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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. He fell out of favor by the 1952 Egyptian revolution, as his character became archaic for modern Egypt.[3]

History

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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.[4] 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 was the real editor of the newspaper.[5] Saroukhan would later draw Masri Effendi in Akher Sa'a, another popular satirical magazine.[6]

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Masri Efendi mocking a politican for suggesting he will lead the opposition - despite his party winning 4 seats in the 1936 Egyptian parliamentary election
Masri Effendi paying respects to King Fuad after his death
Ruz al-Yusuf reacting to the outbreak of the Second World War on Septmeber 9th 1939, showing John Bull and Marianne with Masri Effendi fighting Hitler
Cartoon in Akher Saa celebrating the ratification of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty; an army of Masri Effendis march with the flag
The vote the abolish the monarchy was taken after King Farouk was overthrown. Masri Effendi is joking that Farouk lost his head before the train even hit him.

References

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  1. ^ Zdafee 2020, p. 218.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Zdafee 2020, p. 217.
  5. ^ Zdafee 2020, p. 221.
  6. ^ (2024) "حكايات المصرى أفندى"

Sources

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  • 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.
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Ākhir sāʼah - Magazine Collection mostly complete archives of Akher Sa'a from 1935 to 1939 by the American University of Cairo

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