The Other Pushkin: Ethiop's Son, Not Russian Blackamoor

Aleksandr Sergyevich Pushkin

Lionised this summer in bi-centenary celebrations as national poet and "Father of the Russian language," Aleksandr Sergyevich Pushkin now deserves to be seen from another point of view. He is Ethiop's son: Africa's contribution to Europe's freedom struggles and world literature.

Russia's Shakespeare
Pushkin, born in Moscow June 6, 1799, has many qualities that endear him to all levels of Russian society from the literati to the ordinary masses.

The poet and prolific author is credited as Russia's answer to Britain's Shakespeare. He created the language Russians speak today and defined the literary baseline for all great Russian writers, among them Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevesky.

Called by many the "muse of the steppes", Pushkin voiced the hopes of the down-trodden poor with folk tales learned from his maternal grandmother. His radical fervour, eloquently expressed in "Ode to Liberty", was forged from his underground revolutionary activity in the Union of Welfare and the 1825 Decembrist movement for constitutional monarchy.

Twice-banished by the Czar, Pushkin's great historical work Boris Godunov emphasizes "the judgement of the people" as the powerful antidote to the excesses of autocratic rule. In it he avowed that the poet-as-prophet should "fire the hearts of men with his words."

Setting the record straight
Yet, the picture of Pushkin that emerges from the £2.5 million Pushkin bi-centenary jubilee is in danger of serious distortion. Pushkin's African heritage has been largely ignored in official tributes, commercially sponsored events, and the plethora of academic works.

Black intellectuals, however, have long considered Pushkin as one of their own. The late John O. Killens shed new light on Pushkin's feelings and character in his book Great Black Russian: A Novel on the life and times of Alexander Pushkin. Though criticised by the literary establishment as a "fictionalised biography",. Killens suggests that Pushkin saw himself in czarist Russia as an African and was very much aware that black emancipation formed part of the wider advancement of all peoples.

Black academics speak
Now, Pushkin's African-ness has been endorsed by Harvard University's Black professors Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Appiah. They set the record straight in the monumental MS Encarta Africana, History of Africa and the African Diaspora.

"Alexander Pushkin was of high birth: his father came from a long line of Russian aristocracy, and his mother was the granddaughter of Abram Hannibal, who proclaimed himself to be an African prince. Hannibal, who was sold into slavery in the early eighteenth century, later became an engineer and major general in the Russian army and was a favourite of Czar Peter the Great."

Pushkin's place in diasporic history is further identified by Runoko Rashiki in the Ethiopian Review, 31 Dec. 1998. "From the most remote times there has existed in Russia people of African descent. By far the most famous of all the Blacks in Russian history, however was Alexander Sergeievich Pushkin - patriarch of Russian literature," says Rashiki.

Pushkin's African ancestry
Evidence shows Pushkin honoured his African heritage, say Gates and Appiah. His unfinished work The Negro of Peter the Great pays homage to his illustrious great-grandfather, and in "My Genealogy" Pushkin wrote:

"To my grandsire: the blackamoor Bought at a bargain, grew up staunch and loyal The emperor's bosom friend, not slave"

The positive image of Hannibal that emerges is one of the earliest characterisations of the "Negro as hero" in world literature.

Remembered in Africa
Pushkin was given homage in the land of his ancestors - the land of Africa beyond Egypt. Ethiopia marked the bi-centenary with exhibitions and artistic shows and a street-naming ceremony in Addis Ababa, the capital city.

"The gesture to name a street on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Pushkin's birthday is in tribute to the great Russian poet whose mother had Ethiopian ancestry," said the state-run Ethiopian News Agency ENA. Commemorative stamps and selected works of the poet will be published, said Ethiopian vice-minister of Information and Culture, Bisrat Gashawtena.

Russian-born, but hero of the diaspora
Pushkin is for many westerners the epitome of a Russian puzzle - a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. This is undoubtedly due to the circumstances of his birth and life in czarist Russia. He was a high-born confidant of royalty and favourite in courtly circles, but an implacable foe of autocratic monarchy. He was an African who eschewed the benefits of "whitening" his background and, unafraid, died duelling in defence of his African honour and heritage.

No matter Russian and European adoration, there is little doubt that Pushkin sipped "water from an ancient well", to paraphrase Abdullah Ibrahim, the African musician. Pushkin is Ethiop's son, and his contribution to world literature is the 'something new' that Pliny called the outstanding gift of Africa.