The Egyptian cigarette industry, during the period between the 1880s and the end of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, was a major
export
An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
that influenced global
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
. It was notable as a rare example of the global
periphery
Periphery or peripheral may refer to:
Music
*Periphery (band), American progressive metal band
* ''Periphery'' (album), released in 2010 by Periphery
* "Periphery", a song from Fiona Apple's album '' The Idler Wheel...''
Gaming and entertainm ...
setting trends in the global center in a period when the predominant direction of cultural influence was the reverse, and also as one of the earliest producers of globally traded
manufactured
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a rang ...
finished goods
Finished goods are goods that have completed the manufacturing process but have not yet been sold or distributed to the end user.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing has three classes of inventory:
# Raw material
# Work in process
# Finished goods
...
outside the West.
Rise
The development of a major cigarette industry in Egypt in the late nineteenth century was unexpected, given that Egypt generally exported raw materials and imported manufactured goods, that Egyptian-grown tobacco was always of poor quality, and that the cultivation of tobacco in Egypt was banned in 1890 (a measure intended to facilitate the collection of taxes on tobacco).
One reason for the development of the industry was the imposition of a state tobacco
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
in the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
, a measure designed to increase Ottoman government revenue. This resulted in the movement of many Ottoman tobacco merchants, usually ethnic
Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
, to Egypt, a country which was culturally similar to and was in fact arguably de jure a part of the Ottoman Empire but outside the tobacco monopoly as a result of its de facto
occupation
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, th ...
by the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
.
The founder of the industry was
Nestor Gianaclis, a Greek who arrived in Egypt in 1864 and in 1871 established a factory in the
Khairy Pasha palace in Cairo.
[After Gianaclis moved to larger premises in 1907, this became the home first of ]Cairo University
Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...
and then of the American University in Cairo
The American University in Cairo (AUC; ar, الجامعة الأمريكية بالقاهرة, Al-Jāmi‘a al-’Amrīkiyya bi-l-Qāhira) is a private research university in Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning programs ...
. After British troops began being stationed in Egypt in 1882, British officers developed a taste for the Egyptian cigarettes and they were soon being exported to the United Kingdom. Gianaclis and other Greek industrialists such as Ioannis Kyriazis of
Kyriazi frères successfully produced and exported cigarettes using imported Turkish tobacco to meet the growing world demand for cigarettes in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.
Egyptian cigarettes made by Gianaclis and others became so popular in Europe and the United States that they inspired a large number of what were, in effect, locally produced
counterfeit
To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...
s. Among these was the American
Camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
brand, established in 1913, which used on its packet three Egyptian motifs: the
camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
, the
pyramids
A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilate ...
, and a
palm tree
The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees ...
. Fellow Greeks in the United States also imported or produced such cigarettes. For example, S. Anargyros first imported ''Egyptian Deities'' and then produced
''Murad'', ''Helmar'' and ''Mogul'', and the Stephano Brothers produced ''Ramses II''.
[ At ]Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
.
Decline
Tastes in Europe and the United States shifted away from
Turkish tobacco
Turkish tobacco, or Oriental tobacco, is a highly aromatic, small-leafed variety of tobacco which is sun-cured.
Turkish tobacco plants usually have a greater number and smaller size leaves. These differences can be attributed to climate, soil, cu ...
and Egyptian cigarettes towards
Virginia tobacco
This article contains a list of tobacco cultivars and varieties, as well as unique preparations of the tobacco leaf involving particular methods of processing the plant. (E.g. cavendish tobacco.)
Types
Aromatic Fire-cured
Prior to the Am ...
, during and after the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. What remained of the Greek-run tobacco industry in Egypt was
nationalized
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
after the
Egyptian coup d'état of 1952. Egyptian-made cigarettes were thereafter sold only domestically, and became known for their poor quality (and low price).
Cigarettes containing Turkish tobacco (which includes those varieties grown in what is now Greece) exclusively continued to be manufactured and sold as "Turkish cigarettes" in the US (brands
Murad
Murad or Mourad ( ar, مراد) is an Arabic name. It is also common in Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, and Berber as a male given name or surname and is commonly used throughout the Muslim world and Middle East.
Etymology
It ...
, Helmar and others), the UK (Sullivan & Powell,
Benson & Hedges
Benson & Hedges is a British brand of cigarettes owned by American conglomerate Altria. Cigarettes under the ''Benson & Hedges'' name are manufactured worldwide by different companies such as Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Philip Morris USA, British ...
,
Fribourg & Treyer
Fribourg & Treyer was a British snuff manufacturer and retailer. It was founded by Mr Fribourg in 1720 at 34 Haymarket, London.
They were famous for retailing Turkish tobacco.
The business became Fribourg & Treyer, after the German-born Gottli ...
, Balkan Sobranie) and Germany (where the so-called "Orientzigaretten" had the major market share before the Second World War). Today, Turkish tobacco is a key ingredient in American blend cigarettes (Virginia,
Burley, Turkish) introduced with Camels in 1913.
In culture
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Ho ...
paid a casual tribute to the popularity of Egyptian cigarettes in his 1904 story "
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
"The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as ''The Return of Sherlock Holmes'' (1905). It was first published in ''The Str ...
", where a character interviewed by
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
in a murder investigation is described as a very heavy consumer of them.
:"A smoker, Mr. Holmes?" said he, speaking in well-chosen English, with a curious little mincing accent. "Pray take a cigarette. And you, sir? I can recommend them, for I have them especially prepared by Ionides, of Alexandria. He sends me a thousand at a time, and I grieve to say that I have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight.
His copious cigarette ash eventually helps Holmes solve the mystery.
Egyptian cigarette advertisements are parodied in
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials ''RG'', was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating ''The Adventures of Tintin'', ...
's graphic novel ''
Cigars of the Pharaoh
''Cigars of the Pharaoh'' (french: link=no, Les Cigares du pharaon) is the fourth volume of ''The Adventures of Tintin'', the series of comic albums by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper '' Le Vingti ...
''.
Tintin
Tintin or Tin Tin may refer to:
''The Adventures of Tintin''
* ''The Adventures of Tintin'', a comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé
** Tintin (character), a fictional character in the series
** ''The Adventures of Tintin'' (film), 2011, ...
has a nightmare where characters in ancient Egyptian garb smoke opium-laced cigars.
A Kyriazi Frères tin box appears in the 2017 movie
Blade Runner 2049
''Blade Runner 2049'' is a 2017 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. A sequel to the 1982 film ''Blade Runner'', the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, w ...
.
An M. Melachrino et Co. cigarette box appears in the "
Little House on the Prairie
The ''Little House on the Prairie'' books is a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls). The stories are based on her childhood and adolescence in the Midwestern United States, American M ...
" episode "Love", but is used as a gift box for a cameo pendant given by one character to another.
See also
*
Kyriazi freres
Notes and references
;Notes
;References
Sources and bibliography
*
*
{{Egypt topics
Economy of Egypt
Tobacco industry by country
Tobacco in Egypt