Fatma Aliye Topuz (1862-1936)

She was born in 1862 in Istanbul. Topuz could not receive any formal education but she managed to educate herself by eagerly listening private lessons that her older brother taught. When she was 17, she married to Faik Bey and had 4 daughters from him. Continue Reading

Muazzez İlmiye Çığ (1914)

She was born in 1914 in Bursa, Turkey. In 1936, she got enrolled in to Ankara University Faculty of Language, History and Geography. In the faculty, she took classes like Language and Culture of Hittite; Sumerian and Acadian Languages and Mesopotamian Culture. After graduating in Continue Reading

Halide Edip (1884-1964)

Halide Edip was born in 1882. She became one of the symbols of independent Turkish women in Independence War period and the early modernist period in Turkey. In 1893, she started studying at Uskudar American Girls’ College. She was very fluent in English and her Continue Reading

Olga Sergeevna Lebedeva (1854–after 1912)

Olga Sergeevna Lebedeva (née Barshcheva; Russian: Ольга Сергеевна Лебедева 1854–after 1912) was one of the first to introduce Russian literature to Turkey. She is recognised for her pioneering contributions to the literary networks between the Ottoman and she Russian empires at the end of the 19th century. Lebedeva attended Kazan University, studying Continue Reading

Hester Donaldson Jenkins (1869-1941)

Hester Donaldson Jenkins (1869-1941) – a teacher at the American College for Girls in Istanbul (1900-1909). Author of books on the Orient people and the Ottoman lifestyle: Behind Turkish lattices, the story of a Turkish woman’s life (1911), Ibrahim Pasha, grand vizir of Suleiman the Continue Reading