What luck that the parent publisher Matthes & Seitz is reprinting books from the old Friedenauer Presse program.

The title “Ibrahim and Tsar Peter the Great” never existed, but the addition in small print shows that it is the same little masterpiece that Peter Urban, who died in 2013, translated from Russian: “Formerly 'Der Mohr Peters des Huge'".

For Alexander Pushkin (let's finally name the author!) The now uncomfortable word "Mohr" sounded by no means condescending, but proud, just like the word "Neger", which was kept true to the original in the text.

The Russian African

Pushkin's great-grandfather was a black African who came to the court of Peter I as a child, presumably as a gift from the Turkish sultan. The tsar became his godfather and took care of his education. The extremely clever boy became a general and scientist. It was not until the twentieth century that traces of his brother were found in archives, who "only" became a musician in a military orchestra and remained unknown because he did not have a brilliant great-grandson.

Pushkin's novel is quickly told: The Russian African at the French court during the reign of the Duke of Orléans is happily in love with Countess D.

She gives birth to a black baby, which is exchanged for a white one and given to foster parents, so that Count D. remains clueless and is filled with fatherly pride.

Ambition and duty call Ibrahim back to the grandiose plans of the reform-mad tsar.

Rumors of Countess D's infidelity reach him in Saint Petersburg.

He is deeply wounded, but nothing stands in the way of Ibrahim's marriage into an old noble family, as planned by the tsar.

The sixteen-year-old bride already loves someone else and faints at the news.

The bondage of women

The lack of freedom of women is one of the big issues not only in the Russian chapters, where things are still quite patriarchal. Countess D. also had to marry the unloved Count D. when she was seventeen. The Petersburg part was supposed to be a mirror image of the Paris adventure, but unfortunately remained unfinished. The novel breaks off at an exciting scene and invites you to create your own imagination. Spoiler: According to the oral tradition of Pushkin's plans, Ibrahim's young wife was to have a white child.

For Pushkin, the African was not a curiosity from the eighteenth century, but a figure to identify with.

“The Countess received Ibrahim politely, but without any special attention;

that flattered him.

The young negro was usually looked at like a miracle, asked questions, and this curiosity, though hidden beneath an air of benevolence, offended his vanity. “Doesn't that sound familiar to us?

We also talk about how annoying well-intentioned attention and compliments like “You speak German well” are, regardless of whether you stand out because of the appearance or the accent (the reviewer was recently admired for knowing the word “quince” ).

Perhaps the “Mohr” written in 1827 is one of the very first literary testimonies to such wrong situations.