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In search of the Russian Othello.(Book Review)

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From: The Evening Standard (London, England)
Date: 20050822
Author:

Byline: RICHARD GODWIN

Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg

by Hugh Barnes

(Profile Books, [pounds sterling]16.99)

THOUGH a celebrity in his own lifetime, Abram Petrovich Gannibal, the African slave who became "the dark star of Russia ' s Enlightenment" owes much of his fame to his great-grandson, Alexander Pushkin.

The poet was intensely proud of his negro blood - to which he ascribed his own erotic prowess - and lionised his ancestor.

Preoccupied with family myths and short of facts, his attempt at a history, The Negro of Peter the Great, soon morphed into ...

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