African Visionaries by Kropp Dakubu Maria Asante

Author:Kropp Dakubu, Maria Asante [Kropp Dakubu, Maria Asante]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Africa
ISBN: 9789988308841
Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers
Published: 2019-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

Bibliography

Henriette Diabaté: Aniaba, un Assinien à la cour de Louis XIV. Paris 1975.

Chapter 24

ABRAHAM P. HANNIBAL (Eritrea/Russia)

AGAINST ALL ODDS

BY ISSAYAS TESFAMARIAM

On November the 28th, 2009, a monument was officially inaugurated in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, in memory of Alexander Sergeyvich Pushkin: Russia’s uncontested greatest poet. In attendance were officials from Russia. The monument is Eritrea’s symbolic way of welcoming home one of its lost children. The connection between Alexander S. Pushkin and Eritrea is through his maternal great grandfather, General Abraham Petrovich Hannibal/Gannibal. The story of an eight-year-old boy kidnapped from Eritrea in the 17th century and taken to Russia, where he became, against all odds, a military engineer, a general, an intellectual and protégé of Czar Peter the Great, is an inspiration to people of any age, place (especially Africa) and period, including that of his future great grandson, Alexander S. Pushkin. General Abraham P. Hannibal died at a ripe old age. However, his life was full of obstacles, due to his skin colour and palace intrigues, and also due to his loyalty to Czar Peter and his family. Even though his loyalty to the Romanov family was seen as a liability by his detractors, he remained true to his commitments and moral principles. He was exiled many times to different places due to various official commissions and assignments; throughout, he kept his dignity and sanity intact. In the end, he proved that virtue, that is, human resilience and resolve, are more powerful than short term gains obtained by human vice. He is an example of a great African personality and mind.

In the summer of 2011, I gave three presentations in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. The title of the presentations was “Pushkin Me’as d’a Tegadilu?” (“When did Pushkin fight?”). Of course, this was a rhetorical question presented to a population where the word “gedli” (fight/struggle) or “tegadalai” (fighter) for Eritrean independence conjure a litany of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. I put it in that context because almost three years earlier a monument in honour of Alexander Sergeyvich Pushkin was officially inaugurated in Asmara, even though Pushkin had not physically fought for the independence of Eritrea. As a matter of fact, A.S. Pushkin lived in nineteenth century Russia whereas Eritrea got its independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after thirty years of armed struggle. According to Artem Efimov, Pushkin, in his famous novel, Eugene Onegin, states that he (Pushkin) will one day leave cold Russia to enjoy the warmth and sunshine “beneath the sky of my beloved Africa”. The monument is significant because it is Eritrea’s way of welcoming home one of its lost children. In his life, Pushkin never left Russia. However, a soil sample permanently placed at the foot of the monument from Pushkin’s burial place at Svyatogorsk Monastery near Mikhailovskoye, Russia, fullfils Pushkin’s dream of enjoying the warmth and sunshine “beneath the sky of his beloved Africa”. Mikhailovskoye was one of the estates of his maternal great grandfather, a full-blooded African, Major-General Abraham Petrovich Hannibal (Gannibal in Russian).

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