It’s time! Time to quit these autocratic shores, to bask in the midday, sunny skies of my Africa…(Eugene Onegin, Ch.I:Stanza:50)
“Among the African geniuses of the present century, one of the most remarkable was ALEXANDER PUSHKIN, the poet and historian of Russia; the favourite alike of the emperor and people.…”
(Edward Wilmot Blyden, 1856, Voice from Bleeding Africa on Behalf of her Exiled Children, Monrovia)
We celebrate Alexander Pushkin’s birthday! There are so many reasons to, but what is important for West and all Africans is his assertion, promotion and correction of deliberate and flawed perceptions of European and American slave holders, their descendants and nationals who maintain the use of colour: ¨Ñegro,¨“black,” “ noir,” etc., as designation for a strong, dignified African race of people taken from the continent of Africa, and documented, African. In his masterpiece novel in verse, Eugene Onegin (1833), Pushkin promotes his great-grandfather: Abraham Petrovich whom the czar Peter Alexeyevich Romanov adopted, educated, and in whose care he left his unfinished construction schemes. Most importantly, Abraham Petrovich served as the empire’s civil engineer for forty years; published a textbook: Fortification and Mathematics that was included in the curriculum of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He died in St. Petersburg in 1781. The African general’s firstborn son, Ivan Abraham distinguished himself in the Royal Navy, and his Great-Grandson, Alexander Sergeyevich would contribute to the empire’s enlightenment and literary development.
© Copyright.Isa J.E.Blyden, Freetown,Sierra Leone, June,2025