Background Research
Ethiopia
First Italo-Ethiopian War
- 1869 Africa purchase small post of Assab (by Rubattino Shipping Company) from Eritreans (Ethiopian neighbor)
- came under government control in 1882
- Ethiopia now cut off from the sea, skirmishes begin
- 1885 occupation of Massawa (claimed by Ethiopia), expansion of territory
- Italian-Ethiopian War of 1887
- Battle of Dogali Ras Alula attacks Italians at the fort at Sahati
- Ras Alula (led many battles for Ethiopia), governor under Emperor Yohannes IV (Emperor of Ethiopia 1867 – 1889)
- Ethiopians win this battle
- Italians encouraged to plot w/ Yohanne’s rival Menelik of Shewa (Yohanne’s successor)
- 1889 Treaty of Wuchale
- signed between Ethiopian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy
- King Menelik II of Shewa (later, Emperor of Ethiopia March 1889 – December 1913) and Count Pietro Antonelli of Italy
- May 2 1889
- borders with Ethiopian Empire defined
- 1890 Colony of Eritrea officially founded
- Some Russian support, both Orthodox Christian countries (Ethiopia & Russia)
- 1894 Ethiopians attack Italian fort, and Italy sends forces, also using Eritrean soldiers
- 1895 Ethiopian king gathers enormous army, using weapons bought from Russia
- Addis Ababa = Ethiopian capital
- 1896 Italians fail against Ethiopian army (Ethiopians lost 10% of men, Italians lost 60%)
- Riots and protests in Italy following news of defeat
- Treaty that basically just required Italy view Ethiopia as an independent nation
Second Italo-Ethiopian War
- Often referred to in Ethiopia as the Italian Invasion
- 1934 Mussolini tells his troops to prepare for invasion of Ethiopia
- Eritrea, Somalia already under Italian control
- 1935 Italian invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia) under rule of Benito Mussolini
- Abyssinia and Italy both members of the League of Nations
- League decided not to attribute blame to either side, exonerate both sides of wrongdoing
- France and UK hoped that by not punishing Italy, they could get Italy’s help in the upcoming war against Germany
- Chemical weapons used on soldiers and civilians, arms shipped to Eritrea and Somalian ports, Italian troops sent to border of Ethiopia
- Oct 3 1935, war begins
- Italians bomb Ethiopian town
- Italians struggled to travel across Ethiopia’s rough terrain, lack of roads
- Dec 1935 Haile Selassie (Emperor of Ethiopia 1930 – 1974) called all boys, men, wives, single women to arms (mothers with infants exempt, the blind, disabled)
- Majority of Leagues members voted to impose economic sanctions on Italy, denounced their invasion
- France, UK offer a pact to try to maintain good relations with Mussolini
- would have given Italy a portion of Ethiopia
- pact was leaked to press, and Ethiopians refused the pact
- Mustard gas, heavy bombs of chemical weapons
- Late April 1936 Battle of
- Italians celebrated the win
- 1941 Abyssinia liberated by British and Allied forces
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
Vocabulary
- segreto, meestir (secret)
- ferenj = distant foreigner, specifically white/European
- Wujigra (her father’s rifle)
- Fusil Gras (French)
- bolt-action 11mm rifle, single shot
- teff = fine grain (native to Ethiopia/Eritrea)
- shifta = rebel, outlaw, bandit
- banda = Italian army irregular (recruited from neighboring colonies I am guessing?)
- Dejazmach = short for Dejenazmach, Commander of the main army – a military title meaning commander of the central body of a traditional Ethiopian armed force composed of a vanguard, main body, left and right wings and a rear body.
Characters
- Hirut (Hirutiye)
- parents, Getey and Fasil are deceased
- beloved wife, loving mother, soldier
- her father trained her to use a rifle at a young age
- p 69 – 70 her parents death, meeting Aster
- Aster
- Kidane’s wife, wealthy; her marriage was arranged
- her son (Tesfaye) passed away
- has a strained relationship w Kidane AND Hirut (jealous of)
- p 61 – 64
- “She remembers that day when Aster slipped out of Kidane’s office and brought the photo of [Maria Uva] to the kitchen and said to the cook: We women won’t sit by while they march into our homes…” (63)
- Kidane
- Aster’s husband
- feels some type of love for Hirut (pp 14,
- “brother” / “friend” of Hirut’s mother (like a brother)
- recruiting an army to lead against the Italian invasion
- p 60 “My name is Kidane…”
- Dejazmach
- “the cook”
- lives with Hirut in tiny room, cooks for Aster and Kidane
- “younger than [Hirut] when [she] came here” (21)
- p 68 wants to leave; Aster promises she’ll let her leave but never does
- Berhe
- another worker for Aster and Kidane?
- “You didn’t know Berhe when he was a young man…They dragged his father behind a horse…He refused to give them his land, so they took it and his son” (22).
- Haile Selassie (emperor of Ethiopia)
- Ettore Navarra
- Italian man, photographer
- p 75 First sighting of Eritrea: the port of Massawa (from the Red Sea)
- he is on deck of the Cleopatra
- “Standing on deck, feeling the weight of the camera in his hand, Ettore realizes again that he has spent all his years since he was a child trying to capture what cannot be spoken, to manifest visually a world both trapped in darkness and defined by it” (76)
- “This, of course, he will never say to Hirut, not even in the days when they are thrown together in the mountains of the Simien valley, one a prisoner of the other”
Dates / Events
- 1974 Start of novel, Hirut on bus to visit someone with a box of photos (dated 1935 – 1941)
- 1935 Start of book 1, year of Italian invasion of Ethiopia
- Sept 2 1935 (p 35)
- Ethiopia on brink of conflict; Italy’s threats are growing shriller
- rainy season over; paths are dry for Italian army
- Port of Massawa filling with Italian ships; troops gathering in Asamara
- Mussolini declaring his right to colonize Ethiopia
- Italy has better planes, supplies
- League of Nation (esp. France and UK) will not denounce Italy’s actions (won’t take a side)
- August 30 1935 the Cleopatra eases its way into Port Said, headed for Massawa
- “Ettore is there” (63)
- photo of Maria Uva (Lady of Suez) singing
- Sept 13 1935 Empress and Princess of Ethiopia address the world via radio
Quotes
Prologue: Waiting … 1974
- p 3 Photos and letters with Italian writing on them
- “the letters, I buried my letters, and my secret, Hirut, your secret too…”
- vatene = go away
- “A beautiful girl. A ferocious soldier”
- p 5 she is travelling to see Ettore
- “She feels the first threads of a familiar fear. I am Hirut, she reminds herself, daughter of Getey and Fasil, born on a blessed day of harvest, beloved wife and loving mother, a soldier…It has taken so long to get here. It has taken almost forty years of another life to begin to remember who she had once been” (5).
- p 6 “Down with the emperor!” (Emperor Selassie)
- “The real emperor of this country is on his farm tilling the tiny plot of land next to hers. He has never worn a crown and lives alone and has no enemies. He is a quiet man who once led a nation against a steel beast, and she was his most trusted soldier: the proud guard of the Shadow King” (6)
- “She can hear the dead growing louder: We must be heard. We must be remembered. We must be known. We will not rest until we have been mourned” (6).
- WHO is the Shadow King? WHO is the true king of Ethiopia (guard of the Shadow King)
- p 7 Two Photos in the box…
- one is of “the French photographer”; “Gondar 1935”; “draftsman from Albi, a failed painter with a slippery voice and small blue eyes. He holds no importance except what memory allows. But he is in the box, and he is one of the dead, and he insists on his right to be known.”
- “What we will say because we must: there is also a photograph of Hirut taken by this Frenchman…”
- WHO is the narrator of the novel? WHO is the French photographer?
Book 1: Invasion … 1935
- p 12 “the old rifle Hirut’s father gave her just before he died”
- Hirut has lived with Aster and Kidane for about one year; works as a maid/servant
- “It is not her fault that he loves her, too, that he calls her Little One, and Little Sister, and Rutiye” (14)
- Kidane and his leader are gathering as many guns as they can find; he takes Hirut’s father’s rifle (16-17)
- p 18 cook is hiding a leaflet dropped by Italian planes, encouraging Ethiopians to join Italian side
- p 19 Hirut came to live with Aster and Kidane after her parents died, and one year after their son died
- p 21 Hirut and the cook discuss the past and their employment (servitude?)
- p 25 things she steals and buries from around the house
- p 26 “new words: League of Nations, Mussolini, Britain, Mauser, artillery, steamships”
- Kidane’s instructions to Aster on how the women are to prepare for war
- p 33-34 On second anniversary of his son’s death, Kidane and Hirut talk about war and her mother; Kidane kisses her forehead, cheek, neck; the cook sees
- p 40 – 45 Aster confronts Hirut about the missing objects
- “That gun belongs to Ethiopia…Do you think you matter more than this country?” (42)
- “When she creates songs she can change a happening, reverse its course of action and alter meaning, even make it forgotten. She has always understood the shifting terrains of truth. She knows that it is belief that makes a thing so” (42)
- related to the Chorus and Interlude sections of the novel
- relates to themes around memory and forgetting, believing, creating truth (shifting truth)
- Aster whips Hirut and badly injures her, leaving a scar on her neck
- p 46 – 53 CHORUS Young Aster
- Aster was forced to marry Kidane (arranged marriage)
- the cook is with Aster, escorting her to Kidanes room where she’s expected to sleep with him
- cook has a swollen eye because her and Aster had attempted to escape (Aster the wedding and the cook her conditions)
- Aster was supposed to take the blame if they were caught
- Kidane calls Aster “Little One”; it seems like he is quite a bit older than Aster
- “There is this: her mother told her when it was time, she would know what to do. But there is also this: the cook told her when it was time, there was nothing she could do. Take it, the cook said. Take whatever comes and wake up in the morning and live” (53).
- “She is lost and disappearing.”
- “Inside her head…who is only a remembrance sinking into the dark hold of the forgotten” (55)
- memory and forgetting
- p 71 – 74 Imperial Ethiopian Radio Station, empress Etege Menen and Princess Tsehai
- “We are confident that women everywhere have the same desire in maintaining world peace and love” (73)
- “We all know that war destroys mankind, and in spite of their differences in race, creed, and religion, women all across the world despise war because its fruit is nothing but destruction”
- “…when aggressors are planning to bring a heavy war into our lives, we would like to bring this to the attention of all women through the world, that it is their duty to voice and express solidarity against such acts” (74)
- Aster salutes
Book 2: …
Themes
- memory, forgetting
- war, violence power
- war for women vs men
- family, parents
