Sami Droubi

Sami Droubi (surname also spelled al-Durubi or al-Drubi; 1921 – 12 February 1976) was a Syrian politician, career diplomat, writer, translator, university professor and philosopher. He worked as a Syrian diplomat throughout the 1960s, serving, succession, as the Syrian ambassador to Brazil, Morocco, Yugoslavia, and Egypt and the Arab League, Spain and the Holy See. He briefly served as Education Minister in 1963. He also translated numerous literary works into Arabic.

A veteran member of the Ba'ath Party, Droubi was an advocate of socialism and pan-Arab unity. He was known to be a staunch supporter of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and is regarded as "one of the most acclaimed philosophers of Arab nationalism" in Syria, according to historian Sami Moubayed.

During the 1950s, Droubi joined the Ba'ath Party, when it was led by Michel Aflaq and Salah Bitar. He immediately became one of its most influential leaders in the country. In 1953, during the reign of President Adib al-Shishakli, he was imprisoned along with other Ba'athist leaders for their political views. They were released and Shishakli was overthrown in February 1954. As Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser became the preeminent leader of the pan-Arabist movement in the latter half of the 1950s, Droubi was drawn to his leadership. Droubi increasingly preached pan-Arabist ideas and worked towards Arab unification, as well as call for the establishment of socialism in Syria along the lines of Egypt under Nasser. In Bitar's second cabinet, formed in May, Droubi and two other pro-Nasser Ba'athist ministers (Abd al-Karim al-Zuhur and Jamal al-Atassi) were not included. Droubi kept his position in the NCRC and on 19 June was part of a high-ranking delegation that included Bitar, Aflaq and Chief-of-Staff Ziad al-Hariri, the official leader of the 1963 coup, making a state visit to Algeria. During the visit, dozens of Hariri's politically independent loyalists in the officer corps were purged by the Ba'athist's Committee. Soon after Hariri returned to Syria to respond to the purges, he too was dismissed. Droubi remained in Algiers for a while longer, but returned to Syria later that month. Droubi was highly critical of the purges and condemned the lack of progress in restoring the UAR. and the works of Yugoslav author Ivo Andrić, including The Bridge on the Drina (1961) and The Bosnian Story (1964) He translated the entire works of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky and French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre. He co-wrote al-Mujaz fi Ilm al-Nafs (Concise in Psychology) with Abdullah Abd al-Daim and wrote a number of his own works including Ilm al-Nafs wal Adab (Psychology and Literature), published in Cairo in 1971. His wife Ihssan al-Baiyat wrote his biography, Sami Al Droubi, published Dar al-Karmil in Damascus in 1982. In the late 2000s, the Syrian culture ministry established a state translation contest and award named after Droubi.