Gannibal - African Son of Peter the Great of Russia

[Music] the year is 1827 it is a chilly summer morning and in the edge of Northwestern Russia a dim light shines from within Mikhailovsky house in the candlelit study of this humble estate sits a suave curly-haired man putting ink to paper he is Alexander Pushkin the greatest poet in the history of Russia the novel he writes is full of intrigue and adventure but there is a twist his story titled the moor of Peter the Great is based on his own family history for Pushkin was in fact the great-grandson of an African slave but who exactly was this mysterious dark-skinned ancestor of his and why did the father of Russian literature take such pride in being descended from him thanks to Final Fantasy 15 a new empire and mz4 sponsoring this video Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire is free-to-play and available on iOS and Android use our link below to download Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire yourself this is a truly global massively multiplayer online strategy game with millions of players around the world which will allow you to experience your very own epic final fantasy adventure on mobile jump into action with Noctis Sindhi and other favorite characters from Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire you can build a large army and devise a perfect strategy to fight alongside friends in legendary epic battles against millions of other players creating a guild and strategizing within it will allow you to crush enemies and beasts in real time action battle traveled the realms and collect rare resources become a legend by taking control of the crystal and building an epic empire use our link below to download Final Fantasy 15 a new Empire yourself the ancestor of the Pushkin's was born in 1698 and known to us by the name of Avram the location of his homeland is the subject of much scholarly debate having been abducted at only 8 years old Abram himself was able to provide only a few details about his origins during his lifetime in a letter to empress catherine in 1742 he wrote the following i am a native of africa of the high nobility there i was born in the land ruled by my father in the city of laguna the exact location of laguna remains uncertain pushkin asserted that his ancestor was an Abyssinian prince from ethiopia a romantic land with biblical ties however the modern day fieldwork of one hugh barnes has linked abraham's cryptic laguna to the city of laguna beanie in modern-day cameroon if abraham's claim to nobility is true then he was most likely one of the many sons of prince bruja a cata code chieftain who founded the city of laguna in the Year 1700 brew has domain lay on the doorstep of the Bornu Empire an Islamic power whose wealth came largely from engaging in the lucrative slave trade with the Barbary pirate states of the North African slaves were in high demand across the Islamic world yet religious law forbade the indenture meant of fellow Muslims this mage lagoon a a pagan city ruled by a pagan chieftain a target of wars in this geopolitical context we can easily see how an 8 year old boy the son of an African Prince could be taken as a valuable captive amidst constant border warfare and shipped off to be a prized pet of a status seeking ruler across the sea given his status as a chieftains son young Abram was considered valuable and eventually sold to the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople he arrived at the sublime port in the spring of 1703 and was quickly assigned to be a page to Prince ahmud the younger brother of Sultan Mustapha the second here the slave boy labored within the gilded walls of the Topkapi Palace fluffing cushions sweeping carpets serving his master and feeding his exotic pets Ottoman politics was a perfidious affair full of secrets and court intrigue in 1703 Mustafa was deposed and Ahmet became the new Ottoman Sultan as his personal page Abram was now closer to the Sultan than most and as a result became a link in a chain of informants feeding secretive and sensitive information about the imperial monarch on one end of this chain was the Sultan's treacherous Grand Vizier on the other piata Tolstoy an ambassador of the Empire of Russia and great-grandfather of the famed author Leo Tolstoy soon the Grand Vizier was the victim of his own court intrigue and was murdered by agents of the Sultan with his main connection to the Topkapi Palace severed Tolstoy I lamented his loss of contact with the clever Africans spying on his behalf one story claims that when Czar Peter the Great heard of this he ordered that these Africans be smuggled out of Constantinople and brought to him it was a fairly inconspicuous request African slaves were in vogue at the time an exotic status symbol that the Monarchs of Europe kept in the palaces as a symbol of their wealth and influence as such Russian agents in Constantinople sets to fulfilling the Tsar's will how exactly young Abram was delivered from the Ottoman Sultan is unknown through purchase or illicit smuggling he came into the hands of the Bosnian diplomat sebab that is lavish for a Kosinski who spirited him out of the sublime port and on his way northwards Abram arrived in Moscow in the heart of winter never before had the boy experienced the frigid weather of Northern Europe and the Russian snows chilled him to the bone while he was ferried by sleigh through the frozen city observing the imposing red walls of the Kremlin and iconically onion domed cathedrals he surely felt as if he had been transported into another world entirely a pram first met his new master on Christmas Day of 1704 when he was presented to Peter Tsar of Russia amidst a sea of Yuletide revelry a pram caused quite a scene in the Kremlin most Russians had no knowledge of Africa and to them black skinned men and women wear a mysterious potentially sinister other depicted often as bogeyman and Devils in their literature and plays it was a bram status as an outsider that landed him before the great tsar peter was a moderniser a ruler who wished to transform his country from what he saw as an isolated backwater into a European powerhouse he was famous for inviting foreigners into the highest rungs of his social strata allowing them to disseminate their ideas into Russian society with his new African acquisition he hopes to make a point to the traditionally xenophobic Russian nobility young Abram was of a race that many Europeans considered fit only for slavery if even he could be transformed into a bright minded asset to Russia then there could be no argument that the future of the nation lay in openness and not isolation over the next few months Tsar Peter kept Abram close to his side delighting in the boys natural cleverness and gift for languages for in addition to Turkish the African child had also picked up fluency in Russian fairly quickly in 1705 Peter went back on the campaign trail and took Abram with him to the Baltics where war was raging against the Swedes the African boy was baptized in Vilnius in 1705 where he earned the nickname Petrovich son of Peter indeed spending these formative years amongst Kings as generals made a bream a fierce admirer of science and military engineering and the Tsar quickly began to see Abram as his own adopted son the africans natural cleverness and passion for the battlefield made him preferable to his own biological child the bookish Prince Alexei for the next ten years Abram stayed with his godfather on the campaign trail he was a quick learner and by his mid-teens had become adept in the art of war developing a written code system to protect sensitive information and becoming a trusted member of the Tsar's inner circle of advisers Abram essentially grew up on the battlefield and over a decade of impromptu field education had turned him into an exceedingly intelligent young man in 1716 he accompanies Peter as he went on a grand tour of Western Europe in one of the Tsar's many efforts to connect Russia to the West naturally one of these stops was Paris and here Abram stayed behind as the behest of his Godfather to continue his education in the heart of the European enlightenment the sheer novelty of a classically educated black man captured the imagination of the French people and Abram became something of a minor celebrity in the city he became friends with some big names including the famous philosopher Voltaire who called him the dark star of the Russian enlightenment on top of a traditional education in sciences and mathematics Abram enrolled in a military engineering academy the skills he acquired there were put to the test a year later when the war of the quadruple Alliance broke out and France declared war on Spain Abram enrolled in the French army was quickly promoted to lieutenant engineer and was given a unit of artillery to command deployed to fight the Spaniards in the Pyrenees he proves to be an exceedingly competent military strategist helping to seize a number Spanish controlled towns in the Basque Country he played a key role in orchestrating the fall of the fortress san sebastian but there he also suffered a head injury from a faulty discharge of a buckshot cannon of his own making honorably discharged a pram returns to paris to a war hero's welcome more famous and admired than he'd ever been by the French aristocracy he had also acquired a new moniker Hannibal his comrades admired his military genius and drew parallels between him and his fellow African the Carthaginian general of old the Russians would later adapt this title into their own language and the name gana Belle was born in 1723 Abram Petrovich cannibal journeyed home to st. Petersburg where his Imperial Godfather lavished him with honors and gifts his thorough education was put to good use and he spent the next few years serving his new nation in the ways our Peter had intended he built the redoubtable fortress of Kronstadt on Kotlin island which guarded the northern past who sent petersburg he oversaw the completion of a massive canal around Lake Ladoga a perilous project that was considered impossible until his triumph these projects and more had made gana Belle one of the premier authorities on civil and military engineering in the whole of Russia yet this dreamy life was not to last for in 1725 Peter the Great passed away Abram had already lost one father when he was abducted as a child and now once more he was an orphan to make matters worse the African had also lost his most powerful benefactor Abraham's successes in court also made him the subject of dangerous envy from various powerful people not least of whom was Alexander Menshikov and influential statesman who saw Abram as a foreign interloper too close to the Tsar for comfort in the wake of Peters death menshikov quickly took control of the nation as a military regent and in 1727 banished abram to a remote posting in siberia to toil out of sight and out of mind perhaps hoping the bitter siberian cold would kill the young african for him once more Abram was forced to move a world away from the land he called his home his new station was in celle Jenks deep in the territory of the mongolic Buryats and a stone's throw away from Lake Baikal along the border with Ching China even in exile Hannibal never gave up his enterprising spirit despite his dour pseudo imprisonment he continued to serve his nation in the hopes that one day he could return home he directed the construction of a fortress designed to fend off any invasions levied by the Chinese emperor lost on him perhaps but not on us was the novelty of an ethnic African deep in the heart of mongolic territory fortifying the borders of the Russian Empire on the edge of the known world in an event of poetic justice menshikov was overthrown two years into his reign and himself exiled to Siberia while gana Bou one of the nation's foremost practical geniuses were soon recalled back to the heart of the nation in 1741 Elizabeth daughter of Peter the Great ascended to the throne the new Empress was keen to bestow upon Abram the same favor that her father had and appointed him the commander of the Russian army garrison in revel now Tallinn Estonia the predominantly German aristocracy of revel were ultra conservative and treated the black foreigner with cold shouldered suspicion nevertheless abram endeared himself to the locals using his engineering genius to fashion a spectacular fireworks performance that even the most snobbish of connoisseurs declared was equal to the pageant trees of Moscow was Petersburg meanwhile he improved the city's coastal fortifications and quickly became one of the most politically influential people in the Baltics in 1742 Empress Elisabeth awarded our brown with the Mikhailovsky estate with 100 serfs upon it to command serfdom was an institution that bound Russian peasants to the land of their master thus in an ironic twist the man who was enslaved as a boy was now himself something of a slave owner the twilight of Empress Elizabeth reign saw Russia plunged into the seminal Seven Years War against Frederick the Great's crusher as one of the Empire's foremost military minds gana Belle was naturally placed in a position of high command he did not favor the war but nonetheless helped to rapidly transform the Russian military from a motley militia into a professional army foremost among his martial projects were his beloved fireworks far from being a frivolous hobby they were in fact part of the master engineer's scheme to develop weaponized rockets for the war effort nevertheless bureaucracy would once more drag a broom down as just like clockwork more and more of Russia's top brass showed their resentment towards him a man they still considered to be an outsider of lesser stock a smear campaign against him saw him demoted from Russian military command and he would spend the rest of the war building canals and fortifying coastal batteries in 1762 Elizabeth died and was succeeded by her nephew Peter the third who famously pulled Russia out of the Seven Years War out of admiration for his enemy Frederick the Great the young Tsar was soon I'll stood in a coup by his wife Catherine the Great the Emperor's who would bookend the career of Russia's most prominent black man on the 9th of June 1762 the African performed his last duty for the Romanov ruler of Russia organizing a magnificent fireworks display to cap off a lavish royal dinner outside the Winter Palace by now Abram was considered a relic to most a holdover from an era of a long-dead czar he was wise enough to realize his career had run its course he retired to his estate in Mikhailovsky where he lived in comfortable retirement for another 20 years passing away in the year 1782 at the ripe old age of 82 Abram Petrovich canibal had several wives during his long life and was succeeded by eleven children most of whom went on to be members of the Russian nobility the most prominent of these bloodlines would birth Alexander Pushkin the famed father of modern Russian literature idolized his African great-grandfather and immortalized a grand albeit fictionalized story of his life nevertheless gana Belle is more than a peculiar foreign link with a noble genealogy his legacy is one of struggle and perseverance his genius shook the foundations of anti abolitionist rhetoric throughout Europe for how could slave owners claim Africans were fit only for servitude while such a brilliant mind walked among their finest philosophers from Spain to the border of Mongolia cannibal walked among colleagues who saw only the color of his skin yet he rose above them and to fight the odds to become one of the greatest military and civil engineers in Russian history and cement himself as the first and most prominent black intellectual of Europe we always have more stories to tell so make sure you are subscribed to our Channel and have pressed the bell button we would like to express our gratitude to our patreon supporters and channel members who make the creation of our videos possible now you can also support us by buying our merchandise by V link in the description this is the kings and Generals channel and we will catch you on the next one

Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 833,029

Keywords: alexander pushkin, peter the great, tsardom of russia, russian empire, peter the great biography, russian writer, kings and generals, history channel, history documentary, full documentary, animated historical documentary, history lesson, decisive battles, documentary film, king and generals, military history, gannibal, sankt-petersburg, yasuke, malik ambar, world history, roman empire, ancient history, animated documentary, ap european history, ap euro absolutism, catherine

Id: I6kn_gYCaWw

Length: 18min 46sec (1126 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020