The Eritrean Ancestry of Alexander Pushkin
By Solomon Ghebre-Ghiorghis; M.A., Ph.D.
University of Asmara
One of the most illustrious figures in the history of world literature and general culture has been Alexander S. Pushkin (1799-1837), the Russian poet, publisher and revolutionary. Some people say that Pushkin is to Russian literature as Shakespeare is to English literature. However, clearly, Pushkin is more than that: he is widely acclaimed as the founder of modern Russian literature. Besides his literary merit, Pushkin also had a remarkable personae of wit, integrity and courage. He stressed his African identity and was the lover of some of the most glamorous women of his age. His short life ended in a manner which was in no way less dramatic than stories told in Greek or Shakespearean tragedies.
Pushkin's story is indeed remarkable, but the story of his family especially that of his great-grandfather, Abraham or Ibrahim Hannibal (1698-1781) and how the various strands of these stories converge on and relate to the country now known as Eritrea is equally, and in some ways even more remarkable as a story of human tragedy and triumph over disaster in black history.
The family history of the Hannibals is closely linked to the history of Eritrea, the Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia. We, therefore, need to briefly look at the general historical background of the story.
"The 16th century marks a decisive twist in Eritrean history. Almost a millennium after the end of the Axumite era, the country reappeared on the international scenery, this time however as a target of successive colonial plans of conquest, which profoundly affected its future historical and political evolution" (Tewolde Beyene, 1992). European knowledge and interest in the region increased remarkably after the visit to Abyssinia of the first Portuguese delegation to the Abyssinian court during 1520-1526. Soon after that, a Portuguese-Abyssinian military and political alliance came into effect. This took place at a time when the Red Sea as a gateway to India and the Far East was giving way to Ottoman and Portuguese competition for supremacy in the area (Ibid).
The involvement of the Portuguese in Ethiopian politics had the result of accelerating the Turkish attempt at conquest, which had as a scenery Eritrea and northern Tigray. The Turks had occupied Suakin and Zeila. In 1557, Massawa and Hirghigo were occupied and were to become the launching pad for a full-fledged attempt to conquer the highland and beyond. Such attempts failed, and Turkish rule in the region was confined mainly to the coastal areas of Eritrea for the following three hundred years. The Turks controlled the coast through the Na'ibs of Hirghigo (near Massawa), while maintaining a military presence in the area. The Na'ibs were the traditional rulers of Hirghigo and the surrounding areas and were originally from the Belew people, who contributed to the downfall of the Axumite kingdom. The Na'ibs claimed to be from the Beja royal family in the Sudan.
They were under the supervision of the Turkish representative in Massawa, the Kaimakan, who was in turn answerable to the Turkish Shariffe of Mecca (Salt, 1814). The Na'ibs and the Turks still sought to obtain military control of the Semhar and the highland beyond by exploiting the power rivalry among the local rulers. In their various expeditions, they were supported by Turkish forces garrisoned along the coast. It appears that it was in one of such expeditions that the family history of Abraham Hannibal and Alexander Pushkin begins.
The young Abraham or Ibrahim or Abraha (as Prof. Richard Pankhurst calls him) was born around 1698 in "the Eritrean highland, north of the Mareb River in a town called Logon" (see Smith, Troyat and Pankhurst, 1957). At the time, the overall ruler of Midri-Bahri (Eritrea) was Degesmati Hab'sulus of Tseazega (who was in control of the region from 1679 till 1719). Abraham's father was a local chief or a "prince". He was quite rich and had many wives and about nineteen children. The Turks invaded his territory, and he was engaged in a fierce battle to defend himself. He lost the battle, and his son, Abraham/Ibrahim, was subsequently abducted and taken to Constantinople by sea. His sister, Lagan, is said to have drowned in the sea in a desperate attempt to save her brother. Abraham stayed in Constantinople for about a year in the service of the Sultan's household. At the time, upon the instructions of Tsar Peter the Great, the Russian Ambassador in Turkey was looking for "clever little African slaves" for the Tsar's palace, as was the custom in those days at the great courts in Europe. Thus, Abraham was selected for this purpose and soon purchased from the Sultan's viziers with a bribe. The ambassador immediately dispatched him to Russia by sea.
Peter the Great was delighted with his acquisition. He baptised the young boy at the Orthodox church in Vilnius, Lithuania. The Tsar himself became his godfather and the Queen of Poland his godmother. The young boy was named Peter after his master, the Tsar. However, the child cried and protested saying that it was not his real name--insisting that he be called Ibrahim. They, therefore, gave him a similar version of this name and called him Abraham Petrov. There is no documentary evidence to suggest whether or not Ibrahim was his original name or whether he acquired it from the Turks.
Abraham had a modest beginning at court. However, the Tsar started to recognise his extraordinary abilities and took him into his immediate entourage. In fact, soon Abraham became the Tsar's valet and then his secretary. The Tsar used to dictate to him his ideas at night in his private chambers. In the morning, these were made into formal decrees, orders and instructions and passed on to the concerned officials. As he matured, Abraham started to accompany the Tsar on all his tours and military campaigns.
In 1716, when Peter the Great visited France, he took Abraham along with him as a member of his entourage. Upon the Tsar's return to Russia, Abraham was left behind to enroll in a military college to study military engineering . In 1719, the young Eritrean volunteered to fight with the French against the Spanish. He was severely wounded on the head and taken prisoner. After his release, he returned to France and entered the military engineering and artillery college at Metz, known as the Ecole d'Artillerie. Abraham Petrov showed remarkable success in his knowledge and skill, especially in military engineering and mathematics.
The Tsar wanted Abraham to return to Russia soon; however, the young officer kept giving excuses to extend his stay in France. He was actually having a good time in Paris with female friends. He is said to have had an affair with a French countess.
When Abraham finally returned to St. Peterburg in 1725 with specialty in military fortification and explosives, the Tsar was happy with Abraham's achievement and the acquisition of the latest military technology which could be deployed to strengthen the Russian Army. Abraham brought with him about 400 books on various subjects including mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, military engineering and a book entitled Love Letters of a Catholic Nun. The Tsar was particularly interested in the technical books that Abraham had brought.
The young Eritrean started getting key appointments from the Tsar, and his career promised to be brilliant. However, the Tsar died two years after Abraham's return, and the young officer started facing problems. As a result of court intrigues, he was sent to Kazan and then to the Chinese frontier under the pretext of being put in charge of fortifications in the area. He was forced to live on a meager salary and faced a lot of hardship. He did his best to return to St. Petersburgh but did not find it easy. Fortunately, Empress Anna Ivanovna, Peter the Great's daughter, came to the Russian throne in 1730, and he was recalled from exile and appointed to a new post as a captain of military engineering. That year, he decided to marry the daughter of a Greek captain, Eudoxia, who had another lover. Abraham and Eudoxia got married, but it ended in a disaster. Abraham had another lover of German origin called Christine Sherberg, whom he married later and with whom he had eleven children.
In the meantime, he was assigned to the Baltic region to build and supervise the construction of military fortifications. He was also giving lectures on engineering and mathematics to young Russian nobles. Abraham became one of the very few people in Russia who had remarkable expertise on artillery and military fortification. In 1726, he had written a book on engineering., but it was not published. The reason for this is not known.
Around 1735, Abraham Petrov added "Hannibal" to his name and became Abraham Petrovich Hannibal (or Gannibal in Russian). He probably took this name from the famous Carthagenean (North African) general, Hannibal, who conquered Rome.
Meanwhile, Abraham Hannibal continued to get promotion after promotion in his military career. In 1742, he was appointed general-in-chief and Commander of Ravel and later became a gentleman of the bedchamber. In 1746, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna made Abraham a present of a vast property and estate, the village of Mikhailovskoye, which was later passed on to his great grandson, Alexander Pushkin.
In 1752, Hannibal became a Major-General and was appointed in charge of all military engineering in Russia. In this capacity, he displayed to the full his skill as a technician and organiser. The Russian fortifications along the Baltic Sea which he built contributed to the defense of Russia from the German invaders in the Second World War, and they still exist.
Finally, he retired in 1762 and settled in one of his estates near St. Petersburg. There, he lived "in peace and tranquility" for twenty more years recalling his life in Africa. He died on 14th May 1781, at the age of 83 or 84.
Two of Major-General Hannibal's sons took the mantle of their father and became renowned military commanders. One of them, Ivan Hannibal, in particular was a remarkable general of the Russian Navy. His feats and skills equaled, if not surpassed, those of his illustrious father. He won naval battles which were considered impossible by other commanders.
The second son, Ossip Hannibal, was a major of artillery also in the Russian Navy. But, he is well known more for having been the grandfather of Alexander Pushkin, whose mother, Nadezhda (Ossip's daughter) married a young captain called Pushkin. Nadezhda's other son was Oleg, who became an officer decorated for his bravery. Alexander Pushkin's son, also called Alexander, joined the Russian Army and was awarded a gold sabre for bravery. By 1908, he had won promotion to the rank of General of Cavalry. Some descendants of Abraham Hannibal and of Alexander Pushkin can still be traced. According to some reports, one of them was working in St. Petersburg as a football coach up to recently.
Abraham Hannibal's life after his forced departure from Eritrea is fairly well documented. However, the circumstances surrounding his family background, the exact place in Eritrea he was taken from and how exactly he was abducted by the Turks still require further investigation - which is presently underway by Eritrean scholars. But, at least some of the conflicting claims and controversies therein can still be fairly resolved using a combination of documentary and circumstantial evidence as outlined briefly below.
1. The claim that Abraham Hannibal was from Ethiopia. In the Russian archives, Hannibal is identified as having been of Abyssinian origin. Hannibal's descendants, including Alexander Pushkin himself, have always acknowledged this fact. Since Abyssinia is usually identified with present day Ethiopia, the Ethiopians as well as some foreign scholars have claimed that the Hannibals are of Ethiopian origin. The fact that the area which is now called Eritrea was for a long time administered by Ethiopia (or the northern part of Ethiopia) and that the people of Eritrea or parts of it were widely identified as Abyssinians for over a millennium, have further complicated the matter. It must be stressed, however, that the confusion is confined to the problem of naming and is not substantive. There is certainly no evidence to prove or suggest that Hannibal was born in Ethiopia. The Turkish forces were in northern Ethiopia only during 1557-59, long before Hannibal was born. Nor is there any clue that suggests that his parents moved from Ethiopia to Eritrea before he was born.
2. The claim that Hannibal's father was a Muslim. The issue as to whether Abraham's
father was a Muslim is significant because it is one of the factors that may be taken into account in deciding which part of Eritrea he was taken form. N. Izmailov suggests that Abraham's/Ibrahim's father was indeed a Muslim, and "a vassal of the Turkish Sultan" in Massawa. In his account of his life in Africa, Abraham/Ibrahim also pointed out that his father had several wives and nineteen siblings. Is it possible that the name "Ibrahim" was given to him by the Turks? He actually stayed with the Turks only for one year. He couldn't have associated himself with the name so much as to complain about a change of name as he is reported to have done. All these clues seem to suggest that he was probably a Muslim. Abraham's father seems to have been at least the ruler of a district, and the people over whom he ruled were also probably mostly Muslims. If this is true, we can exclude a number of places in Eritrea as the possible locations of Hannibal's origin. One of these could be Debarwa.
2. The claim that Hannibal was either from Debarwa or its vicinity. There are some who have claimed that Debarwa and/or its vicinity, which are associated with the "Logo", "Logotai", etc. are the true origins of Hannibal (Lebasi Bekurezion, 1964; Amanuel Barnabas, 2001). Debarwa was certainly the capital of the Bahre Negai in the past, and it is located on the banks of the Mareb River. However, there is evidence that suggests that Debarwa was not the capital of the Bahre Negasi at the time of Abraham's abduction. There doesn't seem to have been a Bahre Negasi at that time anyway. Is it also possible that there were other villages and towns along the course of the Mareb and its tributaries? Henry Salt (1814) certainly talks about "the town of Logo" on the Strean of Serwemai ( a Mareb tributary) near Logo Sarda/Ab'aa with its own Bahre Negasi Arkoe about 100 years after Abraham's abduction. More importantly, Debarwa around 1805-6 was under the control of Degezmati Hab'sulus, who had a close alliance with the Ethiopian king. It is, therefore, unlikely that the Turks could have attacked and defeated the local ruler of Debarwa and taken his son hostage without engaging Hab'sulus's main army. It is more plausible to assume that the Turks actually attacked the approaches of Adi Kayih and Senafe and moved west where the Saho Muslims predominantly used to live. This covers the area of Logo Sarda, A'iba, Tsorona, Ab'aa and the Hazomo areas. It should be noted that the central part of this region is sometimes known as "Logo" and the people there are related to those who live around Debarwa. The other twist to the story is that the "Logos" or "Logotays" of Seraye, Akele Guzay and also Hamasien are geneologically related to the Saho, who have inhabited for over a millennium all the area spreading from Irafayle on the Red Sea to Adi Kayish/Senafe and westward up to Hazemo. Along the coast and the Semhar and part of the highland, the Saho sometimes came under Turkish/Na'ib rule, but quite often they rebelled. This seems to tie in quite neatly with the presumed circumstances under which Hannibal was abducted.
The present writer and researcher is presently seeking help from the National Museum of Eritrea and some interested members of staff of the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology of the University of Asmara to send an archaeological expedition to a suspected site (the town of Logo, which appears in Henry Salt's map) south-east of the village of Ab'aa near A'iba and Tsorona. Because of many reasons explained here and elsewhere, this rejects the hypothesis that Abraham Hannibal was from either Debarwa or its vicinity. The aim of the search for now (but which may change later) is to find the ruins of the old village/town of Logon and the graveyard. Samples of human tissue would then be collected for DNA analysis and comparison made with the dead and living relatives of Hannibal and Pushkin. The matching of the tissue samples would ultimately mean that we have conclusive evidence as to where exactly Abraham Hannibal was born and lived in Eritrea. This would again shed more light on the circumstances of his abduction.
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A more detailed article containing all the footnote and bibliographical entries required exists and could be supplied by the author.