Sabina Toziya

Sabina Toziya — Biography

Sabina Toziya, born Sabina Ajrula, was born on 17 April 1946 in Skopje, then part of Yugoslavia. While many Turkish families left Macedonia for Turkey in the 1950s, hers chose to stay; although Turkish was her mother tongue, she was educated in Macedonian. She trained as an actress at the Skopje State Theatre and spent many years on the Macedonian stage, also working as a voice artist.

Her screen career began in 1969, and for more than half a century she appeared regularly in Yugoslav and Macedonian productions. Work that made her known at home includes Crveniot Konj, Solunski Patridii (as Fatime), Salon Harmoni (as Grozda) and Familijata Markovski. In her later years she played Mevlide in My Mother's Wound, Havva in Bal Kaymak and the title role in Vera.

Turkish audiences first met her as Afife Hatun in Muhteşem Yüzyıl, broadcast on Star TV. Her greatest fame came from 2015 onward as Hayriye Çakırbeyli in Eşkıya Dünyaya Hükümdar Olmaz, the stern Black Sea matriarch who holds the Çakırbeyli family together. She left the series in early 2021 after a partial stroke caused by a brain tumour, and died in Skopje on 10 August 2021 at the age of 75; she was buried there on 13 August.