Funkstown: Pushkin in Foggy Bottom

By Frank Leone

George Washington University’s northeast corner of 22^nd and H Streets has a plaque recognizing the site as the former home of Underground Railroad conductor and abolitionist Rev. Leonard Grimes. The corner also features a bronze statue of Aleksandr Pushkin, the founder of modern Russian literature. The two have more in common than you might think. Pushkin’s great grandfather was an African who arrived in St. Petersburg as an enslaved boy and became the godson of Emperor Peter the Great and a Russian general. Pushkin celebrated his African ancestor and Pushkin himself was recognized as an accomplished black man as early as 1847.

The Pushkin statue was erected in 2000 as part of a U.S. – Russia cultural exchange, which also resulted in a statue of perhaps the greatest American poet, Walt Whitman, being unveiled at Moscow State University in October of 2009. (You can read more about Whitman in Foggy Bottom here.)

The plaque on the Puskin’s monument’s base states: “During his all too brief life, Aleksandr Pushkin created a body of literary works of astonishing, life-affirming beauty. Deeply attached to his Russian and African roots, Pushkin’s genius was devoted to the values of honor, freedom and individual dignity.  He gave his life for them. To this day, Pushkin is the Russian people’s pride."

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Pushkin (1799-1837) was a prolific writer of narrative poems, verse novels, dramas, history, prose, and verse fairy tales the Romantic Era (1790-1850). He was born into a noble, but not terribly wealthy family. He published his first poem at the age of fifteen and soon achieved recognition. He had an active social life of drinking, gambling, womanizing, and theater going, but produced important literature. He advocated for social reform, sympathizing, but not joining the Decembrist uprising. He was exiled from Moscow, and when allowed to return his work was censored. He was able to regain favor with the Tsar and in 1831 settled down and married a young noblewoman (who was also in favor with the Tsar). Always ready to protect his honor, Pushkin fought as many as twenty-nine duels during his lifetime. He was killed in a duel with his wife’s alleged lover, a French officer.

The bronze Pushkin statue is eight feet tall on a seven-foot base – the golden Pegasus (winged horse) traditionally is a symbol of poetry and creative inspiration and in this case was meant to be “a symbol of Russian and American collaboration in the new millennium,” according to a GW Press Release. The statue here features roses from an  unknown admirer. (F. Leone, Jan. 2026)

Pushkin was very proud of his great-grandfather, Abram Petrovich Gannibal (or Hannibal) (1696-1781) and his service to Peter the Great. Pushkin began but did not complete a novel based on Gannibal’s life in The Moor of Peter the Great. Gannibal was (probably) born in Cameroon, the son of an African chief, and was kidnapped by Ottomans. He was given to Peter the Great by the Russian ambassador in Istanbul. Peter recognized his intelligence and raised him in court, with Peter as his godfather. Gannibal studied in France, served in the French Army, and was wounded in a war with Spain. When Gannibal returned to Russia, he became a military engineer and rejoined the court when Peter’s daughter Elizabeth became Empress. After being made the chief military engineer of the Russian army in 1756, he received the rank of general-in-chief in 1759. He eventually retired as a nobleman to the estate Empress Elizabeth gave him, in 1762 during the reign of Catherine the Great.

The Pushkin plaque includes the following excerpt from the poem Exegi monumentum: "In years to come I’ll earn my people’s adoration,/ For only gentle feelings my lyre did awake/ For freedom did I praise in time of tribulation/ And mercy ask for fallen heroes’ sake." (F. Leone, Nov. 2025)

In the 1990s, US relations with Russia were much better than they are now.  (See “Russia Labels GW as Undesirable Organization”).  The statues were created by sculptures Alexander and Ivan Bourganov as an initiative of the now-defunct American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation. A plaque on the monument’s base describes it as a gift from Moscow to Washington, D.C., “under the perpetual curatorship of The George Washington University.”  The GWU was an appropriate place for the statue because of student’s interest in Russian Studies, literature, and international affairs. Ground was broken for the statue on June 6, 1999, the 200^th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth and it was unveiled on September 20, 2000. 

This statue of American poet Walt Whitman stands in Moscow. (Photo from Trip Advisor)

Sources: Tori Reimann and Abbey Rathweg,“University unveils Pushkin sculpture,” GW Hatchet, Sept. 20, 2000; Anne Lounsebery, “Russia’s Literary Genius Alexander Pushkin:  The Great-Grandson of an African Slave,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 27:105-108 (Spring, 2000); Alexandr Pushkin, “The Moor of Peter the Great,” in The Complete Prose Tales of Alexandr S. Pushkin, translated by Gillon R. Aitkien, WW Norton: 1966; Robert Chandler, A Short Life of Pushkin, Pushkin Press: 2017; FBA History Project.

Honoring Women’s History Month!  Discover the stories of some outstanding Foggy Bottom Women in previous Funkstown Posts:  African American Women in the Historic District (Angeline James, Della M. Shaw, Eleanora “Mama” Carmichael); Foggy Bottom Notable Women - Architect Rodeck and Interior Designer McCandless; Foggy Bottom’s Outstanding Women Leaders (Ellie Becker, Mary Healy, and Maria Tyler); freedom seeker Emily Edmondson and the F Street House, Martha B. Briggs and her Lost Schools; Foggy Bottom’s Home for Fallen Women; Columbia Hospital for Women; and Happy Women’s History Month.