07.18.2013
Pictures:
Today was devoted to
an estate of Pushkin’s African roots: of his great grandfather Abram Hannibal,
who was called “blackamoor of Peter the Great”. He was born and spent his
childhood in a small princedom in equatorial Africa. His father was a prince in
this tiny country as Abram wrote later in his biography “my father had a blood
of local aristocrats in his veins”. When he was about 5 years old he was stolen
from his family and sold to Turkey. He lived in Constantinople where he was
noticed and most probably stolen again by a Russian ambassador as a present to
Peter the Great with two other black boys (in Russia it became fashionable to
have black servants). A proof of the version that boys were stolen is the fact
that they were carried to Russia in secret and were allowed to catch a breath
of fresh air only for about 2 hours at night. Because of such terrible
conditions only two boys arrived alive to Russia. Peter the Great didn’t want
to have two boys so he chose only one of them, Abraham. So we could say that
future Hannibal was really lucky. Peter
baptized the boy and gave him the Biblical name Abram and a last name in honor
of his benefactor Petrov. Peter the Great was attached to Abram and took him to
all battles and campaigns as his assistant. When the guy grew up Peter sent him
to France, to the military academy to study fortification, geometry and
algebra. After he graduated he came back to Russian and became a professor for
young soldiers in Russian military schools where he taught fortification,
geometry and algebra. There were no textbooks for these subjects in Russian
language so Abram decided to write his own textbook for algebra. He finished it at the empress Ekaterina the
First time. Ekaterina, Peter’s wife, didn’t forget her husband’s favorite
“blackamoor” and Abram became a family teacher of her son Peter the Second.
However, after her death his ill-wisher Menshikov sent him to Siberia under the
pretext of the restoration of fortresses there. That was the time when Abram
wanted to prove that he’s not the exile so he took a patronymic Petrovich and
the last name Hannibal insisting that his father was descended from this famous
commander of Roman times.
When Elisabeth,
Peter’s daughter, became the empress, Abram wrote her a letter and she gave him
this estate Petrovskoye as a present and returned him to Petersburg where he
married a Greek girl. But pretty soon, they broke up as he excused her in
cheating on him because his wife had a white daughter. He started a divorce
proceeding but never finished it and just cloistered her. Abram was sent to
Revel as a head of the fortress and married there Christina Regina, a girl with
Polish-Danish background. She finally gave him a black son and 10 other kids.
All his daughters he married off and bequeathed everything to his elder son
Ivan. However, after Abram’s death Ivan decided to divide his father’s land
among his 3 younger brothers so Peter (the eldest one of the three brothers)
got Petrovskoye estate. He became a true landowner, established despotic willfulness,
flogged his bondmen and forced his guests to stay for a long time in his house
(for example, he ordered to hide their clothes or even to spoil their horses’
harness). The youngest of the three brothers was very inventive and organized
an orchestra of bondmen and taught them to sing aristocratic songs.
All these
interesting facts told us our tour guide as well as other details. For example,
she told us how scared were all local bondmen of Abram Hannibal because of the
color of his skin and his violent character. When he was sitting in the park,
in his “green study” waiting for guests to come, they were saying: “Here is a
black devil sitting on his black stone and thinking his black thoughts”.
Actually, I liked the mansion house here even more than in Mikhailovskoye and Trigorskoye.
A kitchen, children’s room, a heavy device for cooking waffles, a huge
luxurious dining room, stories about Pushkin’s cousin of dad was making the
servants to learn Pushkin’s poems by hearts – everything stuck in my memory.
Park is smaller than parks in Mikhailovskoye and Trigorskoye though with their
own charm: a nice grotto-pavilion with a great view on the lake, corner
“Parnassus” etc.
In the evening we
went for a little walk and my sister discovered a road to Bugrovo where are
Pushkin’s village and a big watermill. While she was checking this road she met
a local resident Peter (who actually live in Saint Petersburg but spent the
whole summer here, in his wife’s house). He showed us a short road from
Mikhailovskoye to Savkino settlement (where we live) along the bank of a river
Sorotj. He told us that in spring the whole meadow is covered with water so
that the lake is joins the river but in the summer it dries out a little so you
can cross it by the planked footway. Peter was a sociable man and we talked the
whole way home. We got home just in time to escape a wonderful summer rain with
magnificent aspen aromas…
No comments:
Post a Comment