--- Andy F <andy274 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Oh, god, that put me in tears.
>
> --
> Andy
The Cossacks did pretty well for a group of what were basically escaped slaves. :) Here's Ilya Repin's famous painting of them writing it: http://www.abcgallery.com/R/repin/repin75.html
BTW that bit about Putin's African great-grandfather was obviously a typo on mypart: that would be PUSHKIN'S great-grandfather. I'm reading on this, and I must say I had no idea that Pushkin was so fascinated by his African ancestry (though it makes sense he would have been): plans for making a pilgrimage to Africa, notes about "my brother Negroes languishing in vile slavery (which is kind of funny considering that he owned serfs) and so forth. Apparently Langston Hughes tried to appropriate Pushkin for Afro-Amarican literature.
Pushkin's great-granddad was a friend of Voltaire and chatted with Leibniz. What a fascinating life that guy had.
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