Gibran, Rihani & Naimy: East-West Interactions in Early Twentieth-Century Arab Literature
256
Gibran, Rihani & Naimy: East-West Interactions in Early Twentieth-Century Arab Literature
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| ISBN-13: | 9781905937417 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Inner Farne Press |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2010 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Gibrain, Rihani & Naimy
East-West Interactions in Early Twentieth-Century Arab Literature
By Aida Imangulieva, Robin Thomson
Anqa Publishing
Copyright © 2009 Afaq KhanumAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-905937-41-7
CHAPTER 1
Arab émigré literature in the USA: origins and influences
Social and political life in Lebanon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the origins of Arab émigré literature
Lebanon's early contact with European countries played an important part in its cultural ascent, and this can be explained by the country's history. The geographical location of this small country put it at the centre of constant interactions among various civilisations: the East of antiquity, the classical world, Arab Islamic culture and Christianity. The establishment of Byzantine supremacy in Lebanon (and in Syria) in the fourth century ad founded a root of Orthodox Christianity, in which the Church was governed entirely from Greece. From the Middle Ages Beirut was important as a convenient seaport on the trade route from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. For many centuries, therefore, Lebanon was drawn into direct contact with the countries of the Mediterranean and Christian Europe.
Contact between Lebanon and European countries began to strengthen after the sixteenth century, when interest in the lands of the East began to grow in the West. In 1584 a special school for Lebanese Maronites was opened in Rome. During the rule of King Louis XIV Maronites studied in French educational institutions, and in 1608 the Emir of Lebanon, Fakhr ad-Din II (1585–1635), concluded a trade agreement with the Duke of Tuscany. European scholars were invited to Lebanon, and Western countries, particularly England and France, embarked on active economic development there. Raw materials – silk, wool, tobacco, olive oil and citrus fruits – were exported westwards, while various textile and manufactured goods were imported from Europe. Pursuing their own interests, the Western trading companies applied no little effort in turning Beirut into a modern city. A new port and seafronts were built, a gasworks was set up for street lighting, water pipes were laid, a number of large public and administrative buildings were constructed and a highway was laid between Beirut and Damascus.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century the history of Lebanon had been closely linked to the activities of Western missionaries. Lebanon was one of the first Eastern countries to become an arena for their work. Missionaries were quick to establish themselves there: Catholics from France, Protestants from England, Presbyterians from America and Orthodox from Russia. In part this was to do with the geographical location of the country, but also with the availability of good ports and natural resources. A further important element was that a large portion of the Lebanese population were historically Christian. Naturally, the missionaries pursued political interests in addition to religious ones, but "while directing the influence of the colonial powers in the East, the missionaries nevertheless brought literacy to the local Christians and spread European languages; sometimes they were the facilitators of cultural initiatives, and in particular created in the Arab countries an Enlightenment society."
British, American, French and Russian missionaries built schools, colleges, higher educational establishments and libraries, and published periodicals. New educational programmes were established, and well-known Arab writers and journalists such as Sheikh Nasif Yaziji (1800–71) and Butrus Bustani (1819–83) participated in their preparation. The importance of the missionary schools was immense: some graduates continued their education in Western Europe and Russia, and on returning home pursued active lives in literature and society.
The establishment of the universities was an important cultural development. The American University was founded in Beirut in 1866, as was the University of Saint Joseph, and in 1874 the French Catholic University opened. The universities had well-equipped libraries with literature in Arabic and foreign languages, allowing scholarly work on ancient manuscripts to be carried out, and the compilation of an Arabic– French dictionary.
Local printing presses were also established, which broadened the publishing base, and the expansion of translation activity was closely linked to this. Even though most of the works being translated in Egypt at this time were of a scientific and technical nature, in Syria and Lebanon many translations were made of imaginative literature by European writers, especially the French, since French influence on the country was particularly strong.
Changes in the social and political situation in Lebanon led naturally to considerable shifts in its intellectual life, and to the growth and formation of a collective self-consciousness. Lebanon was the first Arab country in which an Enlightenment movement appeared and a national intelligentsia was formed. Gradually this Enlightenment ripened and developed, with the awakening of public consciousness resulting initially from the ideological activities of the Lebanese "enlighteners". Nasif Yaziji, Butrus Bustani, Marun Naqqash (1817–55), Ahmad Faris Shidyak (1805–87) and others, the leading representatives of the emerging national bourgeoisie, publicly opposed feudal backwardness and political stagnation. The Enlightenment was to make a fundamental impression on not only the social and political but also the cultural life of the Arab countries.
During the Enlightenment period a new Arabic literature gradually began to form. The ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment movement started to influence the social consciousness of the Arabs and required literature to address the problem of the individual; they also posed acute questions of social inequality, national freedom, the emancipation of women and so on. The "desire to turn the faceless mass of subjects under the power of feudal rulers into a union of individuals living by their wits and not by the instructions of the authorities" was a completely new proposal for Arab society and became the foundation and motivation for all the actions of the Arab enlighteners -individuals such as Rifa'a Tahtawi (1801-73), Butrus Bustani, 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1849-1903), Nasif Yaziji, Ahmad Faris Shidyak, Adib Ishaq (1856-85), Qasim Amin (1865-1908), Mustafa Kamil (1874-1908), Jurji Zaydan (1861-1914), Ya'qub Sarruf (1874-1908) and others. These writers brought variety to the narrative genre, and enriched Arabic literature with literary essay-writing and with a vivid oratorical style. The enlighteners widened the possibilities for imaginative literature. Arabic poetry was torn, as it were, from the clutches of the Middle Ages and took on a social and political dimension. Gifted poets such as Mahmud Sami al-Barudi (18391904), Ismail Sabri (1854-1923), Ahmad Shawqi (1868-1932), Hafiz Ibrahim (1871-1932), Khalil Mutran (1871-1949) and others succeeded in combining traditional forms in their works with topical subject matter. Muhammad Muwaylihi (1858-1930), Aisha Taymuriya (1840-1902), Muhammad Lutfi Jum'a and others experimented within the classical forms of maqam (didactic stories or harangues) and with saj' (rhymed prose) to faithfully reflect life in its most typical manifestations.
"An important part was played in the spreading of the Enlightenment and in the development of Arab culture in the latter half of the nineteenth century by various scientific, political and literary circles and societies." The Syrian Society [of Arts and Sciences] was formed in Beirut in 1847, followed by the Oriental Society (1850, established by the Catholic Jesuits), the Syrian Scientific Society (1857, organised by Butrus Bustani and Nasif Yaziji), the Society of Learning (or Refinement, organised by Muhammad Arslan) and the Oriental Scientific Academy (1882). The first National School was founded in 1863. Bustani and Yaziji prepared a Great Explanatory Dictionary of the Arabic language (Muhit al-muhit, 1867) and a seven-volume Arabic encyclopaedia (Da'iratu-l ma'arif, 1887).
In the second half of the nineteenth century a periodical press appeared in Lebanon; prior to this the Lebanese read only newspapers and magazines.Enlightenment traditions were cultivated in the new publications, to the extent that the censor permitted; ideas of democracy and freedom were propagated, and a call for unity and struggle against foreign interference was sounded.
Despite the persecution and harsh repression by the Turkish powers, social and political life in Lebanon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became noticeably more active. This was particularly evident following the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution of 190507. Under the influence of this revolution there was a powerful upsurge in national liberation movements in the Arab countries, particularly Lebanon.
The downfall in Turkey of Abdul Hamid II's regime following the Young Turks revolution (1908) gave the Arabs new hopes of independence, but in 1909 the democratic movement was crushed by the Turkish powers. At the insistence of France the treaties were revised in 1912, with the result that Lebanon's rights were considerably increased. New and progressive social organisations were also formed in Lebanon at this time: the Beirut Reform League, the Lebanese Revival and others.
In September 1918 the British, together with the army of the Emir Faisal al-Hashimi, went on the offensive in Palestine, routed the Turkish army, and then moved rapidly northwards into Lebanon and Syria. Beirut was occupied by the British on 8 October. Having now completely collapsed, Turkey was forced to sign the Armistice of Mudros. In an agreement between Britain and France signed in London on 30 September 1918, Lebanon and western Syria passed into French administration, headed by the High Commission. Thus, having been liberated from centuries of Ottoman rule, the Lebanese now found themselves the subjects of a French–British colonial regime.
As European powers had begun to expand, particularly Britain and France in the mid-nineteenth century, Lebanon experienced a growing religious animosity between its two main population groups, the Maronites and the Druze, accompanied by bloody clashes and internecine fratricidal struggle. Even Karl Marx commented on the political battle that extended to the coast of Syria'. All this weakened the economic condition of the country and led to a stagnation in its spiritual and cultural life.
Occupation, political repression and persecution, religious strife, devastation of the country and economic crisis, together with the missionaries' propaganda that promised a free and prosperous life in the West, meant that as early as the end of the nineteenth century not only the Lebanese intelligentsia but also ordinary people were awoken to the possibility of emigration. The first country to which the leading Lebanese intelligentsia made its way was Egypt, with its comparatively relaxed political regime and censorship. In Cairo, the leading cultural centre of the Arab Orient of that time, Lebanese emigrants found highly favourable conditions for their activities. Before long many of them, including Adib Ishaq, Salim Naqqash, Nudra Haddad, Jurji Zaydan, Farah Antun, Labiba Hashim and Khalil Mutran occupied leading positions there in literature and journalism, and exerted a strong influence on the development of the periodical press in Egypt. Then, having concentrated practically the entire periodical press in their hands, they, together with the progressive Egyptian intelligentsia, played an exclusive role in founding the idea of national liberation within the Enlightenment movement and in popularising European learning and culture. The role of the Lebanese in this country was so great that the work of many of them – Ishaq, Mutran, Haddad and Zaydan – became an inseparable part of literary life in Egypt. Thanks to this energetic activity by members of the Lebanese and Syrian intelligentsia, in Egypt "at the beginning of the twentieth century the period of enlightening and popularisation came to a close. A sustainable reading public had been created, and there was a demand for new literary forms that had previously not existed."
The Lebanese also emigrated to European countries, but their attempts to create hotbeds of national culture in the major European centres did not meet with success. By the end of the nineteenth century, mass emigration had begun to the Americas, and in particular to the USA. Among the emigrants were many highly educated people, who spoke Russian and European languages and had been exposed to progressive Western European ideas. Their activities in exile were an organic response to the demands of an emerging nation as it moved into a new stage of historical development. Above all, they felt the necessity for the closest acquaintance with Western culture and literature, which could provide the new ideas and forms so necessary for Arab writers for the renewal of national literary traditions. "The destiny of the new Arabic literature is entirely linked to emigration and marches under its flag", wrote Krachkovsky.
Social and political instability in other Arab countries also encouraged emigration. Not only Syrians and Lebanese emigrated to America, but also groups from Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Morocco. The first Arab immigrants settled in New York, where initially they were known as "Asiatic Turks". Not until the end of the nineteenth century were the Arab immigrants referred to as "Syrians". According to statistics presented by the researcher Amir Ibrahim Qindilchi, 20,695 Arabs emigrated to the USA in 1898. By 1924 there were more than 105,000 – and this did not include those Arabs who were born in the USA.
Krachkovsky writes:
The Arabs in America: for many people this combination of words may call up the same suggestion as "Kafirs in Berlin" or "Zulus in Paris". The reader involuntarily thinks of some kind of exotic troupe that has appeared unexpectedly in an ethnographical exhibition or at the circus. Even an intelligent person reacts with disbelief when people talk about the Arabic publishing house in São Paulo, the Arab theatrical society in Rio de Janeiro or Arabic newspapers and magazines in New York and Chicago. Meanwhile the Arab colony has been culturally active in the New World for about half a century now, and this work is reflected in the general intellectual development of its mother countries ... of Syria and Egypt, two important hives of cultural activity among the Arab race.
For many, America seemed to be the Promised Land, in its way a kind of goldmine. "I imagine America to be a country beyond the horizon, where people take handfuls of earth and it turns into gold", wrote the young Naimy in his diary. However, on reaching the New World the Arabs often found themselves facing hardship. They were forced to live in poor districts of Washington and New York and to work night and day. Many of them were disillusioned and tried to return to their homeland.
Those Arab immigrants who succeeded in establishing themselves in America took a keen interest in the life of the homeland they had forsaken, and strove to preserve their national traditions and language. In order to unite still more closely in this foreign land the Arabs joined together in various clubs and societies and started newspapers and magazines. This explains the appearance in the USA of a range of Arab societies, religious, charitable and literary. Examples include Jam'iyyat al-Suriyyin al-Muttahida (United Syrian Society, New York, 1907); al-Muntadi al-Suri al-Amriki (Syrian American Club, New York, 1908); al-Jam'iyya al-Thaqafiyya al-Tahdhibiyya al-Suriyya (Syrian Education Society, New York, 1916); Jam'iyyat al-Ikhwan al-Dimashqi (The Damascus Fraternity, New York, 1917); Mahfilun Dimashqi alMasuni (Damascus Masonic Lodge, 1917); Jam'iyyat al-Shabab al-Muslimin (Society of Muslim Youth, 1924); and others. In New York and Washington organisations that had a political character appeared, including Jam'iyyat al-nahda al-Lubnaniyya (Society for Lebanese Revival, New York, 1911) and Lajnatu Tahrir Suriya wa Lubnan (Freedom Committee of Syria and Lebanon, New York, 1917). Many of these organisations had their own printed publications, the pages of which resounded with the call for struggle for national independence and Arab unity.
The literary and political forces of the émigré Arabs gathered round the periodical press. The editorial offices of newspapers and magazines became centres where émigré men of letters gathered, and served as their spiritual citadels. Émigré publishing in a foreign country was extremely difficult; there was felt to be a lack of educated contributors, and the financial base for publication was small and inconstant. It was not without reason that the émigré poet Ilyas Qunsul describes the journalistic activities of the Arabs in exile as heroic.
The first Arabic periodical in the USA was the newspaper Kawkab Amrika (Star of America, New York, 1892–1909, ed. Najib Arbili). The best-known émigré Arab newspapers in the USA includedal-Ayyam (The Days, 1897, ed. Yusuf Ma'aluf); al-Huda/Hoda (The Guidance, 1898, ed. Nahum Mukarzil); Mir'at al-Gharb (The Mirror of the West, 1899, ed. Najib Musa Diyab); al-Muhajir (The Émigré, 1903, ed. Amin al-Ghurayyib); al-Sa'ih/Sayeh (The Traveler, 1912, ed. 'Abd al-Masih Haddad); al-'Alam al-Jadid (The New World, 1918, ed. Sallum Mukarzil), and others. Magazines included al-Funun/Funoon (The Arts, 1913, ed. Nasib 'Arida) and al-Samir/Sameer (The Companion, 1927, ed. Iliya Abu Madi). This is far from a complete list of Arabic publications in the USA. Newspapers and magazines were published in various cities – New York, Boston, Washington, Detroit – and were often in two languages, Arabic and English.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Gibrain, Rihani & Naimy by Aida Imangulieva, Robin Thomson. Copyright © 2009 Afaq Khanum. Excerpted by permission of Anqa Publishing.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Dr Afag Asadova,Introduction,
1 Arab émigré literature in the USA: origins and influences,
2 Kahlil Gibran: the development of the Romantic method,
3 Ameen Rihani and his role in the formation of Arab Romanticism,
4 Mikhail Naimy and nineteenth-century Russian literature,
Conclusion,
Endnotes,
Bibliography,
Index,