Dieudonné Gnammankou (born 1963) is a

Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

ese

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

. Gnammankou was born in 1963 in Côte d'Ivoire. He studied in the former

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, earning a Master of Arts degree (Russian Philology and Literature, Russian Language and Literature Teacher) and a degree of Russian-French translator in 1990 from the Patrice Lumumba University /People's Friendship University in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

(he is listed among the 20 Notable Alumni since 1960)

Peoples' Friendship University of Russia The Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (Russian language, Russian: Российский университет дружбы народов имени Патриса Лумумбы), also known as RUDN University and until 1 ...

; and in France, obtaining a Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies, DEA, in Paris National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO-Langues O) in 1991. He earned a PhD in History and Civilizations in 2000 at the Paris School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, EHESS. Gnammankou's work has centered on

African studies African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's History of Africa, history (pre-colonial, Colonisation of Af ...

and the history of the

African Diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from List of ethnic groups of Africa, people from Africa. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West Africa, West and Central Africans who were ...

. In 1996, he published a seminal biography of the Russian military leader Abram Petrovich Gannibal. The Russian translation coincided with the 1999 bicentennial anniversary of the birth of the writer

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

, Gannibal's great-grandson. Gnammankou's research established that Gannibal was born in Logone-Birni,

Central Africa Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries accordin ...

, in an area bordering

Lake Chad Lake Chad (, Kanuri language, Kanuri: ''Sádǝ'', ) is an endorheic freshwater lake located at the junction of four countries: Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, in western and central Africa respectively, with a catchment area in excess of . ...

, nowadays

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

. "Mr. Gnammankou’s thesis caused something of a stir in Russia, where Pushkin has the status of a god. Roots in black Africa, Mr. Gnammankou suspects, seemed less acceptable than roots in the ancient Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. Nonetheless, his book on Gannibal was translated into Russian in 1999 and was judged the best book on Pushkin that year at the Moscow Book Fair. In 2000, a documentary about Gannibal shown on Russian television included scenes shot in Logone, as well as an interview with Mr. Gnammankou." New-York Times, By Serge Schmemann, Nov. 12, 2010.

Major works

* * * (Original in Swahili 1896) * (Translated into English)

References

1963 births Living people Beninese historians Peoples' Friendship University of Russia alumni Beninese expatriates Expatriates in the Soviet Union 20th-century Beninese writers 21st-century Beninese writers Beninese male writers Male non-fiction writers Beninese translators 20th-century historians 20th-century translators 20th-century male writers 21st-century historians 21st-century translators 21st-century male writers {{Benin-writer-stub