Masri Effendi
Masri Effendi ( مصري أفندي, Mr. Egyptian in Arabic) was a national personification of the Kingdom of Egypt created by Alexander Saroukhan for Ruz al Yusuf in 1930.[1] Masri Effendi is a short man with a fez and sibha (prayer beads) along with Western trousers and a jacket glasses, often giving some witty remark over the political situation as a government bureaucract.[2] He represented the effendi, the professional middle class of Egypt during its liberal period.[3] He fell out of favor by the 1952 Egyptian revolution, as his character became archaic for modern Egypt.[4][5]
History
[edit]Masri Effendi was created by Ruz al Yusuf to rival al-Kashkul, a competitor satirical newspaper. Masri Effendi was meant to represent the modern Egyptian man who dressed in western jackets and pants but still wore his fez and carried his prayer beads with pride.[6] The term 'effendi' originally referred to an old Ottoman title, evolved to mean the new nationally conscious society of lawyers, university graduates and small merchants. Later on, Masri Effendi would 'write' weekly columns himself, as Ruz al Yusuf presented him as the real editor of the newspaper.[7] Saroukhan would later draw Masri Effendi in Akher Sa'a, another popular satirical magazine.[8] The story of El-Misri (Mr.Egyptian) was later depicted a 1949 film directed by Hussein Sedki.[9][10] He was gradually phased out because his character was not seen as representative of the Egyptian.[11]
Gallery
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Zdafee 2020, p. 218.
- ^ Gershoni, Israel (2002). Redefining the Egyptian nation, 1930-1945. Cambridge University Press. p. 7. ISBN 9780521523301.
The archetypal Egyptian of the parliamentary era was Misri Effendi. As caricatured in the popular press, Misri Effendi was a short, stout, bespectacled, somewhat disheveled figure. With Western trousers and jacket, halfWestern fez, and Eastern prayer beads, Misri Effendi contrasted visually with the even more portly, more elegantly Western-dressed pashas of the upper class as well as with the peasantry in their traditional galabiyyas. His function in the political journalism of the period was that of observer and/or interlocutor; a wry commentator on the follies of rich and poor alike.
- ^ Messiri, Sawsan (1978). Ibn Al-Balad: A Concept of Egyptian Identity. BRILL. p. 6. ISBN 978-90-04-05664-0.
The increasing distance between awlad al-balad and the emerging Egyptian bureaucrats is well illustrated by the magazine caricatures of al-misri effendi "the true Egyptian" in the late 1920's. He was a typical petty bureaucrat in western suit and Turkish fez. He shared two worlds, the European and the Egyptian, although not completely absorbed in the former and no longer integrated fully into the latter
- ^ Gordon, Joel (1992). Nasser's Blessed Movement: Egypt's Free Officers and the July Revolution. Oxford University Press. p. 81. ISBN 9789774167782.
Misri Effendi, the national caricature, dimunitive, pudgy, bespectacled, light skinned, sporting a tarbush and clutching a rosary, would not disappear, but he would hereafter split time with a swarthy, muscular, galabiyya-clad fellah.
- ^ Mellor, Noha (2015-11-12). "Misri Effendi – The Squeezed Middle Class". Egyptian Dream. Edinburgh University Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-4744-0932-2.
Misri Effendi (or Mr Egyptian) became a cartoon character during the 1920s, invented as a symbol of the average or ordinary Egyptian. The character, developed to refer mainly to petty bureaucrats, was later replaced by ibn al-balad, or the true son of Egypt
- ^ Zdafee 2020, p. 217.
- ^ Zdafee 2020, p. 221.
- ^ (2024) "حكايات المصرى أفندى"
- ^ Mellor 2015, p. 59.
- ^ Sidqi, Husain, El masri effendi (Comedy, Drama), Keti, Husain Sidqi, Ismail Yassin, retrieved 2025-02-22
- ^ Messiri 1978, p. 48This difference in character traits can be illustrated by examining two caricatures which have been used in the press to represent the Egyptian. One is of al-Miṣrī Effendī, who is clad in a European-style suit and a ṭarbūsh and carries prayer beads; the other is of an ibn al-balad in his gallābīyya. In explaining the difference between the two, Rakha, who originated the caricature of an ibn al-balad, said: In the year 1929 the caricature of al-Miṣrī Effendī was born in the magazine Rūza l-Yūsif. This caricature symbolized the good and sub- missive person who is passive and fatalistic and who, in the face of calamity, calls for God’s help saying, “Damn those who have done me injustice.” In the year 1941, the chief editor of al-Ithnayn magazine held a meeting with the editorial staff of Dār al-Hilāl (the publishing house), in which it was decided that the caricature of al-Miṣrī Effendī did not, and should not, symbolize the Egyptian, because it represented the lowest class of government official, that is the effendī class, or petty bureaucrats. They decided that the personality of an ibn al- balad represented a more independent and emancipated personality and one which really represented the Egyptian.
Sources
[edit]- Zdafee, Keren (2020). "Between Imagined and 'real': Sarukhan's Al-masri Effendi Cartoons in the First Half of the 1930s". In Scully, Richard; Varnava, Andrekos (eds.). Comic Empires: Imperialism in Cartoons, Caricature, and Satirical Art. Manchester University Press. doi:10.7765/9781526142955.00015. ISBN 9781526142948.
External links
[edit]Ākhir sāʼah - Magazine Collection mostly complete archives of Akher Sa'a from 1935 to 1939 by the American University of Cairo