım's request, Demsan Hanım presented Nimet and her sister Nesrin in the imperial harem, where according to the costum of the Ottoman court her name was changed to Nevzad.
She was then sent to the harem his son Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin, where she served in the entourage of Safiye Ünüvar's student princesses and had taken the same classes and training as they. 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. She was given the title of "Second Fortunate". 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 Sultan Reşad, and Mehmed's own family. Furthermore, Mehmed was so smitten by his new wife 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. When Mehmed was deposed in 1922, she and other members of his family were imprisoned in the Feriye Palace. When the imperial family went to exile in March 1924, she went to live in with her aunt Fatma Hanım. On Mehmed's persisted requests, she joined the deposed Sultan in San Remo, in May 1924. Here they stayed in Villa Magnolia. After some months her sister Nesrin also joined her in San Remo.
Nevzad was with Mehmed at the time of his death on 15 May 1926. Sami Bey, son of the sultan's sister Mediha Sultan confronted Nevzad, and attracted attention to the possibility of his uncle's having being 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. The same year she gave birth to a girl Sıdıka Selçuk, followed by a son Şaban Mustafa in 1931.

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.

Death

Nevzad Hanım died at the age of ninety, on 23 June 1992 in her mansion in Göksu, Istanbul, and was buried in Karacaahmet Cemetery.

Honour