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Translated and with notes by Ludmilla A. Trigos Appendix B: Introduction to “The Gannibals” by Yury Tynianov This time the story is about Habesh, of old Abyssinia, about its northernmost part—the country of Tigré, where people speak in the language Tigrinya. About the mountainous part of Tigré which is called the country of Hamasen. In this land Hamasen there is a river called the Mareb. On the banks of this river stood—perhaps to this day still stands—a sycamore tree which the Arabs call “daro.” One hundred years ago its branches spread out for thirty-six meters . The crown of the tree covered a circle of six hundred meters. In its shade rested the Hamite warriors, numbering some fifteen hundred and more. On its highest branches roosted golden Abyssinian doves. Two hundred years ago, if you went from Habesh to the Turkish city of Massawa without fail you would go past this tree. Then the doves sent people on their way with a tale. It’s a story about a man, an Abyssinian, who passed by this tree unwillingly. He was taken into Turkish slavery. So the story goes about ancient Turkey, which in the seventeenth and eighteenth century was no less important for Europe than Russia, and for Russia was no less important than Europe. Then he ended up in Russia and in France. He became a French engineer and French soldier. Again he went to Russia, married a captive Swede, a captain’s daughter. Children came, and fourteen Abyssinian and Swedish sons became Russian nobility. And thus, the story is about Russia. The tale is about how no one stays in one place for long on this wonderful earth. The family tree begins in Abyssinia. But the Turks, the powerful and wealthy Turkish merchants want to conquer the land of Habesh, because of what the word “Habesh” means: sweet-smelling extracts and fragrances. The inhabitants of this land are called “kash” or “habashat”—the gatherers of sweet-smelling extracts and spices necessary and pleasing to human inhalation . The Turks in the seventeenth century kept moving from the seaside closer and deeper into Abyssinia. They took the Abyssinians into captivity and 377 sold them into slavery. So the family tree, the human seed, was torn from Habesh and went by sea to Istanbul to the Sultan’s palace. Thus afterward he was quickly stolen for the Russian consul. And only his dark blood hinders him later from tracing his family to some other person, descending “from the Germans” during the times of Yaroslav or Alexander Nevsky. The dark blood remains noticeable, a brand. The first wife of the Abyssinian Negro, a Greek woman, did not want to marry him, “because he was not one of our kind.” And he soon wore her out. The dark blood remained in the lips, the flared nostrils, the prominent brow, resembling an Abyssinian tower, as well as in the cry, the joke, the mischief, the dance, the song, the anger, the liveliness, the Russian serf harems, the ferocity , the murder and love, which resemble complete human madness. Thus began the lively, ferocious, Russian “Gannibality” [gannibal’stvo]—bigamists, jokers, rebels—the Russian Abyssinian nobility. So quickly, easily and freely did they enter the Russian nobility that the Abyssinian and Swede’s grandson fought for the rights of Russian nobility during the reign of Nicholas I. And it was accomplished because that very Russian nobility was also Swedish and Abyssinian, and German, and Danish. The genealogies are interesting not because they are true, but precisely because they were conceived and invented as the times demanded. The nobility conceived and constructed a national Great Russian state descended from Great Russians, Poles, Kalmyks, Swedes, Italians, and Danes. And these same noble surnames were well conceived. The Italian “VillaNuova ” and Casa-Nuova became Vilanovsky and Kasanovich or Kasanovsky; the German “Gundret-Markt” is Markov; Doctor Pagenkampf is Pogankov, the Czech count Garrakh is Gorokh and later also Gorokhov and from his name came Gorokhovaia Street in Petersburg where Oblomov and Rasputin lived. The Italian Basko became Baskov, and in Petersburg there is Baskov Lane. The Italian Vavili became Vavilin, Chicheri—Chicherin. And the Danish Kos-von Dalen became the Russian Kozodavlev. The families were noble (or earlier, boyar) not because they were genuinely Russian, but they became genuinely Russian, Great Russian, because they were or wanted to be boyars, and later, noblemen. That’s how it had been since olden times. Markgraf Meissen came in 1425...

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