Life and Memoirs of Fakhri al-Barudi

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian-British historian and founding chairman of the Damascus History Foundation. He specializes in pre-Ba‘th Syria and his most recent book is The Seat of Damascus Power (2023). In 2023, he was a visiting fellow at Durham University, UK, and in 2006 he helped found the Syrian Studies Center at St Andrews University in Scotland. In 2012–2014, he worked as a visiting scholar at Carnegie Middle East in Beirut. He is presently a scholar at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar.Fakhri al-Barudi (1887–1966) was a Syrian politician, poet, and art patron.

"Few figures have played as pivotal a role in the making of modern Syria as Fakhri al-Barudi. With this translation of al-Barudi’s memoirs, supplemented by a thoughtful and wonderfully detailed account of his life in his later years, Sami Moubayed, has made the extraordinary contributions of a leading participant in the events that shaped modern Syria accessible to new generations of readers. We are in his debt for doing so."—Steven Heydemann, Smith College"In Sami Moubayed’s beautiful translation of Fakhri al-Barudi's memoir, Ottoman Damascus emerges as a vibrant, three-dimensional city, rich in social and cultural detail, while his biographical study, covering al-Barudi’s life following conclusion of the memoir, offers a fascinating lens through which to view twentieth-century Syrian politics. An essential source for the study of late Ottoman rule in the Arab world, for the history of Damascus, and for the political history of modern Syria."—Eugene Rogan, author of The Fall of the Ottomans"It is a rare treat when a book not only offers the memoirs of a consequential Syrian politician of the twentieth century, but also an accompanying analysis by an accomplished author such as Sami Moubayed, who is well-steeped in the history of Syria and its most notable figures. I highly recommend it as a snapshot of twentieth century Syrian history and the Syrians who made that history."—David W. Lesch, Trinity University, Texas, and author of The History of the Middle East since the Rise of Islam"With this impressive contribution, Sami Moubayed has internationalized the recognition of Fakhri al-Barudi as a pan-Arab poet and writer, and a leading figure of the early twentieth century Syrian political renaissance."—Hilal Khashan, American University of Beirut"Sami Moubayed has done Damascus and the modern history of Syria a welcome and timely service by publishing what remains of the memoirs of Fakhri al-Barudi, and reconstructing his biography. Al-Barudi had an energetic and spirited temperament, and lived life to the full in the mainstream of modern Syrian and especially Damascene life, its politics, economic transformations, and social and cultural changes. He was a wit, a raconteur, a convivial companion, and a bon viveur. He was also a nationalist politician who knew everybody, an aesthete and patron of the arts, and a quintessential Damascene. His memoirs combine reminiscences, anecdotes, oral history, folklore and Damascene ethnography, and bear valuable witness to late Ottoman Damascus and its society and politics."—Aziz al-Azmeh, Central European University

• Note on TranslationIntroduction: The Life and Legacy of Fakhri al-BarudiThe Memoirs of Fakhri al-BarudiPrefaceChapter One: Early ChildhoodChapter Two: The Ottoman Coup of 1908Chapter Three: Journalism, Unemployment, and Marriage Chapter Four: Europe, 1911Epilogue: al-Barudi post-1911ReferencesIndex