Shchusev, P.V.: Lecture on a Yearly Stay in Abyssinia

Title

Doklad o godichnom prebyvanii v Abissinii, “Izvestiia russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva”, 1897, 33, p. 449-452

Lecture on a Yearly Stay in Abyssinia

Keywords

Summary

The lecture is devoted to geographical and naturalistic observations made by Shchusev during his stay in Ethiopia. Some observations are made through the analysis of samples of the local soil, collected between Harar and Addis Ababa and brought back to Russia.

Bio

Born in Chișinău, Petr Shchusev was the brother of the famous Russian and Soviet architect Aleksei Shchusev. He was a military doctor and traveller, who took part in two expeditions to Ethiopia. The first time (1896-1897) he joined the Russian Red Cross, which decided to send aids to the Ethiopians suffering during the fights against Italians. The expedition, impeded by the Italians, consisted of 61 people, among which K. Zviagin, A. Bulatovich, G. Fedorov, N. Brovtsyn. The contingent arrived firstly in Djibouti by boat; from there, they travelled through the Somalia desert to Harar, where they waited for Menelik’s permission to proceed towards Addis Abeba. The contigent split in two: some went back to Harar, where they set up a hospital; the others settled in Addis Abeba, where another hospital was set up. After his return to Saint Petersburg, Shchusev gave a talk at the Russian Geographical Society. At the end of 1897 he was sent again to Ethiopia, this time as a member of the first Russian diplomatic mission (1897-1899), alongside P. Vlasov, A. Orlov, L. Artamonov, A. Bulatovich, K. Arnol’di and others. They were accompanied by a convoy of 20 Cossacks under the guidance of P. Krasnov. In 1898, during his return home, he opted for a detour in order to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Aksum. This journey can be considered an expedition to North Ethiopia of its own, recollected in his account Towards the Blue Nile’s Springs.

Sources

M. Zabrodskaia, Russkie puteshestvenniki po Afrike, Moskva 1955;

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.