THE AFRO-RUSSIAN ARMY GENERAL ABRAM PETROVICH GANNIBAL
The story of Alexander Pushkin's great-grandfather, who rose from being an African slave to becoming a General in the Russian Imperial Army
I will start by dispelling the widely held myth that Pushkin's great-grandfather, Abram Gannibal—a General in the Russian Army of Peter The Great— was an Ethiopian.
Back in the 18th Century, the area of Africa that were familiar to Europeans was North Africa and the outermost part of sub-Saharan Africa (i.e. the horn of Africa subregion adjacent Yemen). This means that Europe's knowledge of Africa in that era was largely limited to the Maghrebs of North Africa and Ethiopia plus environs.
Most of sub-Saharan Africa was unknown territory to Europeans. The remarkable exception being those brave Portuguese explorers who travelled deep inside sub-Saharan Africa in the 16th Century and ended up encountering the now defunct Oyo Empire (1300–1896) and Kingdom of Benin (1180–1897).
Because sub-Saharan Africa was largely unknown in Europe in those ancient times, there was a tendency identify any dark-skinned black African as "an Ethiopian" and lighter-skinned black African as "a moor". So it is not surprising that dark-skinned Abram Gannibal ended up being identified as an "Ethiopian" as soon as he appeared in Russia.
Historians— particularly African scholars such as Dieudonné Gnammankou— have since established that Abram Gannibal was actually from Logone-Birni in present-day Cameroon, which straddles West and Central Africa. His father had been a wealthy, slave-owning, chieftain who died in 1703 while fighting Ottoman Turks trying to capture slaves from the territory he ruled.
Of course, I will not delve any further into the irony of a slave owner fighting off attempts by foreign slave raiders to acquire their own slaves. Most important thing to understand is that Gannibal's father died in battle and the Ottomans captured slaves from Logone-Birni and that included eight-year-old Gannibal.
As was the norm in certain royal courts of Europe and the Ottoman Empire (which emulated aspects of the European royalty), slaves of exotic appearance were highly sought and kept within the royal household. Being dark-skinned with "strong" negroid features, Gannibal was promptly transported to Istanbul where he was to stay within the household of Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III.
The royal court of Peter the Great was also looking for "exotic" African slaves to enter the royal household too. In 1704, two Russian state officials worked together to make that happen. They were Count Sava Vladislavich-Raguzinsky (Serbian-descended Russian Ambassador to Ottoman Empire) and Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy (diplomat and ancestor of Leo Tolstoy).
At the behest of both men, bribes were offered to Ottoman government officials in exchange for Gannibal, who was quickly taken to Moscow for presentation to Peter the Great.
Peter the Great took a liking to the African boy, had him baptized, made him a godson and took him along on travels overseas, including to the numerous European battlefields where Russian Armed Forces were fighting.
Gannibal was later sent to Metz (France) where he learnt mathematics, geometry, warfare and arts. He later joined the French Army, studied at France's Artillery Academy, and as a French Army Captain, he participated in the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720).
Gannibal's rise to prominence within Russia took place under the reign of Empress Elizaveta, the daughter of Peter the Great. Valued for his technical skills, he was appointed Chief Military Engineer of the Russian army in 1756. Before that appointment, he had led several construction projects in Siberia, including the design and contruction of a fortress.
In 1759, Empress Elizaveta promoted Gannibal from "Major-General" to "General-In-Chief". He would retire three years later to an estate granted to him by another Russian ruler, Empress Catherine the Great. He died in 1781 aged 85.
Abram's eldest son, Ivan Gannibal, also rose to become "General-in-Chief" in the Russian Army and led some of the troops of the Imperial Black Sea Fleet to besiege and capture the Ottoman fortress of Navarin during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). Ivan Gannibal was Pushkin's great-uncle (i.e. the older brother of Pushkin's maternal grandfather).
In November 2010, the representatives from Russia, Cameroon and the traditional ruler of Logone-Birni went to Northern France to witness the unveiling of a plaque commemorating fact that Abram Gannibal had studied at the now-closed French Royal Artillery Academy in La Fère
THE END
Dear reader, if you like my work and feel like making a small donation, then kindly make for my Digital Tip Jar at Buy Me A Coffee