Prompt Cast
The Remarkable Life of Avram Petrovich Gannibal: From Cameroonian Slave to Russian General
TLDR Avram Petrovich Gannibal, believed to have come from Cameroon, was kidnapped as a child and ended up in the court of the Ottoman emperor before catching the eye of Peter the Great. He went on to become a general and nobleman in the Russian Empire, leaving a lasting legacy in Russian literature and becoming an icon for writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
The episode discusses the history of Cameroon and its most famous son, starting with a duel between a French officer and Alexander Pushkin in Saint Petersburg.
04:07
Pushkin's unfinished novel, "The Moor of Peter the Great," is actually a portrait of his great-grandfather, Avram Petrovich Gannibal, who was an African man that came to St. Petersburg in the 18th century, and while many Russians believed he came from Abyssinia, some believe he actually came from Cameroon.
08:01
Avram Petrovich Gannibal, believed to have come from Cameroon, was kidnapped by slavers at a young age and ended up at the court of the Ottoman emperor, Sultan Ahmed III, where he caught the eye of Count Sava Lukic Vladislavich Ragozynski, who would later introduce him to Peter the Great.
11:41
Peter the Great requests a black child to be part of his cabinet of curiosities, and Avram Petrovich Gannibal is brought to St. Petersburg where he is baptized and becomes Peter the Great's godson, and is later sent to France to study science and joins the French army.
15:27
Avram Petrovich Gannibal returns to Paris as a celebrity and is well-received by enlightened circles, including Voltaire, before eventually going back to Russia as a celebrity and becoming a general and nobleman in the Russian Empire.
19:17
Avram Petrovich Gannibal is sent to a remote posting in Siberia, but is eventually allowed to return to the West and marries a Greek woman who he later accuses of adultery and has imprisoned, before marrying a Baltic noble woman and having 10 children, including Ivan who founds the city of Kherson and Osip, whose daughter is the mother of Pushkin.
23:18
Hannibal becomes a general and governor of Tallinn, and later petitions to join the nobility and have a coat of arms with an elephant on it, but the meaning of the word "F-U-M-M-O" on his crest is unknown; he is given an estate and serfs by Elizabeth I, becomes the chief military engineer of the Russian army, and is eventually seen as a symbol of the old regime under Catherine the Great.
27:23
The legacy of Hannibal, the Cameroonian slave who became a Russian general, lives on in Russian literature, particularly in the works of Pushkin, and he also became an icon for writers of the Harlem Renaissance in America.
Categories:
History
