PREFACE
I had been considering the project of a biography of Emperor Hayla-Sellase I since as early as the late Sixties, after meeting him on several occasions in Addis Ababa. The Negus was already at the tail end of his long and troubled career as a statesman, but even so he remained the most clear-eyed and far-seeing of all the heads of state I had met in my twenty years of travels in Africa.
However attractive the prospect of writing about this complex individual might be-a reformer and at the same time an autocrat, deeply religious but also unscrupulous, a man accustomed to palace life but when necessary a steely warrior, both a strenuous defender of his own nation and a "patriarch" of Africa-I was forced to renounce that opportunity because at the time I had just begun my research for a six-volume history of Italian colonialism that I was contracted to write for the publisher Laterza. That work was followed by two further volumes of detailed studies, and together they occupied the next twenty years of my life. Even as I worked on this massive project, however, I couldn't get Hayla- Sellase out of my mind. In fact, he figured as a leading protagonist in at least three of these volumes, and that fact allowed me to gain a deeper and more complete understanding of his role over the years. Therefore, when I decided in 1993 to resume work on the old project of a biography of Hayla-Sellase, you might say that I had already done a considerable portion of the archival spadework and that all that remained was to fill in a few gaps and bring my research up to date, to the moment of the discovery of the mortal remains of the emperor in the compound of the Old Gebbi of Menilek.
For this final phase of my research (for the other phases let me simply direct the reader to the prefaces of my other books) I
have incurred a number of debts of gratitude, in particular with Prince Asfawasan Asrata, who had the patience to answer all of
my questions; with the former Prime Minister Mikael Emeru; with the director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Professor
Bahru Zewde; with Professor Richard Pankhurst, of Addis Ababa University; with the former cabinet minister Asfaha Walda-Mikael; with the last ambassador of the Negus to Rome, Zewde Retta; with the architect Arturo Mezzedimi; with Professor Giampaolo Calchi Novati; with Ambassador Giulio Pascucci-Righi; and with Dr. Edoardo Borra. Last of all, I am grateful to my wife Paola and my daughter Alessandra who have provided me, as always, with invaluable assistance in rereading the text and in tracking down documents.
Angelo Del Boca
Turin, 15 January 1995 |
About the Book
The fascinating biography of Hayla-Sellase I, last Emperor of Ethiopia, who dominated the African and world stage for much of the twentieth century. A thorough and complete portrait, buttressed by rigorous documentary research, but written with the style and pacing of a novel. The author, who is the most respected and well-known historian of Italian colonialism, was an eyewitness to the end of that era, and was personally acquainted with the "King of Kings." The biography includes face-to-face interviews and exclusive documents collected by the author. |
