The founding of Egypt’s national archives involved deliberate selection and editing of family papers
Evidence
Having recently won the title of King, Fouad was keen not only in portraying the history of his family in a positive light, but also in highlighting the fact that his was an independent royal family right from his great-grandfather’s time. He thus invited a number of historians to come and work on a highly selected group of his family’s papers, which became the nucleus of the Royal Archives of Egypt that was housed in ‘Abdīn Palace, the precursor of the present Egyptian National Archives. Not only was this a selected group of documents, they were also slightly edited on being translated from the original Ottoman Turkish to Arabic. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 171
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- SEED: An archival provenance essay on how a national archive’s founding selections shape what historians can know.
- QUESTION: Which documents were excluded, and how did translating from Ottoman Turkish to Arabic alter meaning?
Related
- King Fouad selectively edited family archives to polish Mehmed Ali’s legacy (similarity 0.88)
- Archival sources were selected early on to make histories mirror Mehmed Ali’s own account (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- The Egyptian nation was created rather than pre-existing
#expands(0.60) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 41