Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, 1799-1837 Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow to an old noble family. His maternal great grandfather, Abram Petrovich Gannibal, was of African origin and was kidnapped by the Ottomans in what is today, Cameroon. The Ottomans later offered Gannibal to Peter the Great who raised the child in his own household as his godson. Gannibal studied in France for several years and upon his return to Russia in 1723, he was banished to Siberia by Prince Menshikov who was suspicious of him. It wasn’t until the reign of Elizabeth of Russia that he ascended to Chief Military Engineer in 1756 and General in Chief in 1759. Gannibal’s second wife and Pushkin’s great grandmother, Christina Regina Sioberg, descended from noble families in Scandinavia and Germany. Pushkin is considered the father of Russian literature and its greatest poet. His most famous works include the play, Boris Godunov and the verse novel, Eugene Onegin , both of which were adapted into o...
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