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Count Alexander of Montenegro (1585? –1648?), also known as Şehzade Yahya (sometimes spelled Jachia or Jahja), was an impostor and a self-claimed pretender to the Ottoman throne who claimed to be the son of Sultan Murad III.
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| Count Alexander of Montenegro | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 1585 (self claimed) Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (self claimed) | ||||
| Died | 1648 (aged 62–63) Kotor | ||||
| Burial | Kotor, Montenegro | ||||
| Spouse | Anna Caterina of Drisht | ||||
| Issue | Maurice Elena | ||||
| |||||
| House | House of Osman (self claimed) | ||||
| Father | Murad III (self claimed) | ||||
| Mother | Safiye Sultan (self claimed) | ||||
| Religion | Orthodox, formerly Sunni Islam (claimed) | ||||
Background
According to Alexander's own writings, when his brother, Mehmed III, became Sultan, he followed the Ottoman custom of executing all of his brothers (potential rival claimants to the Ottoman throne). Yahya's mother Safiye was concerned that this could also eventually happen to him after the death of his father, so he was smuggled out of the empire, first to Greece, and then to present-day Bulgaria. He was then supposedly baptized at an Orthodox Christian monastery, where he lived for the next eight years of his life.[1]
Battle for Ottoman throne
Alexander's narrative then claims that eventually, Alexander's two older brothers died, but in 1603, since Alexander had escaped the country to avoid fratricide, his nephew Ahmed I became the Ottoman sultan. Alexander believed that as the next oldest son of Murad III, he was next in line to be Ottoman Sultan and felt cheated out of his rightful destiny. He would dedicate the rest of his life to gaining the Ottoman throne. However, the standard Ottoman practice at the time for determining the succession was not birth order of sons; instead the Ottoman laws of succession to the throne stated that after the death of their father, the Ottoman princes would fight among themselves until one emerged triumphant.
From 1603 on, Alexander made frequent trips to northern and western Europe to gain support for his claim to the throne (visiting Florence, Madrid, Rome, Kraków, Antwerp, Prague, and other cities). At one point he managed to win the support of the Tatar Khan Shahin, and of the Cossacks as well.[2] Between 1614 and 1617, he schemed with Serbian Orthodox Christian bishops in the Sanjak of Prizren and Western Roman Catholic bishops and leaders as part of his strategy to gain the Ottoman throne. A few years later, with the assistance of Russian and Ukrainian cossacks, he led a fleet of 130 ships and unsuccessfully attacked Constantinople. He died in 1648 or 1649[2] on the Montenegrin coast, where he was involved in a rebellion organized by the Roman Catholic bishops of Shkodër and Bar.
None of Alexander's statements regarding his identity or his temptative to conquest of the Ottoman throne are supported by historical evidence, and he currently receives no academic credence.
Alexander married an Albanian noblewoman named Anna Caterina of Drisht, the daughter of Duke Peter, Count of Drisht, in the early 1630s, when Yahya started calling himself Duke of that region. Anna Caterina was supposedly descended from the national Albanian hero Skanderbeg. They had two children, a son and a daughter:[3]
- Maurice of Drisht (1635 - 1693). Born in Turin and dead in Palmanova as captain of Venice. He married Eleonora Romano of Gorizia and had two daughters:
- Maria Anna of Drisht (1674 - 14 August 1694). Born in Palmanova, dead in Udine.
- Elena of Drisht (4 August 1675 - 29 August 1727). Born in Palmanova, dead in Udine. She married Lucrezio Treo of Udine.
- Elena of Drisht (1638 - 1697). Born in Turin. In 1658 she married the pisan noble Andrea Biagi and had two children:
- Caterina Biagi. She married Ottaviano Alasio of Pisa.
- Vincenzo Biagi. Unmarried and without issue, he was captain under the King of Spain.
In the TV series "Muhteşem Yüzyıl: Kösem" Alexander was played by Berk Cankat. In the series, the name Alexander was an alias: his real name was Iskender and he was in fact a real son of Sultan Murad III and Safiye Sultan, saved from the execution of the Law of Fratricide by his mother. Having grown up believing himself a commoner, Iskender made no claim for the throne and expressed a great disinterest in becoming sultan. However, news of his true identity gave Sultan Ahmed's enemies a powerful potential claimant in whose name they might rise to rebellion, and so Iskender was executed under his nephew's orders.
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