ABRAM PETROVICH GANNIBAL, THE SLAVE WHO BECAME A MAJOR-GENERAL OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY, MILITARY ENGINEER,GOVERNOR OF REVAL AND NOBLEMAN OF RUSSIAN EMPIRE Sold into Turkish slavery, Abram Petrovich Hannibal was brought as a black servant to Czar Peter I, known as Peter the Great. He became one of the royal favorites, a general-in-chief and one of the best educated men in Russia. His great-grandson was Alexander Pushkin, the famous Russian writer who later glorified the deeds of his black ancestor in his book, The Negro of Peter the Great. Hannibal was born on an unknown date around 1696 in the principality of Logon in present day Cameroon. Abducted by a rival tribe, Hannibal was sold to Turkish slave traders who brought him to Constantinople in 1703. As an eight-year-old boy he came to the court of Peter the Great who adopted him immediately. Being the Czars godson, Hannibal assumed his name, Petrovich, and became his valet on Peters various military campaigns and journeys. When the Czar visited France in 1716, Hannibal was left behind in Paris to study engineering and mathematics at a military school. Two years later, he joined the French army and fought in the war against Spain. In January 1723, Hannibal finally returned to Russia. To Hannibals misery, his protector Peter the Great died in 1725, leaving the black artillery lieutenant in the dependence of the royal advisor Prince Menshikov, who–due to his dislike for Hannibal–assigned him to Siberia and later to the Chinese border where his task was to measure the Great Wall. Hannibal’s fortunes changed in 1741, when Empress Elisabeth took the throne and Hannibal was allowed to officially return from his exile although in fact he had done so clandestinely in 1731. Five years after his illegal return, he married his second wife Christina Regina von Schöberg, the daughter of a Swedish army captain, who bore him eleven children. One of his sons named Osip was the grandfather of the poet Alexander Pushkin. Although it had been his wish to retire, Empress Elisabeth did not want to abandon Hannibal and his engineering skills. He was made commander of the city of Reval between 1743 and 1751 and by 1760 had been promoted to the rank of a full general. During his military career he oversaw various projects such as the construction of the Ladoga Canal and Russian fortresses. Abram Petrovich Hannibal died on April 20, 1781, as one of the leading pioneers of his country and probably the first outstanding engineer in Russian history. WHERE EXACTLY IN AFRICA DOES ABRAM PETROVICH GANNIBAL COMES FROM? There is a raging argument among historians and academicians about the actual place in Africa that Abram Petrovich Gannibal comes from. Wikipaedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Petrovich_Gannibal claims he was born in 1696 in a village called Lagon, in present day Eritrea, located on the northern side of the Mareb River... (which serves as much of the modern border between Ethiopia and Eritrea). On an 1810 map by Henry Salt, Logo appears in Ethiopia (the area corresponds to todays Loggo Sarda, which had its own rulers, and which is inhabited by Christian Tigrayans and Muslim Saho; others claim it to correspond to nearby Loggo Chewa further west in Eritrea). As the other sons were brought to their father with their hands trussed up with a rope, he enjoyed freedom of the youngest son swimming in his fathers fountains (Pushkins notes to Eugene Onegin). The research (1996) of Dieudonné Gnammankou suggests he may actually have been from what is now the Sultanate of Logone-Birni on the Logone River, in Cameroon, south of Lake Chad. However, in a recent article entitled Of African Princes and Russian Poets in The New York Times newspaper`s Opinion pages written by I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor, Serge Schmemann in November 12, 2010, he confirmed Mr Gnammankou`s finding of Cameroon as Abram Gannibal`s original home
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 02:39:08 +0000
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