16 Facts About Khalil Beidas

Khalil Beidas was a Palestinian scholar, educator, translator and novelist.

Beidas was the father of Palestinian Lebanese banker Yousef Beidas and was a cousin of Edward Said's father.

Khalil Beidas was the pioneer of the modern Levantine short-story and novel.

Khalil Beidas was born in Nazareth, Ottoman Palestine, vilayet of Syria in 1874 and studied at the Russian Orthodox al-Muskubiya and the Russian Teachers' Training Centre in Nazareth, which had been founded in that town in 1886.

Khalil Beidas' education was on a basis of classical Arab culture, and, though a Christian, Khalil Beidas achieved renown as a hafiz.

Khalil Beidas travelled in Russia after his graduation in 1892 as a ward of the Russian Orthodox Church, and during his sojourn there came under the influence of ideas of Nikolai Berdyaev, of late 19th century Russian cultural nationalists like Dostoevsky and by writers like Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy.

On returning to Palestine, Khalil Beidas became a prolific translator, and a dominant figure in introducing the major writers of Russian literature to the Arabic-speaking world.

Khalil Beidas played an important role in the 1930s in the development of Palestinian theatre, which thrived down to 1948.

Khalil Beidas was released in 1921, according to one account in the expectation that lenience would secure his support and mitigate his opposition.

Khalil Beidas was interested in European culture, especially with its humanitarian and social aspects and, prompted by the contemporary Russian cultural resurgence to which he had been exposed, called for a comprehensive cultural revival in the Arab world.

Khalil Beidas' was a main proponent of the Palestinian national movement, through his journal Al-Nafa'is as well as through a number of public speeches and articles in major Arabic newspapers such as Al-Ahram and Al-Muqattam.

Khalil Beidas tried to raise awareness of the threatening presence of the Zionist immigrants, and urged the Ottoman authorities to treat the inhabitants of the Palestinian Sanjaks fairly.

Khalil Beidas established a unique library of old manuscripts, valuable books as well as a Stradivarius violin, all of which were lost, together with several of his manuscript compositions, when he fled to Beirut after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Khalil Beidas's library is thought to reside within the Jewish National Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Khalil Beidas initially described its as "a magazine for jests and fun-making pieces".

Khalil Beidas was in full technical control of the journal, editing most of the contents himself.