Black Literary Giants: Dumas and Pushkin
Before Richard Wright and James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison and other African American writers of the 20th century, there were black writers of distinction of which any race would be proud. Chief among them were Alexander Dumas (1802-1870) and Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837). Both men were the progeny of black generals that displayed extraordinary prowess and ingenuity on the battlefield. General Thomas-Alexander Dumas (1762–1806) served under Napoleon and Abraham Hannibal (1670–1761) served under Peter the Great.
Thomas Alexander Dumas
Thomas Alexander Dumas was the father of Alexander Dumas and the son of a black woman, Marie Louise Labouret, and Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, a French aristocrat. He was born in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) in 1762. The Dumas family name was adopted from Alexandre’s grandmother, an enslaved Haitian woman named Marie-Césette Dumas.
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He received his first officer’s commission at the head of a group of fellow black swordsmen: revolutionaries called the Legion of Blacks, or la Légion Noire. He had a Herculean physique and he was legendary among French soldiers. He was reported to be the best looking and strongest man in the French army. The women of France loved him, and he had several affairs.
General Dumas was one of Napoleon’s greatest warriors and in Egypt, he was one of the first men off the ship. He was known as “the black devil” and his military prowess and swordsmanship were legendary. He was by all accounts the Othello of his day. Quite often he would take on more than one man at a time. As Napoleon rose through the ranks so did Dumas and he was the commander of the cavalry. He commanded tens of thousands in the field.
It was during the Egyptian campaign that Dumas’s and Napoleon’s friendship fractured. Some have speculated that it was because he refused to accept a command from Napoleon to put down the revolt in his mother’s native land of Haiti. Others have stated that the disagreement stems from a dispute over tactics while in Egypt. Nonetheless, he was sent back to France before the Egyptian campaign was over. This was not an easy task as the British had a formidable blockade that made travel by sea difficult.
The perils of his journey back home are reminiscent of the legendary Odysseus’ voyage back from Troy and Richard the Lionhearted’s trip back from the Middle East during the Crusades. His ship was shipwrecked, and Dumas was captured as a prisoner of war. He was held prisoner in a dungeon at the Taranto fortress. When he was finally released from prison, he returned to France. The France that he returned to, however, was not the France that he left. During the French Revolution, rights and privileges were given to people of color. Now they were being revoked.
He had been the hero of the day at Maulde, at Mon Cenis, at the Siege of Mantua, the bridge of Brixen and at Cairo. He had suffered in the dungeons, and by all accounts, he was a soldier’s soldier. Yet, he was denied entry to the Legion of Honor. Like Toussaint L ’Ouverture, he thought Liberty, Fraternity and Equality had come to all Frenchmen, but he soon found, in the words written later by his own son: “remember that what has once been done may be done again.”
Slavery in the colonies and overt discrimination were back in France which essentially restored France to its pre-revolutionary state. Additionally, Napoleon outlawed marriages between people of different races. He also passed laws forbidding all soldiers of color who had been discharged or retired from living in Paris and the surrounding areas. Dumas needed a special request to live in his old home. After his death, Alexander Dumas and his mother were put out on the streets.
For years, a friendship between Dumas and Napoleon endured and when Dumas left for Egypt, it was assumed by both that if he had a son, Napoleon and Josephine would be the godparents. The honeymoon between France and its black population was over. Perhaps driven by the politics of the day and the events in Haiti. Such underlining politics may have also been the source of friction between Dumas and Napoleon.
During his two years in prison, his health continued to decline. At the time of his son’s birth, Thomas was poor, and he died when Alexander was four years old. All of this, however, became kindle for the fire that burned in the heart of his son who became one of France’s most celebrated literary giants.
In February 1906; the French finally honored this outstanding general with a statue of him erected in Paris for the one-hundredth anniversary of his death. It was removed by the Germans just before Hitler’s visit to “occupied” Paris. One must wonder: what would have become of the legend of General Dumas, if not for the literary genius of his son? Although his African ancestry is not well known to people outside of France, he was proud of it and spoke of it in his writings.
Alexander Dumas
Alexander Dumas was born on July 24, 1802, in Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, France. Although poor, the young Dumas was full of curiosity; and read everything he could get his hands on. In 1822, he moved to Paris and worked in the household of the future King Louis-Philippe. It was here that he began to write. He became a successful playwright and then a historical novelist with sections of his writings appearing in newspapers. Among his most seminal works are: The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Even though Alexander’s memory of his father is sparse at best, his mother told him stories about the bravery of his father and his relationship with Napoleon. If ever there was a case of the son resurrecting the legacy of the father, this would be the one. Most scholars believe that Dumas drew from the experiences of his father in creating his memorable and realistic characters, most noted in The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man Behind the Iron Mask. His works have been translated into more than 100 languages and adapted for numerous films. Although famous for his novel, Alexander Dumas was prolific in several genres: Fiction, Non-fiction and Drama.
In his book: The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, a biography of Thomas Alexander Dumas, Tom Reiss points out how the life of the famous French black general served as a paragon for Dumas’ novels. For example, in the Count of Monte Christo, he wrote: “The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.” A statement reminiscent of the way that his father was treated by Napoleon.
During his lifetime, Alexander Dumas, despite his fame, could not escape the scorn of racism. In response to a man who once insulted him about his African ancestry, Dumas replied:
My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends.
Buried in the place where he had been born, Alexander Dumas remained in the cemetery at Villers-Cotterêts until November 30, 2002. Under orders of the French President, Jacques Chirac, his body was exhumed and in a televised ceremony, his new coffin, draped in a blue velvet cloth and flanked by four Republican Guards costumed as the Musketeers — Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan — was transported in a solemn procession to the Panthéon of Paris: the great mausoleum where French luminaries such as Victor Hugo and Emile Zola are interred. Jacques Chirac stated at Dumas’ honorary ceremony:
With you, we were D’Artagnan, Monte Cristo, or Balsamo, riding along the roads of France, touring battlefields, visiting palaces and castles — with you, we dream.
So, when we think of The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers, we should not only think of the son, but of the father that posthumously inspired his son to write such masterpieces. Alexander’s son and namesake was also a French literary figure. He is referred to as Alexander Dumas fils (the younger).
Abraham Hannibal
It could be argued that Abraham Hannibal(Abram Petrovich Gannibal) was a precursor to General Dumas. He died a year before Thomas Dumas was born and had studied in France. His origins and date of birth is somewhat obscure. Some argue that he was the son of an Ethiopian prince; and when he was a few years old, his father waged war with the invading Turks. As a result, Abraham was taken hostage as a young boy and sent to Constantinople (Istanbul). Others contend that he was not the son of an Ethiopian prince, but rather, sold to Turkish slave traders in Cameroon. He adopted the name Hannibal from the legendary Carthaginian general that challenged Rome.
Notwithstanding, it was not unusual to have little blackamoors (as they were called) prevalent at European courts and Peter the Great wanted one. At the age of eight or so, Abraham was sent to the court of Russia. Peter the Great immediately took a liking to him, so much as to give the boy the name Peter and to be his godfather. His godmother was Peter’s wife, Christina, the Queen of Poland. Although Abraham never fully embraced the name of the emperor, in many ways he was treated like Peter the Great’s son. He was sent to France to be educated. While in France, he studied Engineering and Mathematics and joined the French Army. His scholastic prowess was apparent and in 1723 he returned to Russia and brought with him over a hundred books.
After Peter the Great died, Abraham was ostracized and sent to Siberia and then to the Chinese front. However, when Empress Ivanovna came to the throne, he returned, and his star began to rise. He became a Major General in the Russian army and was universally renowned for his technical skill. In 1746 Empress Elizabeth Petrovna gave him a large estate. He was the father of eleven children, and he died a wealthy and prominent man. His great-grandson, Alexander Pushkin, became a seminal figure in Russia and was one of its greatest literary figures. Pushkin honored his great-grandfather in an unfinished novel entitled: Arap Petra Velikogo (The Negro of Peter the Great).
Alexander Pushkin
Pushkin is celebrated as a national hero in Russia. So much so that his birthday, June 6, is a Russian holiday that commemorates his contributions to Russian literature. Young Pushkin was raised in wealth and splendor replete with servants and mansions. As a child, he loved to hear stories told to him by his grandmother Hannibal about his famous black great-grandfather that came from a faraway land. His memories of his childhood consisted of his grandmother, his nanny and the great earthquake that hit Russia in 1802. He was given a great education and loved the works of Voltaire and Moliere and would stay in his father’s library absorbing as much as he could.
By the time he was eleven, he had mastered the French classics. As a young adult, Pushkin was a radical and was often under surveillance or house arrest for his anti-authoritarian views, opinions or activities. He lived a reckless and daring life and was a notorious womanizer and gambler. In this regard, Pushkin and Dostoevsky were kindred souls that used gambling and other vises to help soothe the demons that chased their literary genius. As in the case of many writers, musicians and artists, these were merely negative reflections of their positive attributes.
Eugene Onegin, Boris Gudunov and The Captain’s Daughter are considered masterpieces. Eugene Onegin is a particularly unique and completed piece that sieves with literary genius. It is most unfortunate, that Pushkin’s reckless life eventually led to his downfall. He died in a senseless duel in 1837. He was married to one of the most beautiful women in Russia and this led to a scandal in which he felt he had to defend his honor. His life was short but fruitful.
Perhaps more shocking is the prophetic nature of his death. The duel sequence in Eugene Onegin written five years before his death mirrors the tragic death of Pushkin with remarkable accuracy. In both cases, the wronged party (Pushkin in fact, Lensky in fiction) was killed in a duel initiated around similar circumstances. In a speech in Moscow honoring the unveiling of Pushkin’s statue in 1800, the great Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) author of Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), Demons (1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880)said the following:
I am needed here, not just by the Friends of Russian Literature, but by our whole party and the whole idea for which we have been struggling for 30 years now. For the hostile party (Turgenev, Kovalevsky, and almost the entire university) is determined to play down the importance of Pushkin as the man who gave expression to the Russian national identity, by denying the very existence of that identity… My voice will carry weight and our side will prevail.
Pushkin’s statue had been financed by public donations, and immediately became a symbol of their national literary consciousness. There are not only statues of him in Moscow but throughout Russia.
Greatness, like pieces of silver, although tarnished can be polished by the hands of those that appreciate the intrinsic beauty. Great men are not only judged by what they have accomplished but what they enable others to accomplish. In this regard, we must consider Pushkin’s greatness. He had a profound influence on Russian culture and thought. He influenced Dostoyevsky who later had a major influence on Western thinkers including Einstein who once said: “Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss.”
Pushkin is usually considered as Russia’s national poet and he accomplished the same notoriety for the Russian literary language that Dante accomplished for Italian and Shakespeare for the English language. He is often praised by Russian literary giants and is said to have lifted the Russian language to an unprecedented level. Dostoevsky went as far as to proclaim his superiority over Shakespeare. His effect on Russian literature cannot be denied.
Pushkin wrote: It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than never to have dreamed at all. He was not only a literary figure but also a symbol of freedom. He was a political revolutionary and it showed in his early works most noted was his Ode to Liberty. He was exiled because of his writings and activism during these years. For the rest of his life, he was under constant surveillance by the Russian government because of his radical views.
Perhaps to replicate what Pushkin did for the Russian language in music, his work was emulated in opera by Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857), Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881), Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov (1844–1908), and Peter Tchaikovsky (1840–1893). He influenced the renowned group of Classical Composers referred to as the “Russian Five”. From these five a new group of Russian classical composers such as Igor Stravinsky emerged.
Modern Russians are more likely to know more about Pushkin and his works than any other Russian writer. As with Shakespeare, many lines from Pushkin’s poems have become proverbs. His words continue to be memorized by Russian school children. In reference to Pushkin, Paul Robeson (1898–1976), the two-time All-American football player, valedictorian of his Rutgers class of 1919 and Ivy League lawyer, in a speech upon his arrival to the United States from the Soviet Union said:
“Here is a white nation which is now doing honor to our poet Pushkin, one of the greatest poets in history, the Soviet people and our proud world possession. Could I find a monument to Pushkin in a public square of Birmingham or Atlanta or Memphis, as one stands in the center of Moscow? No! perhaps one to Goethe, but not to the dark-skinned Pushkin.”
Robeson, a modern-day Pushkin, who sung at the 150th Anniversary of Pushkin’s birth, was merely pointing out the serious disjunction between a Communist nation that honored, respected and revered a person of African descent and America — a nation fighting for democracy and freedom around the globe — which refused to pay homage to its people of African descent.
Instead of using Robeson’s assessment as an opportunity for introspection, fearful not only of the Communist red scare but of black men like Robeson that demanded equality; they branded him as a Communist, revoked his passport and repelled his accolades — then ostracized him from the American public. During the early years of the Cold War, there was no warm welcome to Pushkin or Robeson, because to do so was to destroy the myth of Jim Crow and the innate inferiority of black people ingrained in the American culture and enforced by its laws. Robeson was the first black actor to play Shakespeare's Othello.
The descendants of these obscure black generals, Thomas Alexander Dumas and Abraham Hannibal, are considered among the best writers in literary history. Most have heard of Dumas, but few have heard of Pushkin. For over a century, outside of their native countries, they were hidden behind a veil of literary whiteness although they were both proud of their African ancestry. Both men excelled during a time when it was forbidden for black slaves to read in antebellum America or to imagine that black men were commanding white men on the battlefield. What a travesty it would have been to world literature if Dumas and Pushkin were forbidden to display their craft.
Dumas once wrote: So rapid is the flight of our dreams upon the wings of imagination. Despite the ghost of slavery and racism that haunted every person of African descent from sea to shining sea — antebellum America produced literary figures and polymaths such as Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany, Dr. John S. Rock and others whose voices were not muted by the roaring trumpet of those that tried to silence them.
The emergence of African American writers in the 20th century, echoes and confirms Dumas’ words: “Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.”
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