Zviagin K.S.: Essay on Modern Abyssinia. Personal Observations

Title

Ocherk sovremennoi Abissinii. Po lichnym vpechatleniiam, Sankt-Peterburg 1895

Essay on Modern Abyssinia. Personal Observations

Keywords

Summary

In the introduction, Zviagin explains that he decided to write an essay on Ethiopia based on his observations in the country, since only incomplete, fragmentary or untruthful material had been circulating in Russia up to that point. He also points out that even though he was mainly occupied with astronomical measurements and has seen only a small part of the country, he has nevertheless gathered comprehensive data on Ethiopia. The following chapters deal with: geography and climate of the region; social structure; different ethnicities; military forces; government (Menelik II and his entourage); colonial politics and international relations between Italy, England, Germany and France; Russo-Ethiopian relations.

Bio

Konstantin Zviagin was a Russian shtabs-kapitan, who travelled to Ethiopia in 1894, as part of the expedition promoted by the Russian Geographical Society and led by Nikolai Leont’ev and Aleksandr Eliseev. He went back a few years later as a member of the Russian Red Cross mission. Zviagin published a few essays and memoirs on this experience, and brought back to Russia a collection of ethnographic objects which he displayed in various exhibitions (Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkiv, Odessa and Kyiv, 1897-1898).
His other works include: The Foundations of the Structure of Modern Abyssinia (1895); Abyssinia. A Reading for the People (1910).

Sources

K.S. Zviagin, Katalog abissinsko-sanitarno-etnograficheskoi vystavki, Moskva 1897;

M. Rait, Russkie ekspeditsii v Efiopii v seredine XIX-nachale XX vv. i ikh etnograficheskie materialy, “Afrikanskii etnograficheskii sbornik”, 1956, 1, p. 220-281.

A.F.