The Interviewees
Interview with Uri M. Kupferschmidt - January 2024
1- In 1999 you published a biography of Henri Naus Bey, a Belgian industrialist active in Egypt in the sugar industry in the first three decades of the 20th century. Egypt hosted a rather large and diverse origin expatriate business community at the time and the few published studies on this community have taken place from different standpoints. Is this still a recurring issue in your opinion where researchers can sometimes struggle on identities such as ‘Egyptianess’ versus an impression of ‘exploiting foreigners’? Naus came to Egypt as a technician, not as an Imperialist investor, and even saved the sugar industry from bankruptcy for the benefit of Egypt. How do you tackle these nuances of multiple identities when telling the stories of these somewhat colourful characters?
Like many of my research interests, it happened by chance. Initially, I had Baron Empain in mind, the founder of Heliopolis (nobody driving from or to Cairo Airport can miss his curious Cambodian-style Qasr al-Barun). However, the incentive to focus on Henri Naus came up when I worked in the Belgian archives and hit upon his name. I understood that he was the son of Joseph Naus, a Belgian customs functionary who had been engaged to advise the Shah, and then rose to several high positions in Iran. After being defamed in the course of the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, Joseph was forced to leave the country, but the story of his son Henri is no less fascinating.
When I discovered Henri’s broad activities in Egypt and realized that there was little to be found on him in the existing literature, not even in Egypt, it became a research project, and ultimately a book. It involved a lot of searches in archives and libraries, of course also in Egypt, which I experienced as a pleasant challenge, but I did not gain access to the records of the sugar industry or to other administrative sources. Nevertheless, I think that I succeeded, to some extent, in “retrieving” his activities in Egypt (as I called it) and his significance for the large sugar company. Indeed, Naus was instrumental in saving the sugar company from bankruptcy in 1906, and for introducing the decades-long profitable POJ 105 sugar cane which he brought along from the Dutch East Indies. Its siège social was anchored in Egypt (with about a quarter of the shares in French hands). Then, an Egyptian, Ahmad `Abud, took over, and the company was finally nationalized under `Abd al-Nasir. Naus may also be remembered as a co-founder of the Federation of Industries of which he became the Secretary-General. For better or for worse, the Federation achieved in 1930 a protectionist tariff for the benefit of the Egyptian industries. Its membership underwent a gradual Egyptianizing, and the organization finally became a fully integrated institution of the state. Besides, Naus was involved in many cultural and social activities, and called Egypt his “pays d’adoption”.
My initial idea was to write a collective narrative of his co-founders of the Egyptian Federation of Industries, who initially, almost all, could be defined as “foreign-residential” industrialists with a strong attachment to the country. At the time, when I wrote my book, I had to abandon that idea for lack and inaccessibility of local sources, then probably related to reservations on such a topic, so my book remained a biography by default, though broadly encapsuled in the social and economic history of Egypt.
However, perceptions in Egypt are changing. Recently, Mustafa `Ubayd, an Egyptian historian, has published a book (2021) on “seven khawagas” (foreign gentlemen, but here rather “tycoons” or “captains of industry”), who had been positively engaged in Egypt’s industrialization drive. Most of these had settled in Egypt by the end of the nineteenth or the beginning of the twentieth century, motivated by the economic opportunities of Egypt, but remained there till after the Revolution (Naus himself had died in 1938). They were Linus Gasche, the Swiss manager of the Filature Nationale; Samuelle Sornaga, the Italian owner of a large ceramics plant; Constantinos Salvagos, a Greek investor; Theodore Cozzica, another Greek who founded a near-monopolistic alcohol and spirits distillation plant; Joseph Matossian, an Armenian founder of the cigarette manufacturing branch; Ernest Trembley, a Swiss, the founder of the Portland- cement factory; and maybe the least known, Comte de Zogheib, a Lebanese businessman and landowner who set up a pioneering fruit drinks and confectionaries plant.
2- You studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London in the Middle East MA program in Area Studies which comprised history, political science, and economy, a program which is today criticized by some circles as being too “essentialist”. From your experience how have ‘Oriental Studies’ evolved in since you started out studying Semitic languages at Leiden and do you think you were taught by masters in a golden era of learning?
The standing of so-called area studies has been under debate. Some critics considered the various academic programs of Middle East Area studies to be a Post-World War II -or even a Cold War policy-geared project. It was considered to have been an American idea, if not an American interest, but the setup was adopted in Europe and elsewhere as well.
Accordingly, the countries and populations of the Middle East - however defined geographically as a whole-, were seen to possess a set of shared cultural, social, and religious characteristics, as well as common patterns of government. From this derived also a discussion why the countries of the Middle East were not open to liberalism, democracy, etc.
Maybe, geographical, demographic, civilizational generalizations are always problematic, vacillating between the universal and the particular, but after all, many universities have European, Latin American, Slavonic or Chinese area studies programs, so the critique cannot apply to the Middle East only. Essentialism basically means having exceptional or regionally specific characteristics.
I have always tried to be very cautious using generalizations like The Middle East, The Arabs, The Islam, even The West and The East, which need an appropriate specific definition for the context in which they are used. Terms such as The Orient and even The Levant have, by and large, faded from our academic vocabulary as they might hint at essentialism, criticized as a prejudicial construct.
Yet, after my, more philological, “Orientalist” studies in Leiden, with heavy emphasis on languages and religious civilization, I landed in a multi-disciplinary environment of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, which was new to me, and I loved it as it was at the time. Unlike in the United States, there was no strong overarching idea, but a choice between various disciplines. Anyway, my approach has always been eclectic. Therefore, I do not share the criticism. On the other hand, - I tend to think-, though having acquired some basic knowledge of economics and political science, I became a historian, and later, a somewhat more specialized social historian. After all, history was my major, and remained so also while doing my PhD at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Since these years, Middle Eastern studies have changed a lot, also at SOAS, undergoing contemporary influences from post-modernism, from several new turns in the study of history, and from a transition to an (over-)emphasized post-colonialism. Besides, there are new research ramifications into gender, subalterns, marginals, and the Other, which did not yet exist in my student days.
When I started teaching Middle East history, my assignments still revolved around the impact of Imperialism on the countries of the Middle East, implying conquest, military power, coercion, economic exploitation. Aspects with a negative association for the Middle East populations. Yet in my newest book, The Diffusion of ‘Small’ Western Technologies in the Middle East (2023), I have attempted to show that some of the mass consumer products which were likewise the result of European and American industrialization (and capitalism), a softer Imperialism, which could not be barred, as their usefulness was persuasive. I meant consumer goods such as sewing machines, typewriters, cameras, or even reading glasses, and the like. They made their entrance to the Middle East and were acquired by the free will of the consumers. A relative highlighting in my work therefore falls on life in the major cities of the Ottoman regions, e.g. Istanbul, Cairo, Alexandria, Salonika, Izmir, and similar places. There, the impact of consumer goods from Europe or America, was first seen. As I don’t know Persian, I had to leave Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz to other present and future researchers, but I can see that it has already been taken up.
3- In 2004 you published ‘The Social History of the Sewing Machine in the Middle East’. Presumably this was connected with your long-term research on the Orosdi-Back company and their Singer distribution rights. Can we state Orosdi-Back were pioneers in many European commodities like Singer machines in their Middle Eastern representation, as they developed depots in the region before that company did?
The sewing machine was indeed the starting point for the book I just published, because I found that Orosdi-Back in some places kept a depot of Singer machines. Of course, Singer tremendously expanded its business in the region, and soon kept its own stocks and exclusive outlets. But it occurred to me, that the Orosdi-Backs began their business with ready-to-wear clothing (like a few other entrepreneurs of Central European origin, mostly Jewish) and must have been positively aware of the importance of sewing machines, not only for industrial purposes. Unfortunately, we do not have their recorded memories to prove this. It is my speculation. There were also competing foreign brands of imported sewing machines which were marketed by others in the major cities, often specialized retailers.
4- You showed with colour coded dots on the map of Europe the various purchasing offices in Western Europe run by Orosdi Back at different times. Are you able to do a neat match between location and goods manufactured / collected in some of those branches such as Roubaix, Chemnitz, Gablonz etc.?
The firm proudly publicized – both in their regular reports to the shareholders and in advertisements- a list of purchasing offices in Europe and outlets in the Middle East and North Africa. These included prominent manufacturing centres, each of which at the time could be associated with typical industrial products. My map merely visualizes the idea of the text: a clear division between purchasing and sales locations. Paris, of course, determined much of the taste and fashion, hence the headquarters of the firm were there. But some industrial places had become almost synonymous with reputed brands: Vienna, for instance, could be associated with garments or furniture (possibly also Thonet chairs produced in what is today Czechia), Manchester with cotton goods, Bradford with woollen manufactures, Birmingham with metalwork, Lyon with silk, Roubaix with textiles, Caudry with lace, Milano with textiles, Chemnitz with knitwear, Barman (Wuppertal) with textiles, and Gablonz with artistic glass and crystal, and la Chaux-de-Fonds with watches.
5- Orosdi Back was primarily an importation company of Western small goods to the Middle East but they also dealt in carpets. Do we know if they made an equal push to expand their network of retail outlets in the West to market this and other ‘Levant region goods’?
I found only one instance in which Orosdi-Back advertised an intention to work the other way round. This is interesting because they were, before anything else, a trading company in pursuit of profitable business. Maybe they tried, because around 1920 I saw local advertisements to the effect they could deliver Turkish and Persian rugs to Europe and America. Possibly it was a feeler. Which is not surprising because rugs were a popular commodity abroad; the famous German department store Wertheim even had a specialized purchasing agent in Istanbul. But, in general, most exports from the Middle East were foodstuffs, raw materials, and minerals, but hardly any finished manufactures, and therefore supposedly beyond the usual interests of the Orosdis and the Backs.
6- Do you think Orosdi Back (and other Western origin department stores) were masters in generating ‘need’, with the knack of introducing new items to the rising bourgeoisie in the various Middle Eastern centres. Do you think what was an advantage in the 19th century of them being perceived as a foreign company delivering the latest aspirational wares worked against them as the 20th century worn on and nationalistic forces reacted against this trend. Do you see any evidence of trying to be more native in presentation, such as adverts only in ‘local’ languages and a heavier emphasis on locally produced goods?
To my mind, it went together with the expanding local press and its readership, or rather a segment of it which gained increasing popularity at the time, in particular cultural magazines in Turkish and Arabic. Also, commercial annuals, with lots of advertisements, often in French, mostly catering to elites who could afford the new and desired wares. There was a relation between advertising and shopping. Awareness came first, and availability in its track. The supply of fashion articles, nouveautés or articles de Paris, created a need, - sometimes merely to be like Europe or to show off. The dynamics of this connection is a field which still calls for more investigation. With ongoing digitation, we may get a fuller picture where and what they advertised.
7- The tarbushes / fezzes were manufactured by Orosdi Back in Bohemia which is very far from where they are needed in the Middle East. Were there source material / manufacturing needs behind this or do you think Orosdi Back may have also hedged its investments in different locations to reduce their exposure to the possibility of nationalisation and other restrictions brought on by rising Middle Eastern governments?
Indeed, a lot has been written on the tarbush or fez (the small differences do not matter here, tarbush is generally Egyptian, and fez is mostly Turkish). The geographical origin of this red felt or cloth cap, conical and brimless, is not exactly known, it might have been Greece, Tunisia, or Morocco (hence the term fez after the city of that name). Sultan Mahmud, in 1828, imposed it on the Ottoman army as a modernizing measure, replacing the turban, and that new headgear, with minor variations, became subsequently more or less compulsory for all civil servants in the Ottoman Empire, for men of stature of whatever denomination, as well as among the efendiyya of the younger generation. Some were manufactured in Turkey, which had a large feshane from 1833, or in a smaller factory in Fuwwa in the Delta of Egypt, and in certain other places. This means, of course, a multitude of consumers which lasted till well into the 20th century. But then, in fact, in republican Turkey, the fez was forbidden in 1925 by Ataturk in his drive to become European, or “modern” in other words, and in Egypt following the Nasserist revolution of 1952. In other countries its wearing also petered out.
But what interests us here, are the manufacturers in the Hapsburg Austrian lands, scattered over several locations. Their relative advantage in manufacturing and exporting fezes to “the Orient’ ensued from various factors such as early mass production of hosiery, hats, and other clothing, advanced machinery, relatively low labour costs and materials, and therefore competitive prices. The Austrians held a large share of the sales in the Ottoman countries. Before Orosdi-Back, another Austrian firm, the Stross brothers in Egypt, were large traders of fezzes. Yet by the end of the 19th century, when this competitiveness declined, Orosdi-Back was instrumental in bringing together five (Jewish) producers in Strakonitz (Strakonice) – Bohemia, today Czechia – and in founding a consortium in 1899. By this intervention, Orosdi-Back in fact acquired what came close to exclusive marketing rights for the Ottoman lands. In 1908, the unforeseen boycott of Austrian wares, owing to the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, temporarily affected their trade in fezzes, but they soon recovered, at least for the time being.
One more remark, the new book on foreign-residential industrialists in Egypt, mentioned above, carries on its cover page the image of a man with a tarbush, but I never found a photo of Henri Naus wearing one.
8- In 1994 Michael Miller published a pioneering study on the Bon Marché, the Parisian department store that was the largest in the world before 1914. He situated it with the 19th century context of the evolution of French bourgeois business culture and the coming of an age of mass consumption. What can you say on the taking root of foreign department stores in the countries of the Middle East, in particular against the background of rising national aspirations?
Miller’s book is still considered a landmark study, largely based on his exploration of their well-organized business archive of Au Bon Marché. Since the publication of his book, that archive is not any more easily accessible owing to the massive rush of interested researchers. The study of department stores as a pattern of modern consumerism has spread from Europe and America to other parts of the world, including the Middle East, depending on the availability of source materials. In recent years we see it becoming a new field of study, for instance, upper class consumption habits and preferences, shopping patterns, and the lure of nouveautes. One may ask whether the Middle East “needed” department stores as an imported business model. However, the fact is that they were not abolished in the phase of independence and nationalizations but taken over or imitated as outlets for local industries. With the modern malls we are again in a next phase.
9- Certain items introduced by the Orosdi Back Company to the Middle East didn’t take off at all, such as typewriters and pianos. Do you think this non-uptake by the locals demonstrate that the Middle East upper strata of society that embraced innovation and could afford was a small slither and the trickle down model of fashions and needs didn’t work so well in these relatively conservative societies?
My interest in typewriters, reading glasses, and pianos, and other consumer items, followed the sewing machine, but none of these were handled by Orosdi-Back, and probably also not by other department stores. They were rather sold by more specialized dealers and luxury stores (but lower quality reading-glasses even by peddlers). What I wanted to show in my newest book is the differential diffusion of these items. It was a combination of affordability, need, and cultural environment: Typewriters mainly served foreign businesses, even though – as I described in my book- one could have models adapted to local scripts from the beginning of the 20th century. However, with the advent of computers, Arabic keyboards made a “leapfrog”. As to reading glasses, they were developed in Europe (despite the Islamic world, early on, having a high level of optical knowledge and fine glass making). In fact, we have some data on the diffusion of European-made eyeglasses, but I supposed that they were delayed owing to the relatively low level of literacy. Pianos are again another story, they could not reproduce the maqams of Eastern music, nor did experiments with quartertone piano succeed, so the instrument remained stuck in the upper classes of those who loved western music. Likewise, one can think of motorcars, photographic cameras, or electric devices, which gradually trickled down. The exact process of each item in the various countries and societies is still a research assignment.
10- The logo of the Orosdi Back is an unlikely elephant riding a tricycle. Perhaps the tricycle was also an item the company wished to promote but are you able to get a notion if there was a bigger message in this imagery?
This is of course very funny, - an eyecatcher, and this type of publicity logo was still rare at the time. In some later advertisements it was often accompanied by the slogan “The Ultimate Luxury”. We have no memoirs of the founders, or any clue as to copywriters who invented this. Orosdi-Back sold toys for children as a novelty article, and maybe tricycles, but as a real circus act, we suppose that it was probably known only from magazines or books. One prominent colleague drew my attention to adult bicycles as a wanted consumer item, but I am not sure about Orosdi-Back regularly selling them, while certain other stores advertised and sold them.
In any case, a few years ago, I discovered a publisher in Sweden (since then merged into a larger firm) who not only adopted the name Orosdi-Back, but also this very logo of the elephant. They never answered my inquiries how this happened, but it is a compliment to the original entrepreneurs.
11- You mentioned you think Orosdi Back were likely to have produced trade catalogues but you haven’t come across any yet. What other items and information would you welcome from readers and descendants to pursue your study on this company further?
Thanks for this question, - this one, and the previous ones, I hope that my answers matter. Scholarly research is going on, and the internet helps answering our questions, and advances new directions. Just now, a new book on Orosdi Back appeared in Turkey, and some time ago one on their branch in Adana. When I started my research, the internet was still limited, and today, two decades later, it is full of references, with some photographs, as well as memorabilia for collectors, from invoices and postcards to souvenirs and other objects.
The picture is far from complete. First, there were places where Orosdi-Back was active, but we do not have information about their local business. Aleppo, Basra, Tabriz, Deir al-Zur, or Casablanca, for instance. Secondly, I expect that with ongoing digitization of local newspapers, magazines, and business guides, we may learn more. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, the SALT research centre in Istanbul, and some others are doing excellent work in digitizing the sources. In this respect, I found that magazine issues were sometimes bound without the thinner advertising pages which came with them. This is regrettable, and I hope that we can still recover what has been lost. Thirdly, in my sources I found one or two indications that Orosdi Back may have had business catalogues or brochures of its own. Baker in Istanbul or other department stores e.g. in Beirut apparently had them. The sort of printed brochures which are thrown away without realizing their historical value. However, by surprise or “accident” more such surviving publicity material might surface one day. And fourthly, there may still be original business archives somewhere (other than reports to the shareholders which we have seen).
Interview conducted by Craig Encer
Additional information and images of Orosdi Back: