Pushkin claimed by “one droppers”

>MAGAZINES & JOURNALS
>
>A glance at the summer issue of “Transition”:
>Exploring Pushkin’s black roots
>
>Aleksandr Pushkin’s African roots are crucial to understanding
>Russia’s beloved poet, writes Anne Lounsbery, a lecturer in
>Russian literature at Harvard University. Ms. Lounsbery writes
>about Pushkin’s pride in his genealogy, and his strong
>connection to his African ancestor, Avram Gannibal — a man who
>appears in some of the poet’s literary endeavors. Gannibal was
>the son of a local prince in what is now Cameroon. Purchased as
>a slave by a Russian diplomat, Gannibal so impressed Peter the
>Great with his intellect that the czar made him his godson and
>sent him to France to be educated. Gannibal eventually became a
>great general, and both of Pushkin’s parents were his
>descendants. Although some scholars have argued that Gannibal
>was Abyssinian and therefore not black, others have protested
>that view; the poet himself took pride in his blackness.
>”Pushkin described himself, and his African ancestor, with words
>that designated all black people, including the slaves of the
>New World; he referred to American slaves as ‘my brothers
>negry,'” she writes. According to Ms. Lounsbery, Pushkin “first
>entered American consciousness as a black man.” He has been
>written about in the black press; there is a prize for black
>writers named after him; an African-American museum in Harlem
>dedicates an exhibition to him. Much of his Russian-ness was
>thrown into relief by his relationship to his estranged
>homeland, Africa. “He was a race man for Russia,” Ms. Lounsbery
>writes. The article is not available online, but information
>about the journal is available at
>http://www.TransitionMagazine.com