• 1 Misr, June 22, 1942.

1Newspaper coverage at the beginning and end of the reign of Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Yuannis XIX (r. 1928-1942) paints two distinctly different portraits of his papacy. Yuannis’s election as patriarch was mired by controversy, as the Coptic press argued that he was elected illegitimately and in contradiction with communal tradition, in order to serve as an authoritarian agent of corrupt politicians and reactionary clerics. When Yuannis’s reign ended with his death in 1942, however, he was remembered in the same press as “the faithful leader of his community, [who] welcomed every occasion of restoration, reform, and renewal, none other than the strongest preserver of the laws of the Church and its teachings.”1 It is unlikely that the dynamics of Yuannis’s reign brought about this change of tune. Indeed, his tenure as patriarch was tumultuous, defined by clashes between the laity and the clergy over communal finances and personal status law (Van Doorn-Harder 2011: 112-120). Rather, I suggest that this divergence of evaluations stems from the medium detailing the end of Yuannis’s reign – the memorial coverage of his death.

• 2 My research draws from six Coptic periodicals: the daily newspaper Misr; the biweekly/monthly news (...)

2In this article, I draw attention to the unique storytelling mechanics that shape death memorials as sources of history. Memorials, I contend, represent a rich historical archive not only by recording the lives and actions of the deceased, but also by reflecting broader social and political values in their times and by looking to the future through promoting the legacy of individuals after death. The storytelling modes in memorials, and their capacity to engage with the present and future, ultimately stem from the opportunities and limitations afforded by the emotional power that death holds in dictating narratives. Accordingly, it is necessary to read memorials with a critical lens toward the impact of death on what is said, or unsaid, in their prose. As a case study, I draw from the press memorials that I encountered in my research on Coptic communal life from the 1920s to the 1960s. These were memorials written in public venues on Coptic figures, primarily intended for a Coptic audience.2 As such, the memorials that I discuss are particularly revealing of the social and political values that defined Coptic communal life in this period, and highlight the legacies of Coptic traditions of commemorating the dead.

• 3 Misr, January 30, February 1, 1956.

3Memorials constitute a unique writing style within the broader realm of death media. Memorials in the Egyptian press frequently took the form of editorials, opinion columns, and transcripts of public speeches. In the Coptic newspaper Misr, for example, memorials were most often located in the paper’s first page feature section and third page opinion column. The prose of memorials blended eulogy, biography, and commentary on the life of the deceased. These elements could be combined in one memorial or across several. For example, an initial memorial for Coptic Minister of Supply Gindy Abdelmalak (d. 1956) contained the account of his death, his biography, and highlighted his value as a leader of the Coptic reform movement, while a memorial the following day narrated specific highlights from his role as a communal and national figure.3 Memorials were typically published the day following an individual’s death and could continue for several days or reappear following the forty-day mourning period or on the anniversary of their death. As this continuation suggests, deceased individuals typically received multiple memorials written by multiple authors, including dedicated journalists as well as prominent community members who contributed to periodicals. Memorials ranged from a paragraph to articles spanning several pages. All of these elements – the number of articles, the variety of authors, and varying lengths – were connected to the prominence of the deceased.

• 4 Ibrahim Luqa was memorialized in the January/February 1951 double issue of al-Yaqaza while and Hab (...)
• 5 See for example, Misr, March 22, 1956.

5Unsurprisingly, individuals affiliated with periodicals received significant memorial coverage upon their deaths. This was the case with such prominent Coptic figures as Ibrahim Luqa, patron of the magazine al-Yaqaza, and Habib Girgis, Secretary General of the Coptic Sunday Schools, who both had entire issues dedicated to their memorials in affiliated magazines.4 To this end, memorials provide a uniquely rich source of information on the lives of periodical administrators who, in spite of their influence on communal affairs, often opted to remain in the background. A notable example is Edward al-Manqabadi (d. 1956), a co-owner of the newspaper Misr who played an important role in the establishment of the paper’s status as a distinctly communal organ. Memorialized as “an unknown soldier” (al-jundi al-majhul)5 of the Coptic reform movement, al-Manqabadi’s role in Coptic journalism became much more publicly visible in his death than in his life.

• 6 For details on form in Egyptian obituaries, see Eid 2002 and Abuhakema and Issa 2011.

6As a genre, memorials constitute a writing style distinct from the more common form of death media, the obituary. Obituaries are typically short, non-narrative, and detail-centric pieces, frequently taking the form of death notices, funeral announcements, lists of relations, condolences, or brief biographical sketches.6 As Mushira Eid (2002) and Hussein Omar (2017) have shown, Egyptian obituaries, which are overwhelmingly male and status-centric, are reflections of power and prestige; their length and quantity are also governed by the notoriety of the deceased. Memorials are an elite extension of this dynamic; if only certain Egyptians received obituaries, even fewer received front page memorial commentary. Furthermore, unlike obituaries, which the families of the deceased typically paid to publish, memorials were printed at the discretion of journalists and editors.

• 7 For forms and typologies in Coptic hagiography and martyrology, see Clarysse 1995, Delehaye 1923, (...)
• 8 For commentary on the contours of exemplarity, imitability, and patterning, see Renard 2020.
• 9 See for example the memorials for Ibrahim Luqa (al-Yaqaza, January/February 1951: 121-122) and Sal (...)

7Coptic memorials likewise share a space in death storytelling with the community’s traditions of hagiography and martyrology. Quite different from the straightforward prose of obituaries, accounts of saint and martyr deaths are often highly stylized and embellished narratives that present idealized portrayals of the deceased.7 While the subjects of Coptic memorials lacked the sacred character of these accounts, they shared an important overlap through the deployment of the exemplarity of the deceased.8 Like hagiographies, memorials hold a narrative function in imparting lessons from the lives of Coptic notables, projecting the deceased as models for still living Copts. Indeed, Coptic memorials frequently drew connections between their subjects and biblical prophets such as Moses and Joshua, constructing a genealogy of spiritual exemplarity in the leadership of contemporary figures. This exemplarity played out in a unique trope of death media, in which memorialists rhetorically argued that the deceased were not actually dead – as long as the living remained committed to the continuation of their endeavors, the deceased would never truly die.9

• 10 For respectability as an efendi value, see Ryzova 2014: 13-14, 206. Ryzova identifies “strict mour (...)
• 11 For controversies surrounding disrespectful mourning in the Coptic community, see Ibrahim 2011: 15 (...)

10While Coptic memorials are rich sources of commentary on communal affairs, with the deceased often even disappearing in authors’ digressions, they were ultimately shaped by the emotional experience of death and the sensitivities of publicly engaging with it. Indeed, the prose of memorials was bound in highly sentimental language, describing hearts afflicted with sadness, the loss of hope, and the weeping of death. Durham and Klaits (2002), writing on funerals in Botswana as a public sphere rooted in sentiment, note that “the public space of death is characterized by concealments as well as disclosures of sentiments, bodily states and social relationships. What these concealments and disclosures ideally make possible is a certain form of civility” (779). Coptic memorials featured similar mechanisms of concealments and disclosures, shaped by the efendi value of respectability, to form a distinct politics of respect.10 More than a simple logic of “don’t speak ill of the dead,” these politics involved responding to a set of social expectations that shaped the prose of death media by compelling authors to navigate between their own political values, readers’ understandings of respectable things to say about the dead, and the delicate treatment of the disappointing aspects of the deceased.11

• 12 The Communal Council is an administrative body within the Coptic community. During the period of s (...)

11A powerful way to signal respect in memorials was to portray the deceased as exemplary of a communal value. Within the Coptic community of the early and mid-twentieth century the most popular value to associate with the deceased was reform (islah). Reform holds an important pedigree as a value in the modern Coptic community, stemming from the educational and spiritual revival fostered by Pope Kyrillos IV, known as “the Father of Reform,” and from communal narratives on the founding of the Communal Council (al-Majlis al-Milli)12 in the nineteenth century (Ibrahim 2011: 21-27; Rufila 2000 [1898]: 332-337). By the twentieth century, the word islah had multifarious uses in the Coptic press, sometimes referring to the specific reform of an institution or policy, or just as often, to a more abstract sense of progress. Reform was a reoccurring buzzword of lay-led communal projects from the 1920s to the 1940s and is a dynamic that Ryzova (2014) identifies as a central element to efendi modernity (13-14). To link the lives of the deceased to reform was to place them in a narrative of the community’s path to the future.

• 13 Misr, February 1, 1956, March 26, 1956.

12The deceased’s affiliation with reform was a key point of reference for speaking respectfully about them, dictating what was said, or unsaid, about their lives. For example, in the memorial coverage of Gindy Abdelmalak, a lay activist who died as the sole Coptic minister in the Nasserist government that was formed in 1954, reform was the central thread linking press coverage of his life. Nearly every article covering Abdelmalak’s death placed reform at the center of his legacy, remembering him variously as “a prophet of reform in the twentieth century” and one who “struggled in the reform of the conditions of the Coptic people.”13

• 14 al-Yaqaza, July 1931, al-Manara al-Misriyya, September 15, 1945, Misr, August 23, 1957.
• 15 al-Manara al-Misriyya, July 11, 1931.

13While the form of memorials remained stable throughout the period of study, the values that they highlighted were more variable. Reading memorials through the prism of the politics of respect offers insight into continuity and change in these values over time. Indeed, it is telling that in different periodicals, the memorials for the Asyuti lawyer Tadros Aqladius (d. 1931), Pope Macarius III (d. 1945), and politician Ibrahim al-Minyawi (d. 1957) all emphasized their place in a reform movement.14 Similarly, a common trend in memorials stressed deceased Copts’ activity in government as a symbol of Christian-Muslim relations. For example, a memorial poem for the former speaker of the Egyptian Chamber of Deputies, Wissa Wassef (d. 1931) noted Wassef’s close relationship with former Prime Minister Mustafa Nahhas, highlighting their distinctly Christian and Muslim names.15 After Egypt’s 1952 coup, while this deployment of government as a site of unity continued, it increasingly took on a revolutionary tone, as memorials stressed deceased Copts’ ties to the Free Officers’ regime and activity in anticolonial politics. In sum, noting the trends of what was considered a respectable way of remembering the dead offers an informative glimpse into the trajectory of communal life across history and its intersections with national currents.

• 16 For the structure of this narrative, see in particular Tadros 2009.
• 17 This is particularly evident in the memorials of Gindy Abdelmalak and Ibrahim al-Minyawi, who were (...)

14These patterns of continuity and change speak to the memorials’ unique capacity to challenge conventions in historical periodization. This is particularly noteworthy in post-1952 Coptic communal dynamics. A common view in scholarship on the Copts holds that the Free Officers’ coup in 1952 marked a rupture in communal power dynamics, initiating the ascendancy of the Church hierarchy due in part to the regime’s inherent animosity towards the lay elite.16 However, the emphasis on revolutionary politics and ties to the regime in post-revolution memorials for the laity paints a more complicated picture, pointing to pre- and post-1952 continuities in lay politics and highlighting the role of Coptic lay elites in revolutionary government.17 Just as memorials illustrate the continued relevance of individuals after their deaths, they likewise highlight the continuity of trends in the face of apparent historical ruptures.

• 18 al-Manara al-Misriyya, September 1, 1945.

15While reform and national unity were both consistent and positive values in the memorials reviewed, certain values used to honor the dead were more time contingent and even antagonistic in tone. For example, while the priest Murqus Sergius had aligned with the Communal Council for the election of Pope Macarius III in 1944, memorials for Macarius the next year in Sergius’s newsletter, al-Manara al-Misriyya, openly criticized the Council for manipulating the ailing Pope in his ill-health in order to carry out a power grab against the clergy.18 Memorials increasingly became a site of lay-clerical tensions in the 1950s, as growing concerns over corruption in the Church blended with post-1952 revolutionary fervor, leading to a campaign for “reform and purging” within the community that culminated in the abduction and deposition of Pope Yusab II (Ibrahim 2011: 168-71). In this context, lay periodicals increasingly highlighted the deceased’s opposition to corruption within the Church and their pushback against clerical authority as key parts of their legacies. Beyond eulogizing what the deceased stood for, placing struggles with the clergy in their legacies argued for a degree of respectability for what the deceased stood against.

• 19 Misr, August 11, 1958.
• 20 Ibid.

16These more antagonistic lines of commemoration reveal the politics of respect’s unique capacity for projecting relatively extreme stances on communal affairs. Following the death of the Coptic intellectual Salama Musa (d. 1958), Misr published a unique memorial in the form of an interview conducted just before his death. The paper teased that in the interview “the great philosopher made confessions… and expressed views never before published.”19 The interview proved to be radically critical of the Coptic clergy, even for the 1950s, with Musa lamenting the lack of intellectual curiosity in the Church and describing the clergy as a reactionary force pushing the community towards decline. In his staunchest critique, Musa was quoted by the interviewer as claiming: “I regret to say that the cleric is behind the destruction and failure of every useful project, as he is inclined to destroy, rather than to build.”20 It is unsurprising that Musa’s views were previously unpublished. Indeed, while he may have reflected a popular sentiment among lay elites, the degree of his critique went beyond what was openly expressed in the press. To this end, I suggest it was Musa’s death, and its associated politics of respect, that made it be possible for these words to be published. In death, Musa could express what the living could not. More than just a means of affirming certain communal values, death operated as a shield for more radical articulations of those values.

• 21 Misr, July 15, 1957, August 23, 1957.

17The politics of respect offered the opportunity to profoundly reevaluate the legacy of the deceased. This was certainly the case with the aforementioned praise given to Pope Yuannis XIX upon his death. The memorialization of Ibrahim al-Minyawi offers a sharper example of this phenomenon. Al-Minyawi had established himself at the forefront of the Coptic reform movement through his leadership in the Communal Council in the 1930s and 1940s. His reputation, however, collapsed in 1956 when he aligned himself with the disgraced Pope Yusab II, leading to a vicious press campaign against him. Al-Minyawi’s death one year later changed the conversation, in which he rapidly transformed from a falling star in the community to “the best of leaders,” “exemplary in nationalism, virility, and brilliance,” and “a pioneer of reform in our Coptic domain.”21 Notably, the authors of al-Minyawi’s memorials did not shy away from voicing displeasure for his affiliation with Yusab. However, these indiscretions were recast as a momentary lapse in judgement that should not tarnish the legacy of his decades of struggle for reform. In this way, the intersection of the politics of respect and the value of reform compelled a rehabilitation of al-Minyawi’s image as a model for the future of the reform effort.

• 22 For coverage of Yusab’s death, see Misr, November 13, 1956, November 14, 1956, al-Iman, December 1 (...)
• 23 Misr, February 1, 1956.

18Not all the dead however were eligible for such a post-mortem redemption of their legacies. Pope Yusab II constituted such a case. Yusab was elected to the papacy in 1946 with enthusiastic support from the Communal Council and allied clergy as a reformist candidate. However, Yusab himself soon became the target of the campaign of reform and purging after accusations rose of the corruption of his entourage. Yusab quickly transitioned from a symbol of an ideal reformist cleric who would work with the laity to one of clerical corruption and intransigence, leading to his kidnapping and the divestment of his authority. While al-Minyawi’s death offered the opportunity for the explicit redemption of his legacy, Yusab’s death was met with little commentary. Indeed, none of the Coptic periodicals operating at the time of Yusab’s death contained any memorials, with death coverage instead dedicated to obituary-style biographies and funeral announcements.22 I argue that the cold treatment afforded to Yusab stemmed from the degree to which he had transgressed the value of reform. As one Coptic writer suggested months before Yusab’s death, the community opposed him because he was “no longer reformable.”23 Unlike al-Minyawi, Yusab’s tenure was so far detached from reform that there was little utility in redeeming his legacy. At the same time, due to the politics of respect, he was spared from any direct posthumous attacks in the press. Having little respectful to say about Yusab, the Coptic press opted to say very little at all.

• 24 Here I take inspiration from the two faces of power elaborated in Bachrach and Baratz (1970).

19In this way, memorials occupied a tense position relative to communal agenda setting. On one hand, as I have argued, the emotional impact of death allowed the authors of memorials to lay claim to which communal ideals held value by employing them as respectful terms for mourning and commemorating the dead. On the other hand, the necessity for respectful commemoration, tied to the emotional character of death, placed firm boundaries and rules on what could be expressed.24 In other words, death holds its own power to dictate how writers discussed communal affairs within memorials. Death writing necessitated that writers navigate between these contrasting powers of death in a way that both elevated and limited their messages on communal affairs.