In approximately 1703, a young African boy purchased from the seraglio of the Turkish sultan was transported to Russia and presented as a gift to Peter the Graet. This child, later knoiwn as Abram Petrovivh Gannibal, became Peter's godson and lived to a ripe old age, having attained the rank of general and the status of Russian nobility. He was also the great-grandfather of Russia's foremost national poet, Alexander Pushkin. The editors of this book demonstrate that Gannibal's African legacy...
lees meer/read more

In approximately 1703, a young African boy purchased from the seraglio of the Turkish sultan was transported to Russia and presented as a gift to Peter the Graet. This child, later knoiwn as Abram Petrovivh Gannibal, became Peter's godson and lived to a ripe old age, having attained the rank of general and the status of Russian nobility. He was also the great-grandfather of Russia's foremost national poet, Alexander Pushkin. The editors of this book demonstrate that Gannibal's African legacy played a significant role in Puskin's creative ;ife, in the perception of himself, and in the perception and interpretation of Russia. Moreover, they contend, the exaggeration or diminshement of Pushkin's 'blackness' in biography and portraiture over the last two hundred yaers serves as a shifting marker of Russia's self-definition.
verberg/hide