Egypt’s SCC to host ‘Tharwat Okasha, the Knight of Egyptian Culture’ on April 7,8

CAIRO – 14 March 2021: The Supreme Council of Culture will hold a conference under the title "Tharwat Okasha, the Knight of Egyptian Culture" on April 7 and 8 at 11 a.m., as part of the Ministry of Culture's celebrations of the centenary of the first Egyptian Minister of Culture.

Okasha was born on February 18, 1921, and was editor-in-chief of Al-Tahrir magazine after the July Revolution. He was then appointed Egypt's ambassador in Rome at the end of the 1950s. 

Okasha had a long career under his belt; he held many political and literary positions during the Nasserite period. He graduated from the War College in 1939, and studied at the Staff College of War during the period from 1945 to 1948. He obtained a diploma in journalism from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University in 1951 and a doctorate in literature from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1960.

He began his career as an officer, and later assumed the portfolio of the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance in 1958 as the first Minister of Culture, and continued in that position until 1962.

In 1966, Okasha held the position of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture, as he was Vice President of the International Committee to Save Venice, then Assistant President of the Republic for Cultural Affairs in 1970. 

The late Tharwat Okasha was a member of many entities, including the Executive Council of UNESCO in Paris and the Royal Academy for Research on Islamic Civilization. He was also a visiting professor at the College de France in Paris in 1973.

He was elected as a Correspondent Fellow at the Royal British Academy in 1975, and Chairman of the Cultural Advisory Committee at the Arab World Institute in Paris from 1990 until 1993.

Okasha was interested in art in general and plastic art in particular. He received many prizes, including the French Order of Arts and Letters in 1965, the Legion Donner Medal in 1968, and he won the UNESCO silver medal for saving the Abu Simbel Temples and the monuments of Nubia, among many others.

He passed away in 2012.