The Secular Models of Identity in the Interwar Egypt

The thesis is devoted to the study of secular models of identity in Egypt in the interwar period. Throughout history, the Egyptians could not come to a single ideological model that would allow them to identify themselves. The problem of Egyptian self-identification and its secular models in interwar Egypt, remains relevant in Russian oriental studies, because an attempt to identify the fundamentals on which subsequent concepts were formed allows explaining not only the reaction of the popular masses throughout the XXth century, but also draw conclusions regarding current processes. This study seeks to determine which secular models of self-identification in Egypt of the interwar period were clearly formulated, and to assess the possibility of their implementation in the framework of specific political programs of the Egyptian parties in the early XXth century. In accordance with the goal, the structure of the work involves its division into three chapters. The first chapter examines the historical context of the formation of the Egyptian nation as a process parallel to the formation of the Egyptian state. In the second chapter, the study focuses on the Wafd party, which was the most popular in Egypt, and the wafdists promoted precisely the secular version of Egyptian self-perception and identification. The third chapter will look at the various Wafd competitors in the political arena, who offered alternative versions of secular concepts to define the Egyptians as a separate nation. Along with political nationalist movements, trends in the development of nationalism in the cultural sphere will be studied. According to the study, several groups of Egyptian identity self-perception models emerged. However, despite the abundance of theory, not a single clearly formulated model was revealed, which may have led to a departure from established traditions and the substitution of values, as a result the Egyptians turned towards religious concepts.