History of Russia: Gannibal - African Son of Peter the Great of Russia (REACTION)

welcome back to bombastic nisha the tigger tigger team i'm mr giant and i'm back with some more vibes for all of you and this one here was suggested to be very one of uh my russian peeps thing they said to watch this year and this one is called gannabel african son of peter the great of russia african son of peter the great of russia so this is going to be interesting you know what i mean because i'm just starting to learn how far up africans had come into europe and thing back in a day you know people on there and keep them comments coming man because i'm learning a lot from the comments you know what the the videos ain't telling me you all been dropping some uh knowledge on there on me you know what i mean and the problem the point of this is to learn and to grow and to understand people so that we have a common understanding you know what i mean you know we not to say this and say that and get into fights and stuff i'm manning up with no fighting and thing you know what i mean this is all one love in place so yeah i'm gonna keep you all too long babbling uh let's go ahead and you two will sub simmer and see what this is about i'm kind of excited to see this here the year is 1827. it is a chilly summer morning and in the edge of northwestern russia the dim light shines from within mikolovsky house in the candlelits study of this humble estate sits a swathy 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 more of peter the great is based on his own family history oh let's go of an african it's actually slave 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 xv a new empire and mz for sponsoring this video final fantasy xv a new empire is free to play and available on ios and android use our link below to multiplayer downl strategy game with millions of players around the world which will allow you to experience your very own epic final fantasy adventure on mobile the ancestor of the pushkins was born in 1698 become a legend by taking control okay let's get into this let's get into this link below to and download to us by the name of abram the location of his homeland is the subject of much scholarly debate having been abducted at only eight 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 laganne the exact location of lagone 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 juan hugh barnes has linked abram's cryptic lagone to the city of lagonne bieni in modern-day cameroon oh if abram's claim to nobility is true there he was most likely one of the many sons of prince bruja a cottaco chieftain who founded the city of lagonne in the year 1700. brew has domain lay on the doorstep of the horny 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 endangerment of fellow muslims this major god you see and you know long before the europeans came as far as this is saying uh islamic states used africans as slaves so you know slavery is like it's a never-ending thing because even in modern times you know people are getting enslaved and stuff like that but it's like a never-ending thing i think the best way to conquer that is to start making everybody well for foster enslave somebody you have to dehumanize them so you know you get them by wars you know you conquer people and you take people you know and you made you make them being sub substitute to you you understand what me i'm saying thing but uh so you know african slaves and stuff like that has been going on long and i'm so it goes both ways because you know if the african slaves were enslaving other africans uh i i'm quite sure when there was conflict between them and the people from the islamic states they enslaved them too you know like the arabs and stuff got enslaved too so you know i think it all goes both ways you know what i mean and it's the dehumanizing of people that creates this here because it's in order to treat somebody like that you you you have to not see them as human uh you know just seeing them as less means they should be beneath you you know let's get let's go three pirate states of the north african slaves were in high demand across the islamic world yet religious law forbade the indenturement of fellow muslims this made lagone a pagan city ruled by a pagan chieftain a target of wars in this geopolitical context we can easily see how an eight-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 chieftain's son young abram was considered valuable and eventually sold to the ottoman soldier in constantinople he arrived at the sublime port in the spring of 1703 and was quickly assigned to be a page to prince ahmed the younger brother of sultan mustafa the second here a slave boy labored within the gilded walls of the top cappy palace fluffing cushions sweeping carpets serving his master and feeding his exotic pets ottoman politics was a perfidious affair full of secrets and court injury in 1703 mustafa was deposed and ahmed 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 piotr 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 top cappy palace severed tolstoy lamented his loss of contact with the clever africans spying on his behalf one story claims that when sar 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 set to fulfilling bazaar'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 saba del slavish radhizinski 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 experience the frigid weather of northern europe i know how he feels chilled him to the bone let me correct that i don't know how he feels as a slave i know how he feels going to the frigid weather i've got to clarify that there i don't wonder what he's going no you don't you was never asleep no i wasn't i just know i was talking about the frigid weather and thing you know never before had the boy experience 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 abram 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 abram caused quite a scene in the kremlin most russians had no knowledge of africa and to them black-skinned men and women were a mysterious potentially sinister other depicted often as bogeymen and devils in their literature wow it was abram's status as an outsider that landed him before the great tsar hitab was a modernizer 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 hoped to make a point to the traditionally xenophobic russian ability 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 isolate over the next few months zarpita kept abram close to his side delighting in the boy's natural cleverness and gift for languages for in addition to turkish the african child had also picked up fluency in russian fairly quickly in seventeen yeah i don't see how they could think people aren't smart when you bring them to a place like slaves in general but you know because of my ancestry let's just say african slaves why wouldn't you think they're smart if you bring them from one spot to and a totally different culture where they don't understand the language and all that and they still pick up the language to the point where they understand and unable to learn how to survive i mean just learning how to survive means intelligence you know what i mean because there are some people who just can't survive i know some people here who couldn't survive where i'm from because it's such a different culture and being from the turtles are more of a struggle i think a lot of these people here would just go crazy if they had to survive like in like people survive in the third world you know what i'm saying so you know if to think that that uh those people aren't smart enough or people who are enslaved are smart enough to assimilate or not so much assimilate because if you notice like a lot of the culture survived over the years especially on the islands a lot of the african cultures survive over the years you know i mean even all music and you know or we are thinking and stuff like that is still very africanized even though we went through all of that so we kept our ancestry close you know what i mean of course that too was a a deliberate attempt to make us know where we came from but you know to think that anybody and even the people that speak up there would have a hard time surviving there i'm sure quite sure they'll find a way to survive because human nature to try to survive wherever you know what i mean so to think of somebody as you know less than and not and not smart enough to survive that could be the downfall of an empire too because then they want to survive by learning and educating themselves and then taking over you know what i mean and i don't think taking over is the best thing i think being equal it should be the main thing but let's keep going delighting in the boy's 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 trail and took abram with him to the baltics where war was raging against the swedes traveling the african boy was baptized in vilnius in 1705 where he earned the nickname petrovic son of peter indeed spending these formative years amongst kings as generals made abram a fierce admirer of science and military engineering and the tsar quickly began to see abram as his own adopted son the african's natural cleverness and passion for the battlefield made him preferable to his own biological child the bookish prince alexi for the next 10 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 advisors 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 accompanied 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 wow 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 oh wow on top of a traditional voltaire 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 abraham enrolled in the french army was quickly promoted to lieutenant engineer wow and was given a unit of artillery to command deployed to fight the spaniards in the pyrenees he proved to be an exceedingly competent military strategist helping to seize a number of spanish-controlled towns in the basque country he played a key role in orchestrating the fall of the fortress of san sebastian but there he also suffered a head injury from a faulty discharge of a buckshot cannon of his own making honorably discharged abram returns to paris to a war heroes 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 gannabel was booked you see here here's the thing here's the thing here's the thing about it do you see how africans came up through europe like that and i know they came up in in greater numbers and stuff like that so i i saw an argument on the facebook page one time there's a little uh well not a little there's a a pop star demi lovato who said she's one percent black and you know some black people and who in them the the ones that are tricking out they were mixed too they weren't like they had white parents but black parents too mixed but anyway they were angry why is she saying she's mixed or why she's trying to prove that she's black blah blah blah but if they look at history with the conquering and the enslavement and all of that nobody's pure anything even if you have a 0.1 percent of something in you you're not pure you know what i'm saying so if somebody say they have a one percent black in them why are we getting upset about that no granted i'd see where they're coming from because she's trying to use it to curtail to the to the to the black fan base and stuff like that but that doesn't make me angry because everybody's mixed with something i think like the only pure pure people we might find and even then they will mix with different tribes the tribes that are not yet reached in in like south america deep in the jungle you know they're not really mixing with other races they may mix with other tribes i'm just speculating here you know what i mean all of that one tribe is that off the coast of the indian ocean or something that's living on that island that's a pure race right there you know as i as far as we know nobody has gone in there and and and mixed it it could have happened because they're so isolated in the you know the history there is kind of a [ __ ] you know not well known but the point is in places like where there's all that traveling and all that conquering and all that you know slavery and people are mixing and doing all that there's just no way so everybody's got a little bit of something in them from different races but that's just me babbling a little bit there let's let's continue with this and see because i'm really having i'm enjoying this one general of old the russians would later adapt this title into their own language and the name ganebel was born in 1723 abram petrovich ganibal journeyed home to saint petersburg where his imperial godfather lavished him with honours and gifts his thorough education was put to good use and he spent the next few years serving his new nation in the way zarpita had intended he built the redoubtable fortress of kronstadt on kotlin island which guarded the northern pass to saint petersburg he oversaw the completion of a massive canal around lake laga a perilous project that was considered impossible until his triumph engineering 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 abram's successes in court also made him the subject of dangerous envy from various powerful people not least of whom was alexander menchikov an influential statesman who saw abram as a foreign interloper too close to the tsar for comfort in the wake of peter's death menchikov 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 seleginsk deep in the territory of the mongolic billiards and a stone's throw away from lake baikal along the border with ching china even in exile ganibal 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 menchikov was overthrown two years into his reign and himself exiled to siberia one of the nation's foreign practical geniuses was 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 italian 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 pageantries of moscow was in petersburg meanwhile politicians coastal fortifications and quickly became one of the most politically influential people in the baltics in 1742 empress elizabeth awarded abram with the mykolovsky estate with 100 serves 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 how did he treat them as what i want to know russia plunged into the seminal seven years war against frederick the greats prussia as one of the empire's foremost military minds ganobil 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 engineers scheme to develop weaponized rockets for the war effort nevertheless bureaucracy would once more drag abram 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 iii who famously pulled russia out of the seven years war out of admiration for his enemy frederick the great the young tsar was soon ousted in a coup by his wife the empress 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 rulers 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 tsar he was wise enough to realize his career had run its course he retired to his estate in mykolovsky 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 ganibal had several wives during his long life and was succeeded by 11 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 gannabal 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 yeah before how could slavery as claim africans were fit only for servitude while such a brilliant mind walked among their finest philosophers from spain to the border of mongolia ganibal worked among colleagues who saw only the colour of his skin yet he rose above them and defies 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 man that was cool that was cool i enjoyed that one you know what i mean i've heard of him but you know i didn't know the story behind it you know so whoever suggested that i watch this thank you for suggesting that i watch this man you know i'm gonna put a link in the description man uh the storytelling on this uh uh this channel is great there's a lot of good stuff in there you know a lot of historical stuff and you know vibes like that so please go check it out i'm gonna leave a link in the description to this video and then from that description you could go to this channel and check out this stuff it's great stuff man and of course the guy the narrator wish i could narrate like him but anyway i'm gonna keep you all too long you know what i mean i'm gonna get out of here and uh listen take care of each other all right cool runnings

Channel: Mr. Giant

Views: 18,571

Keywords: History of Russia, Reaction videos, educational, reaction video, giant, History, History of Russia: Gannibal - African Son of Peter the Great of Russia (REACTION), Gannibal - African Son of Peter the Great of Russia (REACTION), History of Russia: Gannibal - African Son of Peter the Great of Russia, history of russia documentary, history of russian empire, African Son of Peter the Great of Russia (REACTION), african Son of Peter the Great of Russia

Id: exMW1sZsj5I

Length: 26min 57sec (1617 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021