Customer Reviews

The Stolen Prince: Gannibal, Adopted Son of Peter the Great, Great-Grandfather of Alexander Pushkin, and Europe's First Black Intellectual

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An African man in Russia? Sounds far fetched but it's true Abram Petrovich Gannibal was one such man who came from slavery to preeminence in 17th century Russia. This novel attempts to find exactly where this enigmatic man came from and how he became a favorite of Tsar Peter the Great. Using clues from Gannibals letters, which reveal him to have an elusive personality, and accounts from poet Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, which are a more fiction than fact, the author attempts to track Gannibals journey from his African homeland, through the Ottoman Empire and finally to Russia. Along the way a cast of other colorful charactes reveal themselves and some are most beneficial to Gannibal. After gainig Peter the Great's favor Gannibal is educated in Paris and becomes an accomplished mathmetician, draftsman, and even pyrotechnic engineer. Yet as time passes and new rulers come to the throne Gannibal soons finds himself out of favor. Nonetheless his heritage should not be forgotten and is dully laid out in this novel. And it is still not forgotten interestingly enough in the Mountbatten family of Great Britain who have a line of descent from Gannibal.

In this book we are treated to a fascinating story of the court of Peter the Great. The story of how diplomats were acting in the Russian court at the time, the internal politics, the manipulations of the whole system is quite fascinating.

At the same time, what I found puzzling was how this one lad, captured as a slave from (presumably) Chad, he was made a page in the sultan's harem, and from there to the Russian court. Not stopping there, proceeded to become, as the subtitle says, 'Europe's First Black Intellectual.'

Accomplished in mathematics and military theory, he was a designer of fortifications, friend (or at least acquaintenance) of the powerful of the time across all of Europe. These were astounding achievements for any man, but even more surprising for a black ex-slave.

THE STOLEN PRINCE: GANNIBAL, ADOPTED SON OF PETER THE GREAT, GREAT-GRANDFATHER OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN, AND EUROPE'S FIRST BLACK INTELLECTUAL is perhaps most startling for the final five words in its subtitle: a black intellectual in early Europe? Lost documents have been revealed to provide depth and understanding to this reconstruction of the life of Gannibal, creating a blend of history, travelogue and memoir which surveys the life and times of a young African slave in Constantinople in 1703 who claimed to be a prince stolen from Africa. Russia's tzar adopted the child and gave him the best education available, and thus Gannibal became a early soldier, diplomat and spy whose reputation and achievements would earn him a name through history.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch