Bulatovich, A.K.: With the Armies of Menelik. A Diary of an Expedition from Ethiopia to Lake Rudolf

Title

S voiskami Menelika II. Dnevnik pokhoda iz Efiopii k ozeru Rudol’fa, Sankt-Peterburg 1900

With the Armies of Menelik. A Diary of an Expedition from Ethiopia to Lake Rudolf

Keywords

Summary

The book is a detailed memoirs of Bulatovich’s participation in the expedition led by Ras Welde Giyorgis (1851-1918) to the newly acquired region of Kaffa and further south to Lake Rudolf (now Lake Turkana). The fact that these territories were largely unexplored was the main reason for Bulatovich’s interest in joining the expedition. Indeed, while the recollection alternates historical facts, ethnographic observations and military accounts, the primary focus of the author’s narration is on his role as explorer and geographer, tasked with mapping still unknown lands. The country he describes is very much war-torn: signs of the destruction caused by Ethiopia’s conquest of Kaffa are everywhere. Yet, this military exploit is seen as the positive proof that Ethiopia has a great potential as a coloniser of other African countries. The book is accompanied by four plans, three maps and 78 photo-types taken by Lieutenant Davydov. One of them depicts a small boy of a local tribe, severely wounded, whom Bulatovich cured and renamed Vas’ka. He grew so fond of him that he brought him back to Russia, only to send him back to Ethiopia after a few years since, apparently, the boy had been seriously mocked in school. The participation in Ras Welde Giyorgis’ expedition was also recounted – in a much more factual and concise way – in a publication for the Russian Geographical Society: A. Bulatovich, Ot Abissinii cherez stranu Kaffa na ozero Rudol’fa, “Izvestiia imp. geogr. obshchestva”, 1899 (35), 3, p. 259-283.

Bio

Aleksandr Bulatovich was a Russian explorer, military officer and, since 1903, a monk known as “Hieromonk Antonii”. Born in a noble family of the Orel region, he attended the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, prior to serving in the Hussar Leib Guard regiment. He travelled to Ethiopia four times (1896-1897; 1897-1898; 1899-1900; 1911) as a member of official missions of the Russian empire (for instance, the Russian Red Cross mission and the first Russian diplomatic mission). Despite being in service at the time of his travels (with the exception of the last one), he often extended his permanence in Ethiopia in order to visit the country of his own accord, becoming very close to Menelik II. For his work in Ethiopia, he was awarded a silver medal by the Russian Geographical Society. In 1903 he took his vows, and in the following years he experienced problems with the authorities because of his proximity to the imiaslavie movement. His last trip to Ethiopia was aimed at establishing a Russian Orthodox monastery. After serving in WW1, he returned to the family estate living as a hermit until 1919, when he was murdered. About Ethiopia he also wrote From Entoto to the Baro River (1897).

Sources

M. K. Mirzeler, Reading Ethiopia through Russian Eyes: Political and Racial Sentiments in the Travel Writings of Alexander Bulatovich, 1896-1897, “History in Africa”, 2005 (32), p. 281-294;

E. Chach, N.S. Gumilev i A.K. Bulatovich: puteshestviia v Efiopiiu v kontekste serebrianogo veka, in Orientalizm/Oksidentalizm: iazyki kul’tur i iazyki ikh opisaniia, Moskva 2012, p. 226-240.

A.F.

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