WEBVTT - Fortune Has Changed My Life

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Noble Blood. A production of iHeartRadio and Grimm

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<v Speaker 1>and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener Discretion Advised Saint Petersburg,

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<v Speaker 1>seventeen fifty nine. A man in full military dress stands

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<v Speaker 1>before the court as Empress Elizabeth prepares to make him

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<v Speaker 1>General in Chief of the Imperial Russian Army, the second

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<v Speaker 1>highest military rank in the Empire. The man is black,

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<v Speaker 1>African born, and he has risen further than almost anyone

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<v Speaker 1>around him. Whatever the assembled nobility thought of the ceremony,

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<v Speaker 1>there wasn't much they could say.

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<v Speaker 2>The man had earned it. Though foreign born, the man

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<v Speaker 2>had been in Russia for over fifty years. He had

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<v Speaker 2>outlasted rivals, survived exile, built fortresses at the edge of

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<v Speaker 2>the known world, and engineered his way into the upper

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<v Speaker 2>ranks of one of Europe's great military powers. But the

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<v Speaker 2>achievement is even more remarkable when you pull back and

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<v Speaker 2>see the full picture of how he got there. He

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<v Speaker 2>was born in Africa, most likely in the late sixteen nineties,

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<v Speaker 2>the son of a local chief. He was captured as

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<v Speaker 2>a child, trafficked through the Ottoman Empire, and eventually shipped

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<v Speaker 2>to Moscow as a gift for Czar Peter the Great.

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<v Speaker 2>The man arrived with nothing, no language, no connections, no

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<v Speaker 2>guarantee of anything beyond whatever use someone might find for him.

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<v Speaker 2>He could have remained a curiosity at court, a symbol

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<v Speaker 2>of the empire's global reach, comfortable maybe, but ultimately ornamental.

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<v Speaker 2>He chose otherwise. His name was Abrahm Petrovitch Gannible, and

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<v Speaker 2>over six decades he transformed himself into one of the

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<v Speaker 2>most formidable military engineers in Russian history. He was a

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<v Speaker 2>nobleman with land and titles, a patriarch whose children would

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<v Speaker 2>go on to distinguished careers of their own, and a

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<v Speaker 2>great grandfather whose most famous descendant would become the greatest

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<v Speaker 2>poet arguably Russia ever produced. This is the story of

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<v Speaker 2>a child who had every conceivable thing taken from him,

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<v Speaker 2>and who spent the rest of his life quietly and

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<v Speaker 2>methodically building something that could not be taken away. A

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<v Speaker 2>story about what happens when extraordinary intelligence meets extraordinary circumstances.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. Abram Gannibal's

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<v Speaker 2>early life is difficult to pin down. His birth year

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<v Speaker 2>is disputed, his birthplace is disputed. Even the details of

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<v Speaker 2>his capture and journey northward exist somewhere between documented history

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<v Speaker 2>and educated reconstruction, but what we can piece together paints

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<v Speaker 2>a vivid picture. He was born somewhere between sixteen ninety

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<v Speaker 2>six and sixteen ninety eight, most likely in a small

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<v Speaker 2>principality in the region that is modern day Cameroon. His

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<v Speaker 2>father was a local minor chief or prince, not a

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<v Speaker 2>major power, but a man of standing in his community.

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<v Speaker 2>He had livestock, land, multiple wives, and somewhere in the

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<v Speaker 2>neighborhood of nineteen children. By all accounts, a good life

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<v Speaker 2>for the time and region, but his world was under pressure.

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<v Speaker 2>The neighboring principalities had converted to Islam, which gave them

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<v Speaker 2>both ideological cover and practical motivation to view Abram's people

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<v Speaker 2>and family as inferior, even as legitimate targets. When Ottoman

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<v Speaker 2>forces moved through the region, Abram's father died fighting them.

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<v Speaker 2>In the chaos that followed, the boy was seized. His

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<v Speaker 2>sister Lagan reportedly drowned while trying to save him. This

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<v Speaker 2>heartbreak would not be the last for young Abram. He

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<v Speaker 2>was taken to Constantinople, a long and difficult journey that

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<v Speaker 2>culminated in the summer of seventeen o three. He was

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<v Speaker 2>placed in the household of Sultan Ahmed the Third. Abram

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<v Speaker 2>was kidnapped as part of a disturbing trend of that

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<v Speaker 2>era to serve as what European courts of the time

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<v Speaker 2>called a commer more young black attendance, kept at court,

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<v Speaker 2>partly as servants and partly as symbols of prestige and

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<v Speaker 2>global reach. Considered fashionable. It was a dehumanizing institution dressed

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<v Speaker 2>up in the language of exoticism, and it existed across

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<v Speaker 2>courts from Moscow to London. If you've listened to our

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<v Speaker 2>episode on Sarah Forbes Bonetta, you'll recall that not even

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<v Speaker 2>Queen Victoria was above it. It was this custom that

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<v Speaker 2>brought Abrahm the next chapter of his life. After about

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<v Speaker 2>a year in the sultan palace, Abram caught the eye

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<v Speaker 2>of a Russian ambassador in Constantinople, looking for prospects to

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<v Speaker 2>bring back to the court of Czar Peter the Great.

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<v Speaker 2>Abram was selected. Bribes were passed to the Sultan's viziers,

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<v Speaker 2>and in around seventeen oh four, the boy was sent

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<v Speaker 2>to Moscow to be presented to one of the most

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<v Speaker 2>powerful men in the world. Peter the Great had spent

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<v Speaker 2>years dragging Russia into conversation with the rest of Europe,

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<v Speaker 2>obsessed with modernization, with building things, with finding people who

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<v Speaker 2>could do things well, regardless of where they came from.

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<v Speaker 2>When he met Abram, he saw something immediately. This kid

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<v Speaker 2>was sharp, curious, a fast learner. Peter took him under

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<v Speaker 2>his wing immediately. That his protege was the victim of

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<v Speaker 2>what we would now call human trafficking is an obvious

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<v Speaker 2>fact when viewed through a modern lens, but we can

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<v Speaker 2>assume that Peter had genuine affection for the young man

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<v Speaker 2>and genuinely thought that he was helping him by gaining

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<v Speaker 2>him protection and resources he wouldn't have had back home.

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<v Speaker 2>In seventeen o five, Abram was baptized in a church

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<v Speaker 2>in Vilnius. Peter himself stood as godfather. The middle name

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<v Speaker 2>Petrovich essentially branded Abram as part of Peter's lineage. It

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<v Speaker 2>was a pivotal moment, not just religiously but practically. The

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<v Speaker 2>baptism gave Ebram a formal place in the social fabric

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<v Speaker 2>of Peter's court. He didn't know his actual birthday, so

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<v Speaker 2>he used the date of his baptism as a substitute,

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<v Speaker 2>a small, practical act of self creation that somehow feels

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<v Speaker 2>very in character for the man he'd become. Life at

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<v Speaker 2>court suited Abraham. He traveled with Peter on military campaigns,

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<v Speaker 2>serving as valet, a modest job, perhaps, but it allowed

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<v Speaker 2>him to be physically present for some of the most

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<v Speaker 2>consequential military decisions of the era. He was in the room,

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<v Speaker 2>he was watching, and he grew close not just to Peter,

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<v Speaker 2>but to Peter's daughter Elizabeth, a bond that would matter

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<v Speaker 2>enormously later in his life. By his teenage years, he

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<v Speaker 2>was fluent in several languages and showed a particular gift

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<v Speaker 2>for mathematics and geometry, skills that would eventually become the

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<v Speaker 2>foundation of his military career. Peter recognized what he had

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<v Speaker 2>and encouraged him to pursue that path. In seventeen seventeen,

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<v Speaker 2>Abram was sent to Metz, France for formal training. This

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<v Speaker 2>was the highest level of military and scientific instruction available

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<v Speaker 2>in Europe at the time. It was an extraordinary investment,

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<v Speaker 2>and it reflected something real. Peter saw in this boy,

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<v Speaker 2>not a curiosity to be displayed, but a mind to

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<v Speaker 2>be developed. We'll never know if Abram had a genuine

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<v Speaker 2>passion for military strategy or whether learning was as means

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<v Speaker 2>to an end of keeping Peter happy. But either way,

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<v Speaker 2>he was a star on the rise, a generational talent

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<v Speaker 2>that would change the course of Russian history. When Abram

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<v Speaker 2>started school in France, he was a young man with

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<v Speaker 2>a powerful godfather. When he came back six years later,

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<v Speaker 2>he was something different. A soldier, an engineer, a man

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<v Speaker 2>who had chosen his own identity and built it from scratch.

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<v Speaker 2>What he didn't know was that the protection he'd always

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<v Speaker 2>relied on was about to disappear. But first France, in

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<v Speaker 2>seventeen eighteen, Abram joined the French Royal Army, the most

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<v Speaker 2>sophisticated military institution in Europe. Two years later he enrolled

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<v Speaker 2>in the Royal Artillery Academy at La Fair, where the

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<v Speaker 2>mathematics of fortification and the physics of artillery were treated

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<v Speaker 2>as serious intellectual pursuits. He was exactly where he needed

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<v Speaker 2>to be, and he thrived. It was during these years

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<v Speaker 2>in France that he took a new surname, a decision

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<v Speaker 2>that spoke volumes about the man he was becoming. He

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<v Speaker 2>chose the name Gannibal, the Russian transliteration of Hannibal, the

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<v Speaker 2>great Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with war elephants

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<v Speaker 2>and terrified Rome for decades. This was no accident. He

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<v Speaker 2>was a black man, up brooded and dragged across continents,

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<v Speaker 2>remaking himself as a soldier in Europe, claiming his place

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<v Speaker 2>among the most brilliant military minds. He also apparently made friends.

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<v Speaker 2>Paris in the early eighteenth century was alive with Enlightenment thinking, philosophy, science,

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<v Speaker 2>and the radical notion that reason could and should reshape

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<v Speaker 2>human society. Abram moved through those circles, and if his

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<v Speaker 2>biographers are to be believed, he ended up in conversation

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<v Speaker 2>with some of the era's greatest minds. It said that

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<v Speaker 2>Voltaire called Abrahm quote the dark star of the Enlightenment.

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<v Speaker 2>Whether or not that actually happened, it's clear he was

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<v Speaker 2>quickly growing into a man of distinction, even if that

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<v Speaker 2>distinction is loaded down by racist microaggressions. And then war interrupted.

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<v Speaker 2>During the War of the Quadruple Alliance, conflict broke out

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<v Speaker 2>between Spain and a coalition of European countries. A Brahm

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<v Speaker 2>Gannibal thought for France, rising to the rank of captain.

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<v Speaker 2>During one battle, he took a blow to the head

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<v Speaker 2>and was captured by Spanish forces. He spent time as

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<v Speaker 2>a prisoner of war before he was released in seventeen

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<v Speaker 2>twenty two. Never one to let external circumstances slow him down,

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<v Speaker 2>he went right back to his studies. By seventeen twenty three,

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<v Speaker 2>a Brahm's education was complete. He returned to Russia, became

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<v Speaker 2>an engineer, and took on a role as mathematics tutor

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<v Speaker 2>for one of the Tsar's personal guard units. He was

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<v Speaker 2>home back in Peter the Great's orbit, things were good,

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<v Speaker 2>and then in seventeen twenty five, Peter the Great died.

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<v Speaker 2>The court shifted overnight. The man who had pulled a

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<v Speaker 2>Bram from the Ottoman sultan household, who had stood as

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<v Speaker 2>his godfather and protector, sent him to France and saw

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<v Speaker 2>his potential before anyone else was gone. And the person

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<v Speaker 2>who stepped into the vacuum of power was Prince Menshikov,

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<v Speaker 2>a man with no particular fondness for a Bram. Petrovitch Ganibl.

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<v Speaker 2>Menshikov's issues with Ganibel were numerous. Here was a man

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<v Speaker 2>who was foreign born black and had received one of

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<v Speaker 2>the finest educations available anywhere in Europe. He spoke multiple languages,

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<v Speaker 2>he had a head wound from actual combat, and as

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<v Speaker 2>Peter's protege, he was a clear symbol of the old

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<v Speaker 2>regime in a court suddenly navigating a brutal transition of power.

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<v Speaker 2>None of that made Abrahm an ally to Menshikov. It

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<v Speaker 2>made him a threat, or at least a convenient target.

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<v Speaker 2>In seventeen twenty seven, Gannibal was exiled to Siberia. Dispatched

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<v Speaker 2>to the far eastern edge of the Empire, near the

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<v Speaker 2>Mongolian border, Gannibal threw himself into engineering work. He designed

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<v Speaker 2>and oversaw massive construction projects, drawing on everything he had

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<v Speaker 2>learned during his studies in France. During that exile, he

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<v Speaker 2>became one of the most capable military engineers in all

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<v Speaker 2>of Russia. He was pardoned in seventeen thirty completed his

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<v Speaker 2>service in seventeen thirty three, and then came back west.

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<v Speaker 2>During this time he also became a married man. This

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<v Speaker 2>is where the story gets considerably more complicated. In seventeen

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<v Speaker 2>thirty one, Gannibal married a Greek woman named Evdokia Dioper.

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<v Speaker 2>The marriage was not voluntary on her part. She was

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<v Speaker 2>forced into it, and she made her feelings known early

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<v Speaker 2>and often. The relationship was volatile from the beginning, built

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<v Speaker 2>on mutual hostility and almost no common ground. When she

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<v Speaker 2>gave birth to a white baby, who was unmistakably not

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<v Speaker 2>Gannibal's child, his suspicions about her fidelity were confirmed in

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<v Speaker 2>the most public way imaginable. He had her arrested and imprisoned.

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<v Speaker 2>She spent the next eleven years there, but Gannibal had

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<v Speaker 2>already moved on. In seventeen thirty five, he took up

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<v Speaker 2>with a woman named Christina Regina Stelberg, the daughter of

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<v Speaker 2>Scandia Navan and German nobility. They married in seventeen thirty six,

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<v Speaker 2>a year after the birth of their first child, while

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<v Speaker 2>he was still legally bound to Evdokia. It was technically bigamy,

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<v Speaker 2>since his divorce from his first wife wouldn't be finalized

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<v Speaker 2>until seventeen fifty three. At this point, Gannibal received a

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<v Speaker 2>fine and a formal reprimand, and Evdokia was sent to

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<v Speaker 2>a convent for the rest of her life. His second marriage, meanwhile,

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<v Speaker 2>was deemed lawful retroactively. The contrast between the two marriages

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<v Speaker 2>is stark. With Christina, Abrahm found something he clearly hadn't before,

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<v Speaker 2>genuine partnership. She was faithful and warm, and he appreciated

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<v Speaker 2>both qualities enormously, probably more than most men would given

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<v Speaker 2>his history. They went on to have ten children together,

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<v Speaker 2>But id Dookia's story is far more disturbing and not

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<v Speaker 2>an altogether sympathetic chapter in Gannibal's story. By her account,

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<v Speaker 2>Gannibal was a cruel husband, prone to physical abuse. We

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<v Speaker 2>can't tell if the relationship was marred by racism on

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<v Speaker 2>Evdokia's part, the couple's genuine incompatibility, or other factors, but

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<v Speaker 2>the fact is that a woman was forced to marry

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<v Speaker 2>a man she didn't want, was treated badly by him,

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<v Speaker 2>and when she sought connection elsewhere, was locked up for

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<v Speaker 2>over a decade. Whatever the norms of the era, it's

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<v Speaker 2>worth pointing out the injustices now that we can see them.

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<v Speaker 2>But before any of that domestic stability eventually took shape,

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<v Speaker 2>the political winds shifted again, this time in Gannibal's favor.

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<v Speaker 2>In seventeen forty one, Peter's daughter Elizabeth became the Empress

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<v Speaker 2>of Russia. The girl Gannibal had grown close to in

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<v Speaker 2>the early years at court. The one he'd been loyal

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<v Speaker 2>to like family was now in charge of everything, and

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<v Speaker 2>she hadn't forgotten him. Gannibal was welcomed back into prominent

0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.639
<v Speaker 2>with both arms open. He became a senior figure in

0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:22.520
<v Speaker 2>her court, receiving major military appointments, and in seventeen forty

0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.720
<v Speaker 2>two was given a sprawling country estate with land, a

0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:30.399
<v Speaker 2>manor house, and hundreds of serfs. The man who was

0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:35.520
<v Speaker 2>brought to Moscow as someone else's property now owned property

0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.680
<v Speaker 2>of his own, and lots of it. That same year,

0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.200
<v Speaker 2>he petitioned for and received formal nobility and a coat

0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.600
<v Speaker 2>of arms. For the crest, he chose an elephant, a

0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.840
<v Speaker 2>nod to the continent of his birth and perhaps has

0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:57.600
<v Speaker 2>chosen namesake and a single word FuMO. The meaning has

0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.600
<v Speaker 2>been debated ever since. It may be a word in

0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.960
<v Speaker 2>the Kotoko language of his people, meaning homeland, or it

0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:11.080
<v Speaker 2>may be an acronym for a Latin phrase for tuna

0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:17.600
<v Speaker 2>vitam mim mutavit omnino. Fortune has changed my life entirely.

0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.560
<v Speaker 2>In seventeen fifty six, he was appointed Chief Military Engineer

0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.760
<v Speaker 2>of the Russian Army, In seventeen fifty nine, he received

0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:32.119
<v Speaker 2>the rank of General in Chief, the second highest military

0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.320
<v Speaker 2>rank in the Imperial Russian Empire. The boy from Cameroon,

0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:42.119
<v Speaker 2>trafficked through Constantinople exiled to Siberia, had come back and

0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.280
<v Speaker 2>climbed high as the system would allow, and he wasn't

0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:51.879
<v Speaker 2>finished yet. By seventeen sixty two, Gannibal had served the

0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.040
<v Speaker 2>Russian Empire for the better part of six decades. He'd

0:18:56.080 --> 0:19:01.240
<v Speaker 2>survived the chaos after Peter's death, survived say Siberia, survived

0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:07.160
<v Speaker 2>a disastrous first marriage, outlasted enemies and rivals, and entire reigns.

0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.360
<v Speaker 2>When Peter the Third briefly took the throne that year,

0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:17.400
<v Speaker 2>In seventeen sixty two, Gannibal was officially retired. The decision

0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.080
<v Speaker 2>was blamed on his advanced age, but the true meaning

0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:24.800
<v Speaker 2>was simple, thanks for everything, but we're done with you.

0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:30.120
<v Speaker 2>It's done. He petitioned Catherine the Great, who would overthrow

0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.679
<v Speaker 2>that husband Peter, within months, asking that neighboring land be

0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.359
<v Speaker 2>added to his estate in recognition of fifty seven years

0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:44.000
<v Speaker 2>of service. No one ever wrote back. He left Saint Petersburg,

0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:48.880
<v Speaker 2>and he didn't return. The resentment stayed with him, passed

0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.560
<v Speaker 2>down through family stories long after he was gone, a

0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:57.439
<v Speaker 2>legend of ingratitude that his children and grandchildren kept alive.

0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:03.000
<v Speaker 2>But retirement, even a bitter one, suited Gannibal in ways

0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.320
<v Speaker 2>that court life never fully had. He settled into his estate,

0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.920
<v Speaker 2>the one that Empress Elizabeth had given him, surrounded by

0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:15.280
<v Speaker 2>land and family, and the particular freedom that comes from

0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.960
<v Speaker 2>having nothing left to prove. He spent his entire adult

0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:25.000
<v Speaker 2>life navigating a world that required him to be useful, strategic, indispensable.

0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:30.120
<v Speaker 2>Now he could simply exist. He was, by most accounts,

0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.200
<v Speaker 2>a passionate landlord in his final years who took genuine

0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:39.600
<v Speaker 2>satisfaction in managing his property. He died on April twentieth,

0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:44.239
<v Speaker 2>seventeen eighty one, likely in his eighty fifth year. The

0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:49.159
<v Speaker 2>cause was listed as a cranial illness traced back ultimately

0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.320
<v Speaker 2>to the head wound he had taken in France over

0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.439
<v Speaker 2>sixty years earlier, fighting at a Spanish fortress when he

0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.119
<v Speaker 2>was barely in his twenties. His body had been carrying

0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:05.520
<v Speaker 2>that injury his entire life. He left behind ten children

0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.679
<v Speaker 2>with Christina, a coat of arms with an elephant on it,

0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.840
<v Speaker 2>and a life so strange and full that it almost

0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:18.400
<v Speaker 2>defies summary. His children did well. His eldest son, Ivan

0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.560
<v Speaker 2>became an accomplished naval officer who rose, like his father,

0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:26.720
<v Speaker 2>to the rank of General in chief. Another son, Osip,

0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.560
<v Speaker 2>had a daughter named Nadezhda, and Nadeesha had a son.

0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:36.680
<v Speaker 2>That son was Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin is, by most measures,

0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:42.359
<v Speaker 2>the greatest writer in the history of the Russian language, poet, novelist, playwright,

0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:47.320
<v Speaker 2>the figure that most completely captures the essence of Russian literature.

0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:52.399
<v Speaker 2>And he was Abram Gannibal's great grandson, a fact he

0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.680
<v Speaker 2>was deeply aware of and deeply proud of. After finishing school,

0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:02.280
<v Speaker 2>Pushkin tracked down his great grand father's last surviving son,

0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.240
<v Speaker 2>a man named Peter, and interviewed him about his great

0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:11.399
<v Speaker 2>grandfather's life. Pushkin came back years later, writing in his

0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.879
<v Speaker 2>diary that he wanted to extract every memory Peter still had.

0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.840
<v Speaker 2>What came out of those conversations was an unfinished novel

0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:24.240
<v Speaker 2>called The More of Peter the Great, in which a

0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:29.240
<v Speaker 2>fictionalized version of Ebram navigates the Russian court, a brilliant

0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.320
<v Speaker 2>outsider in a world that can't quite decide what to

0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:37.280
<v Speaker 2>do with him. Pushkin drew on his great grandfather's experiences

0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.960
<v Speaker 2>and wove in his own. The two lives rhymed in

0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:46.359
<v Speaker 2>ways that clearly meant something to Pushkin, both men of

0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:51.160
<v Speaker 2>African descent, both moving through Russian society on the strength

0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.440
<v Speaker 2>of their mind, and both aware of how much their

0:22:54.480 --> 0:23:00.399
<v Speaker 2>difference defined how the world saw them. Gannibal's birth place

0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:05.320
<v Speaker 2>remains a point of contention. For years, scholars assumed he

0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:10.119
<v Speaker 2>was from Ethiopia. Russian researchers favored a region in what

0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:16.000
<v Speaker 2>is now Ertrea. Both governments eventually claimed him, naming streets

0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:20.280
<v Speaker 2>after him and creating monuments in his honor. It's understandable

0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:23.120
<v Speaker 2>why they would both want to claim such a remarkable

0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:28.800
<v Speaker 2>and interesting figure, but modern research points towards Lagone Berni

0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:33.359
<v Speaker 2>in what is now Cameroon, the region Gannibal himself referenced

0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:38.920
<v Speaker 2>in his petition to Empress Elizabeth. In twenty ten, representatives

0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:44.360
<v Speaker 2>from Russia and Estonia, the Cameroonian ambassador, and the Sultan

0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:48.879
<v Speaker 2>of Lagone Bierni gathered at the old Royal Artillery Academy

0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.520
<v Speaker 2>in La Faire, France. There, at the place where Gannibal

0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:57.399
<v Speaker 2>had studied nearly three hundred years earlier, they unveiled a

0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:02.600
<v Speaker 2>commemorative plaque. It identified him as a graduate of the Academy,

0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:06.600
<v Speaker 2>as chief Military Engineer and General in Chief of the

0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:11.800
<v Speaker 2>Imperial Russian Army, and as the great grandfather of Alexander Pushkin.

0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:16.240
<v Speaker 2>Four countries in one place, honoring a man none of

0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:21.480
<v Speaker 2>them could fully claim. Ibram Gannibal belonged to all of

0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:25.400
<v Speaker 2>those places and to none of them. He was stolen

0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:30.520
<v Speaker 2>from Africa, educated in France, and rose to prominence in Russia.

0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:34.240
<v Speaker 2>His life was full of contradictions. A man who had

0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.400
<v Speaker 2>been property and later owned people himself, someone who could

0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:42.240
<v Speaker 2>be brutal to those who felt had wronged him, including

0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:46.439
<v Speaker 2>his first wife, and also deeply loyal to those he loved,

0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:50.720
<v Speaker 2>A person driven by a hunger to belong that never

0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:54.399
<v Speaker 2>quite left him, even after he had earned every honor

0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:59.119
<v Speaker 2>the Empire could offer. What doesn't contradict is the sheer

0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:03.199
<v Speaker 2>force of what he built. He made himself impossible to

0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:07.399
<v Speaker 2>ignore and then impossible to forget. He was a man

0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:11.639
<v Speaker 2>with a brilliant analytical mind whose legacy extended all the

0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:16.639
<v Speaker 2>way to one of Russia's most expressive and sensitive poets.

0:25:17.400 --> 0:25:22.919
<v Speaker 2>Fortune has changed my life entirely that's one reading of FuMO.

0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:28.320
<v Speaker 2>The other is simply homeland. Maybe in the end Gannibal

0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:36.080
<v Speaker 2>meant both. That's the story of a Brahm Petrovitch Gannibal.

0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:39.360
<v Speaker 2>But keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear

0:25:39.480 --> 0:25:43.439
<v Speaker 2>a little bit more about his literary legacy. Outside his

0:25:43.640 --> 0:26:00.199
<v Speaker 2>great grandson, Gannibal's story has a surprising literary connection that

0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:05.240
<v Speaker 2>goes beyond his famous great grandson. Decades after Ganibal's death,

0:26:05.600 --> 0:26:11.360
<v Speaker 2>Vladimir Nabokov sat down to translate Pushkin's master work Eugene

0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:16.080
<v Speaker 2>Oeggan and found himself digging into Gannibal's origins and the process.

0:26:16.720 --> 0:26:20.040
<v Speaker 2>At the time, the prevailing assumption was that Gannibal had

0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:25.960
<v Speaker 2>come from Ethiopia. Nibokov wasn't convinced, and pointed toward regions

0:26:26.040 --> 0:26:29.919
<v Speaker 2>further west and south. He was right to be skeptical.

0:26:30.320 --> 0:26:34.840
<v Speaker 2>The Ethiopian theory eventually collapsed, partly on its own thin

0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:40.320
<v Speaker 2>evidence and partly because researchers exposed the assumption underneath it

0:26:40.840 --> 0:26:45.800
<v Speaker 2>that Ethiopian origins were seen as more prestigious, more capable

0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:51.840
<v Speaker 2>of explaining Gannibal's brilliance than origins deeper in Sub Saharan Africa,

0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:56.240
<v Speaker 2>the people who wanted to honor him had quietly edited

0:26:56.320 --> 0:27:03.199
<v Speaker 2>him into a more acceptable African. That pattern extended to

0:27:03.320 --> 0:27:08.760
<v Speaker 2>his great grandson Pushkin as well. African American scholar, literary critic,

0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:13.600
<v Speaker 2>and historian Henry Lewis Gates Junior addresses this narrow minded

0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:18.520
<v Speaker 2>tendency in the foreword to Under the Sky of My Africa,

0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:24.760
<v Speaker 2>Alexander Pushkin and Blackness quote. Many critics and writers, most

0:27:24.840 --> 0:27:30.760
<v Speaker 2>famously Nibokov, dismissed Pushkin's quote Africanness as a quirk of

0:27:30.960 --> 0:27:35.040
<v Speaker 2>biographical fate, as a factor to be acknowledged only barely,

0:27:35.160 --> 0:27:38.760
<v Speaker 2>if at all, and to be dismissed as irrelevant to

0:27:38.800 --> 0:27:43.560
<v Speaker 2>his artistic life. But these essays make a convincing case

0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:47.359
<v Speaker 2>for the merits of a sustained exploration of the role

0:27:47.440 --> 0:27:52.000
<v Speaker 2>his African ancestry played in Pushkin's creative life, in his

0:27:52.119 --> 0:27:57.120
<v Speaker 2>perception of himself, and in his perception and interpretation of Russia.

0:27:57.640 --> 0:28:02.359
<v Speaker 2>End quote. Pushkin knew what Gannibal had spent a lifetime

0:28:02.560 --> 0:28:06.879
<v Speaker 2>proving that the truest version of a person is the

0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:11.080
<v Speaker 2>one they insist on themselves against every other force that

0:28:11.240 --> 0:28:27.359
<v Speaker 2>says otherwise. Noble blood is a production of iHeart Radio

0:28:27.600 --> 0:28:31.040
<v Speaker 2>and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is

0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:34.960
<v Speaker 2>hosted by me Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are

0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:39.720
<v Speaker 2>Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski, and me

0:28:39.880 --> 0:28:43.840
<v Speaker 2>Dana Schwartz. The show is edited and produced by Jesse

0:28:43.960 --> 0:28:49.160
<v Speaker 2>Funk and Nomes Griffin, with supervising producer rima Ill Kali

0:28:49.480 --> 0:28:53.560
<v Speaker 2>and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.

0:28:54.080 --> 0:28:59.680
<v Speaker 2>For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:29:00.160 --> 0:29:02.000
<v Speaker 2>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.