In Society – Society News in Syria

Society News in Syria

* There was recently founded in Damascus a literary club under the name of the "Sukayna Club"—immortalizing the name of the famous Arab woman of letters and critic Sukayna, daughter of al-Husayn. This club aims to raise the level of letters and to strive for the growth and spread of literary culture and literary taste in Syria, and to encourage men of letters, to strengthen the bonds of familiarity, acquaintance, and cooperation among them, and to print and publish their production. It likewise intends to carry over the precious inspirations of the West's literary production into the Arabic language, and of the Arab East's production into foreign languages, as one form of national publicity for modern Arab thought; and also to keep contact and cooperate with similar bodies and circles in the sister Arab countries, so as to organize literary festivals and competitions, as a spur to those of outstanding merit.

The club counts among its founders a choice company of the men of letters and lovers of letters of Damascus, among them: Dr. As'ad Mahfal, secretary-general of the Presidency of the Republic; Mr. Fuad al-Shayib, director-general of publicity and information; Mr. Izzat al-Nuss, professor of Arab history at the Syrian University; Dr. Hikmat Hashim, its professor of philosophy; the poet Abd al-Karim al-Karmi, known as Abu Salma; the journalist Munir al-Rayyis, owner of the newspaper al-Liwa; Mr. Shakir Mustafa; and Emir Yahya al-Shihabi. And among the ladies: the writer Thurayya al-Hafiz al-Rayyis; the poetess Aziza Harun; Dr. Zahida Ibrahim Pasha; Dr. Mawziya al-Quwatli; Mrs. Inaya Ramzi; and the storyteller Mrs. Ulfat Idlibi Omar Pasha—and others of both. Everyone in Damascus looks with an optimistic eye and a hopeful spirit toward the activity and the services that are to be expected of these bonds.

2 – The Women's Mabarra Society in Damascus, which counts among its members a number of the friends of The Woman's Voice in Damascus—among them Miss Malak Kuzbari, Mrs. Layla Bikri Diyab, Mrs. Muhiba Malki al-Dasuqi, the Misses Lamya Kilani and Ihsan Ish, and Dr. Mawziya Quwatli—held its annual charity gala on the stage of the Cinema Dimashq, and in its sweet and delightful hours it offered colorful bouquets of splendid art. It presented the play "The Vagrant Girl," whose roles were acted by ladies and young ladies of the society; then it offered varied numbers of the beautiful Arab Andalusian dance called the samah dance, performed by girls of the Dawhat al-Adab school in their enchanting Andalusian dress and with their swaying figures. The singer Mrs. Su'ad Muhammad also took part, offering masterpieces of her lofty art.

The party went on until a late hour of the night, in which the Damascus public drank brimming cups of pleasure, rapture, delight, and splendor; and all applauded the tremendous efforts made by the members of the society to make that party a sign among the first fruits of social activity in the beautiful Fayha.

What deserves mention here is that the proceeds of this party, which reached nine thousand Syrian liras, will be set aside for the noble humane purposes of the Mabarra, foremost among them the care of juvenile vagrant girls: working for their education and the raising of their moral and social level, treating their mental and psychological disorders, and guiding them soundly in a way that guarantees their protection from returning to a life of vagrancy and crime, and secures for them an honorable, happy, and industrious future.

3 – The Women's Cultural Forum Society issued invitations to the first cultural session of its season of activity for 1953–1954. In it Dr. Adel al-Awwa, professor of philosophy at the Syrian University, spoke of the perplexity of modern man, contested by divergent schools of thought and pulled about by differing philosophical currents; and he expounded at length materialist Marxism and realist existentialism. After him spoke the woman of letters Mrs. Munira Ali al-Mahayri, who carried her listeners on the wing of her lofty prose and the back of her creative pen into the gardens of Arab women's letters, and led them about among fragrant, perfumed blossoms, reviewing the merits and characteristics of the writing of Mayy Ziadeh, Mary Ajami, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Widad Sakakini, and others; she presented well and described finely.

4 – The Syrian Society for the Arts

in Damascus presented its first exhibition of oil and watercolor paintings by the visiting artists Zareh Kaplan and Nubar Sabbaghian. The artist Zareh began his study of drawing in Cairo at the hands of Italian masters. At sixteen years of age he left Cairo for Paris, to study architecture in its school of engineering; and alongside the study of architecture Zareh attended the National School of Decorative Fine Arts and the School of Fine Arts in Paris and took the diplomas of both. Today he works as a professor of architecture in the engineering faculty in Aleppo.

During his stay in Paris, Kaplan followed the lectures of the famous art critic Louis Hourticq, member of the French Academy, for five years, and he also studied under Victor Prouvé, whose masterpieces occupy a prominent place in the museum of Nancy—this besides the long years he spent with Judon, the well-known engraver of wide fame in the engraving of metals.

And with all this, Zareh Kaplan was not influenced by any of the artists under whom he studied. He is a partisan of the use of many colors, and unlike the rest of the architect-engravers, he sacrifices drawings, forms, and lines for the sake of colors, which he delights in varying and playing with perpetually, to bring out the meanings, imaginings, and emotions that stir within him and which his powerful art reflects in his canvases in the language of colors; even in dark and sorrowful scenes you will always see frank, penetrating colors free of complication. Perhaps that simplicity and that freedom from complication spring from his having been influenced by decorative art. The paintings that held the visitors longest, so that they stood in sweet absorption and contented rapture, were the painting of the sunset—which we may rightly call the symphony of the sunset and the harmony of suggestive, poetic colors—and, like it, the painting of Ehden, and Venice, and the Spring Café, and a view in France, and others.

As for Nubar Sabbaghian, he was born in Aleppo in 1920, and from his earliest childhood his artistic inclinations appeared and his aesthetic leanings showed themselves. After many attempts and studies, his artistic bent turned toward the language of transparent, sharp colors, clear with the clarity of the Eastern sky which they reflect. After studying the various styles of painting, he was strongly influenced by the works of the artist Vignal, who belongs to the classical school. His beautiful paintings appeared before the public in 1940, and he took part in several exhibitions held in Aleppo and Damascus, as well as in the exhibition held in honor of the Syrian emigrants in America. In all his canvases shone his overflowing artistic genius and his fertile, sensitive, creative brush. It is worth mentioning that this artist was deeply influenced by his surroundings, and set about transferring them into immortal artistic canvases, among them: "The Pasha's Orchard," which expresses joy and delight and strength and freshness; "The Citadel of Aleppo at Dawn," in which the colors almost speak and converse—by the strength of their expression, their harmony, and their answering one another—of the stillness of the dawn and its freshness; the painting of Jupiter at Baalbek, standing like an everlasting sanctuary to speak to you the speech of greatness and loftiness and to tell you the story of immortality; and the painting of the palms in Lebanon, which recounts to you the splendor of the towering palm, the wisdom of the outspread sands, and the depth of the blue sea.

Damascus