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The Rest Is History

279: Cameroon: The Slave General of Peter the Great

The Rest Is History

Goalhanger

History

4.618.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In today’s World Cup special on Cameroon, Tom and Dominic tell the fascinating story of “probably the most famous Cameroonian to become a Russian General”. Learn about the extraordinary life of Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, the great-grandfather of Russia’s most famous poet, Alexander Pushkin. Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the Rest Is History World Cup special. We're going through all the

0:17.6

various countries that are competing in this year's World Cup. And a couple of days ago,

0:24.2

I very much focused on Dido, the legendary founder of the city of Carthage. And Dominic, today you

0:32.4

have someone with the name Gannibal, which is, I gather the Russian, the way the Russians

0:37.7

pronounce Hannibal, the great military hero Conqueror of the Carthaginians. But this person

0:44.5

is, he's not Carthaginian, is he? He is from today's country, which is Cameroon. He is

0:51.6

from Cameroon. So I don't know who is he, because that's well, which comes to this. How

0:56.9

how far are you with Cameroonian history, generally, Tom? Not probably not as a fair as I could

1:02.0

be. Well, I think it's fair to say that a lot of Cameroonian history is Terra Incognita for

1:08.4

many British and indeed English-speaking listeners. So I mean, Cameroon historically was never

1:14.2

obviously a single nation state. It was a place of competing kingdoms and chieftains. Do you

1:19.2

know where the name Cameroon comes from? I didn't know this, actually, until I looked it up.

1:23.2

No, it comes from friends, the Portuguese. I think it's probably most, yes, that would make sense.

1:30.6

So there's a really only thing I know about Cameroon is Roger Miller.

1:34.7

Right, 1990. Yeah, 1990. Yeah, 1990. We got called to find something in the World Cup.

1:40.4

They think it's the cause of ours and lost to Gary Lenekas England. I don't really know

1:44.8

anything else beyond that. So before to being educated. There's a river called the Wurri

1:50.2

and the Portuguese, when they sailed up that in their 16th century, it was full of shrimps

1:55.6

and they called it the Rio dos Amarois. Okay, and that became Cameroon. So it could have been

2:02.6

langastina or something if the Spanish had got there. Yes, very good. Well anyway,

2:10.0

what's now Cameroon was colonized by the Germans and then it was divided up between

2:15.4

Britain and France at the end of the First World War and then obviously became independent.

...

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