By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on April 3, 2017 (via Facebook); Republished on August 16, 2024
In an October 12, 2014, Atlanta Black Star article titled, “Great Black Russians: Ibrahim Petrovich Hannibal and Alexandre Sergeivich Pushkin," noted historian, anthropologist, and lecturer Runoko Rashidi tells the amazing story of two celebrated figures in Russian history. They were two great men of African descent in European history.
Here is their story, as written by Rashidi:
Major-General Ibrahim Petrovich Hannibal
Born in Moscow on May 26, 1799, Alexandre Sergeivich Pushkin, the patriarch of Russian literature, was descended on his mother’s side from Major-General Ibrahim Petrovich Hannibal -- an African who became a favorite of Russian Czar Peter I (1682-1725). He would later be known as "Peter the Great's Negro."
By all accounts, Hannibal was an extraordinary figure and, from an African perspective, it is quite interesting that he assumed the name Hannibal -- himself an African as well as one of the great military commanders and strategists in history.
In 1703, at the age of 7, Hannibal was taken to the court of the Ottoman Sultan at Constantinople. After spending a year in the capital, Hannibal was taken away by the deputy of the Russian ambassador Savva Raguzinsky, who was following the orders of his superiors (one of whom was Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, great-grandfather of the great writer Lev Tolstoy).
Hannibal was baptized in 1705 in St. Paraskeva’s Church in Vilnius, with Russian Czar Peter I (Peter the Great) as his godfather. In 1717, Hannibal went to Paris to continue an education in the arts, sciences and warfare. By then, he was fluent in several languages and knew mathematics and geometry.
Hannibal fought with the forces of Louis XV of France against those of Louis’ uncle Philip V of Spain, and rose to the rank of captain. It was during his time in France that he adopted his surname in honor of the Carthaginian general, Hannibal.
After completing his education in France, Hannibal returned to Russia, where Czar Peter met him in person just a few miles from Moscow.
After Peter’s daughter Elizabeth became the new monarch in 1741, Hannibal became a prominent person in her court. He rose to the rank of Major-General and became governor of Tallinn, a position he held from 1742 to 1752. In 1742, the Empress Elizabeth gave Hannibal the Mikhailovskoye estate in Pskov province with hundreds of serfs. Hannibal retired there in 1762.
Alexandre Sergeivich Pushkin
Alexandre Sergeivich Pushkin has been identified as the "Father of Russian Literature."
The most distinguished Russian writers offer Pushkin effusive praise. Feodor Dostoevsky wrote that, “No Russian writer was ever so intimately at one with the Russian people as Pushkin.”
I. Turgeniev wrote that, “Pushkin alone had to perform two tasks which took whole centuries and more to accomplish in other countries, namely to establish a language and to create a literature.”
According to N.A. Dobrolyubuv, “Pushkin is of immense importance not only in the history of Russian literature, but also in the history of Russian enlightenment. He was the first to teach the Russian public to read."
A.V. Lunacharsky said, “Pushkin was the Russian spring. Pushkin was the Russian morning. Pushkin was the Russian Adam. Pushkin did for us what Dante and Petrach did for Italy; what the 17th century giants did for France; and what Lessing, Schiller and Goethe did for Germany.”
Pushkin clearly saw himself as a black man and closely identified himself with those Africans held in bondage in the Americas. In a letter composed in 1824, Pushkin wrote: “It is permissible to judge the Greek question like that of my Negro brethren, desiring for both deliverance from an intolerable slavery.”
Pushkin died prematurely on January 29, 1837 at 2:45 p.m. resulting from wounds suffered defending his honor in a duel. Czar Nicholas I, who hated and feared Pushkin, called him “the most intelligent man in Russia.” Allison Blakely has written that, “Pushkin was truly the counterpart to Shakespeare.”
Alexandre Pushkin was buried on February 6, 1837, in Svyatogorsk Monastery, near Mikhailovskoye, close to his mother and his great-grandfather Hannibal. Bronze statues of Pushkin can be found throughout Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russian cities, town squares and 20 museums have been named after Pushkin. His portraits are everywhere.
Today, Hannibal and Pushkin are beloved national heroes in Russia.
[Author's Note: The story of Major-General Ibrahim Petrovich Hannibal and writer Alexandre Sergeivich Pushkin is the subject of one of two TV documentaries I am co-executive-producing in California. The second documentray details the lives of Black Germans who were Holocaust victims in Nazi Germany during World War II. Unlike Jewish Holocaust victims, the story of Black German Holocaust victims has never been told in a documentary or motion picture. Both documentaries are worthy and exciting projects, and they represent the fulfillment of one of my life-long personal goals.]
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