ABRAM HANNIBAL, THE FAVORITE OF PETER THE GREAT
Abram Hannibal, more commonly known as the "Negro of Peter the Great," or "Peter's Negro" was one of the quaintest figures in the Russian history of eighteenth century. From slavery to mastership and riches his peculiar fate led him. He began his life under yoke in Africa but died a general and wealthy landlord of the frozen North, leaving his children and grandchildren to be prominent in the politics and literature of Russia.
The name of "Peter's Negro," no doubt, belongs to history; but comparatively little is known of him, many important details of his biography being still incomplete and unascertained. Outside of the Russian sources there were Hannibal's own memoirs, written in French, but not long before his death Abram burned them. About the beginning of nineteenth century there appeared Hannibal's biography in German, written by a certain Helbig (Russische Gunstlinge), but hardly anything trustworthy could be learned from this work. As far as we know, nothing was ever published of "Peter's Negro" in English. Even the Russian sources are mainly official records and dry documents, not of a great historical value, if of any. The best information about Hannibal may be obtained from the unfinished novel The Negro of Peter the Great (1827) and other works by Pushkin, Hannibal's great-grandson, the famous writer and founder of the modern school of nineteenth century literature in Russia.
Some of later historians doubt many of the assertions of Pushkin, holding that, great as the poet was, he nevertheless was subject to the common human weakness of exaggerating one's forefathers' merits. The important facts of his career, however, have been learned. In the year 1705, as for many years before and after, thousands of Negroes were made prisoners and brought from the interior to the coasts of the dark continent to be shipped to the slave markets of America and Asia. Among others there was a little boy, barely eight years of age, whom Arabs, his masters, called Ibrahim. He was sold to the Turks and, the same year, brought to Constantinople. His fate could be easily guessed. He was wanted for a slave in a rich Turkish home, or perhaps an overseer in a harem. He became the latter after being brutally handled.
But at that time Savva Ragusinsky, a Russian nobleman, after a short stay in Turkey was preparing to leave for his home country. He wanted to bring a present of some kind to his Czar Peter, the stern reformer of Russia, afterwards called "the Great." Ragusinsky knew the Czar's love for curious objects and thought nothing better than two live black boys could win him Peter's favor. The Czar had at his court many servants of different races, brought to St. Petersburg from all over the world, but only a few Negroes were among them.
Ragusinsky bought or, according to some documents, simply stole several Negro boys, who only a few months before were brought to the slave-shacks of Sultan Selim II. One of these, who started on a long trip to their new Northern home, was the little Ibrahim. The Czar liked the rare present and almost from the beginning distinguished Ibrahim from other slaves. The boy was unusually bright for his age. He quickly picked up the Russian language and alphabet, and before long began to feel that the court of St. Petersburg was his home. Peter kept Ibrahim in his apartments, and Ibrahim accompanied the Czar in latter's journeys through Russia and foreign countries, not as a servant but rather as one of the family. When because of the war of Russia with Sweden, Peter had to be constantly with his army, Ibrahim shared with his friend-master all the dangers and privations of bivouac-life.
In 1707, while in Vilno, Ibrahim was christened in Orthodox faith. His father-in-Christ was the Czar himself, who was assisted in this task by the Polish queen, the wife of King Augustus. The little Negro was given a new name of Peter, but he cried and refused to answer it, preferring his old Arab name. The Russians, however, could not get used to the strange Oriental sound and called him Abram instead of Ibrahim. His surname—Hannibal—was given to him by the Czar in memory of the famous Carthaginian.
In 1716 Peter went on his second tour of Western Europe with Hannibal as usual accompanying him. Among other countries they visited France, and here Hannibal was left to begin his studies more seriously. Hannibal, then 19 years old, showed fair capacity for mathematics and physics. Supplied by the Czar with money and other means of assistance, he entered a military engineering academy in Paris, where he remained for about 2 years. He joined the French army afterwards, which was then engaged in the war against Spain, and participated in many battles. He proved to be an able engineer and a good commander. In one of the battles—"an underground combat," as it is related in an eighteenth century document—Hannibal was wounded in the head, but not dangerously, and was brought back to Paris.
Hannibal stayed in Paris till 1723, communicating with the Czar by letters which are preserved in St. Petersburg state archives. Hannibal complained in them that the Russian treasury and Peter himself almost completely forgot about him, compelling him to live in great poverty on the verge of starvation. If he could obtain no allowance, Hannibal wrote, he would have to walk from Paris to Moscow, begging alms on the way.
Pushkin, however, asserts that his great-grandfather while in Paris was well provided for by Peter with money and had an unlimited opportunity to mingle in the French society circles. His appearance aroused curiosity; his wits, education and war record respect. His black curls with a bandage over them—his wound did not heal completely for a long time—could be frequently seen amid white wigs of the French aristocrats. He was well received in the best salons of Paris, being everywhere known as "le nègre du Czar." The Duke of Orleans, who as a regent ruled over France at that time, favored Hannibal with his attention and when in 1723 Peter asked Abram to come back to Russia, the regent tried to persuade Hannibal to remain in France, promising him a brilliant military and court career. Although the Czar permitted Hannibal to take his own choice between France and Russia, the young man decided to return to St. Petersburg.
Thus, contradicting Hannibal's complaining letters, Pushkin describes his great-grandfather's sojourn in Paris. He evidently based his testimony on the family accounts, which as almost any such narratives contain perhaps more fiction than history. But, on the other hand, the historians, who contradict Pushkin, have no other proof of their infallibility than these Paris letters of Hannibal.
Reliable information concerning Hannibal after his return to Russia, however, is not so scarce. Immediately upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, Hannibal was appointed an officer in the Preobrajensky Guard-regiment. He became an "engineer-lieutenant" in the "Bombardir-company," of which the Czar himself was the captain. But another crisis was reached when, according to Pushkin, it appeared about that time that Hannibal was a son of a Negro king, and his elder brother came from Africa to St. Petersburg with an offer of a rich ransom for Hannibal. He met with no success, as Hannibal himself did not want to return to the village on the banks of Niger.
The situation did not seem so favorable for Hannibal, moreover, when in 1725 Peter the Great died. Menshikov, former pie-peddler and life-long favorite of the late Czar, elevated himself to the position of sole adviser to Peter's widow, Catherine I. He alone virtually ruled Russia for several years. When Catherine I died and young Peter II sat on the throne, Menshikov wanted the boy Emperor to marry his younger daughter. He feared, however, his numerous enemies at the court, among whom he counted Hannibal, the young Czar's instructor in mathematics. Consequently Hannibal was exiled to Siberia in 1727. Officially he was neither arrested nor deprived of his rank and property. He was sent to the borders of China with orders to "transfer from the town of Selenginsk into another location" and to "take an exact measure of the Great Chinese Wall." Menshikov evidently thought that the severe Siberian frosts would sooner or later kill the young African. But Hannibal being strong and healthy and accustomed from childhood to cold climate withstood the hardships of the Siberian wilderness.
In 1729 he fled from Selenginsk but was arrested before he could reach Europe. His papers and valuables taken from him, Hannibal was brought to Tomsk, a city in Western Siberia. There for some time he was kept as a prisoner, although his salary as an officer was still paid. In January of 1730 he was freed but not permitted to leave Siberia. He was appointed to serve in the Tomsk garrison as a major.
Soon afterwards St. Petersburg was the scene of a new coup-d'etat. Anna, a niece of Peter the Great, was summoned to the Russian throne. Counts Dolgorukov became the most powerful persons at the court. New hopes were aroused in Hannibal, as the Dolgorukovs were his friends, since the time he and they lived in France. Hannibal without asking or waiting for permission left Tomsk, but when some time after he arrived in St. Petersburg he learned that Dolgorukovs lost their influence as suddenly as they won it, that they were arrested, and after all their estates had been confiscated, were exiled to Siberia. Great dangers threatened Hannibal as a Dolgorukovs' friend. Biron, erstwhile a stable man but now adviser and lover of Anna, sought Hannibal's life. Field-marshal Minich, commander-in-chief of the Russian army, however, saved Hannibal by granting him a commission to inspect fortifications in Lifland. In a little village near Reval, then, Hannibal lived in obscurity for 10 years, fearing every day the arrival of a messenger from St. Petersburg with an order for his arrest.
Before his coming to Lifland, Hannibal married the beautiful daughter of a Greek captain by the name of Dioper. Almost from the first day of their marriage he began to suspect her infidelity. The birth of a white baby-girl proved his suspicions and justified their divorce. The Russian court sent Hannibal's wife to a convent, and Hannibal married Christina-Regina Von-Sheberg, a Lifland German woman. She gave birth to five sons, all of whom were mulattoes. His first wife's white daughter he kept in his home, gave her a good education and a considerable dowry, but never permitted her to come before his eyes.
In November of 1741 Elisabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great, was proclaimed the Empress of Russia. She immediately returned from exile all former favorites of her father. Among these was Hannibal, on whom she showered various honours. He was given the post of commandant of city of Reval. About ten villages with several thousands of white slaves were presented to him as his personal property. He was decorated with medals and ribbons and asked to come to St. Petersburg. He preferred, however, to stay on his newly acquired estates.
Other important tasks awaited him. In 1752 he was commissioned to fix the Russo-Swedish boundary line. In 1756 he was one of the members of the Ladoga Canal Commission and also of the Commission for the Inspection of the Russian Forts. In 1762, with a rank of general in chief, he retired from public service, being then an old man. His services were remembered at the court for a long time after, however, for once Catherine II asked him to compose a plan of St. Petersburg-Moscow Canal.
During his last years he was frequented by spells of sudden fear, the consequence of his old sufferings. He was especially afraid of the sound of a bell, imagining that his persecutors were coming again. Under one of these spells, as we mentioned above, he destroyed his memoirs not long before he died in 1782 in his eighty-fifth year.
He did not want his sons to join the army or be at the court, fearing they might be involved there in dangerous intrigue. Ivan, his elder son, joined the army against his will, and only after he won fame as a brilliant victor over the Turks could he on his knees receive his aged father's forgiveness. Ivan Hannibal distinguished himself not only as a strategist but as a man of a great personal valor as well. He participated in the Russian naval expedition to Greece and captured Navarin, a Turkish fort, in 1770. He was the hero of the Chesma battle. Returning to Russia in 1779 he founded the city of Kherson in the Ukraine, of which he was appointed a governor. Later Ivan Hannibal quarreled with Count Potemkin, lover of Catherine the Great and ruler of Southern Russia. The Empress defended Hannibal and decorated him, but he left the service and went to live in one of his numerous estates. There in 1801 he died.
His brother Ossip (Joseph) was a naval officer in the Black Sea Fleet and for several years navigated the Mediterranean. Of other sons of Abram Hannibal very little is known. Ossip's daughter Nadejda, a Creole of striking beauty, married Pushkin, of an ancient Russian noble family. In 1799 a son was born to them and named Alexander, who later won fame as the greatest poet of Russia. He was killed in 1837, while duelling with a diplomat over the honor of Pushkin's wife, who was not worth her great husband's noble love.
While all the works of Pushkin could be bound together in one volume, thousands of books have been written on him and on what he created. Numerous monuments are erected in his honor all over Russia; special magazines entirely dedicated to him are published; and in famous paintings by distinguished Russian artists are pictured different periods of Pushkin's short life. When you look at these paintings, black curls, olive skin and thick lips speak to you of Pushkin's race. He himself was proud of it, all but worshipping his great-grandfather in many of his verses.
Albert Parry