Boghos Yusufian
1775 - 1844
Armenian minister of commerce and foreign affairs in Egypt in the 1820s and 1830s.
Boghos Yusufian, better known as Boghos Bey, was born in İzmir to a family well connected to the Armenian merchant class involved with overseas commerce. He made his money in Egypt as a customs official and trader. He was skilled in languages and served the British as an interpreter in the campaign against the French. He was first hired by Muhammad Ali as an interpreter and rapidly progressed to the position of personal secretary. Consolidating his rule in Egypt, Muhammad Ali found in Boghos an instrument for pursuing policies independent of his Ottoman sovereigns. Having earned Muhammad Ali's trust during his service in the palace in Cairo, Boghos was made minister of commerce in 1826. He ran his office from Alexandria and proved an adept intermediary between Egyptian economic policy and European commercial interests. In a reorganization of the government in 1837, Muhammad Ali created the joint ministry of commerce and foreign affairs and appointed Boghos Bey head of the department, leading many foreigners to assume that Boghos was the "prime minister" of Egypt.
To help modernize the administration of the country and improve its economy, Muhammad Ali became a great patron of the Armenians. In his early bid for power in Egypt, Muhammad Ali, then a small tobacco merchant of no military repute, had found an Armenian, Yeghiazar Amira, who was willing to give him a loan. Muhammad Ali repaid Amira many times over. He also encouraged Armenian settlement in Egypt. With Boghos Bey as its leading figure, the Armenian community in Egypt grew from a few dozen to two thousand. Among them were many relatives of Boghos whom he had brought over from İzmir, including the Nubar and Abro families. Arakel Bey Nubar (1826 - 1859) followed in his uncle's footsteps and became Egypt's minister of commerce. Boghos Bey's more famous nephew, however, was Nubar Pasha, who served three terms as prime minister of Egypt in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Dicran Pasha d'Abro was minister of foreign affairs in the 1890s.
Among his many assignments, Boghos had also been entrusted by Muhammad Ali with training new and capable administrators. Charged with sending the most promising to Europe for further education with the approval of the pasha, Boghos also sponsored the education of the sons of many Armenian merchants in the service of Muhammad Ali. Among them was his successor to the ministry of commerce and foreign affairs, Artin Chrakian (1804 - 1859), whom Muhammad Ali appointed upon Boghos's death. It is reported that Boghos Bey died a man of modest means, all his resources having been placed in the service of his master.
Bibliography
Adalian, Rouben. "The Armenian Colony of Egypt during the Reign of Muhammad Ali, 1805 - 1848." Armenian Review 33, no. 2 (1980): 115 - 144.
Sayyid-Marsot, Afaf Lutfi al-. Egypt in the Reign of MuhammadAli. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
— ROUBEN P. ADALIAN
