Chelengk

Originally a çelenk was "a bird's feather which one attaches to the turban as a sign of bravery"{{cite book |quote={{lang|fr|Plume d'oiseau qu'on attache sur le bonnet en signe de vaillance}} |author=Abel Pavet de Courteille |author-link=Abel Pavet de Courteille |author2=Mahdī Khān Astarābādī |author3=Muḥammed Khuweyyi |name-list-style=amp |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001006232 |title=Dictionnaire Turk-Oriental |publisher=Imprimerie impériale |location=Paris |year=1870 }} but by the end of the 18th century, the {{lang|tr|çelenk}} had become institutionalized in Ottoman military practice and continued to be awarded for military merit up to the 1820s.{{cite web |url=http://www.obarsiv.com/english/Ottoman_Orders_and_Decorations.html |title=Ottoman Orders and Decorations as Forms of Honor |publisher=Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120501104355/http://www.obarsiv.com/english/Ottoman_Orders_and_Decorations.html |archivedate=1 May 2012 }} It was a jewelled aigrette consisting of a central flower with leaves and buds, and upward-facing rays.

In modern Turkish, a {{lang|tr|çelenk}} is a wreath or garland, a circular decoration made from flowers and leaves, usually arranged as an ornament.

File:HoratioNelson1.jpg, by Lemuel Francis Abbott, with a chelengk in his hat. Abbott seems to have painted this portrait without seeing Nelson's chelengk.]]

A specially-made chelengk was awarded to Horatio Nelson by Sultan Selim III in honour of the Battle of the Nile in 1798. This was the first time that a chelengk was conferred on a non-Ottoman. The usual seven rays were augmented to thirteen, as described in a contemporary letter:

{{blockquote |text=The Aigrette is a kind of feather; it represents a hand with thirteen fingers, which are of diamonds, and allusive to the thirteen ships taken and destroyed at Alexandria, the size that of a child's hand about six years old when opened; the center diamond and the four round it may be worth about £1000 each, and there are about 300 others well set.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I7BWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA340 |title=The Naval chronicle |volume=1 |editor=James Stanier Clarke |editor-link=James Stanier Clarke |editor2=Stephen Jones |editor3=John Jones |publisher=J. Gold |year=1799 |page=340 }} }}

Nelson's chelengk was bought by the Society for Nautical Research in 1929 following a national appeal{{cite news |title=The Chelengk of Nelson – Proposed Purchase for the Nation |work=The Times |location=London |date=8 November 1929 |page=10 (with photograph) }} and placed in the National Maritime Museum. It was stolen in 1951 by Taters Chatham and never recovered.{{cite web |url=http://www.artfund.org/what-we-do/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/780/the-chelengk |title=The Chelengk |publisher=The Art Fund |accessdate=11 November 2012 |archive-date=5 September 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140905191111/http://www.artfund.org/what-we-do/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/780/the-chelengk |url-status=dead }}

Selim III also gave a chelengk to Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov after the capture of Corfu from the French in 1799.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

• Wreath
• Sarpech

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |author=Roy Adkins |author2=Lesley Adkins |name-list-style=amp |title=The War for All Oceans: From Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo |publisher=Abacus |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-349-11916-8 |page=38 }}
• {{cite web |url=http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/36519.html |title=Replica of Nelson's chelengk |publisher=National Maritime Museum }}

Category:Military awards and decorations of the Ottoman Empire

Category:Turkish words and phrases

Category:Horatio Nelson

Category:Award items

Category:Turbans

Category:Orders, decorations, and medals of the Ottoman Empire