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| Title: | A modern African intellectual: Gäbre-Heywät Baykädañ's quest for Ethiopia's sovereign modernity |
| Author: | Salvadore, Matteo |
| Year: | 2007 |
| Periodical: | Africa: rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione |
| Volume: | 62 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 560-579 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
| Subjects: | intellectuals modernization |
| About person: | Gäbre-Heywät Baykädañ |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/25734471 |
| Abstract: | Gäbre-Heywät Baykädañ (1886-1919) grew up at a Swedish mission in Eritrea and studied in Germany and Austria before he was recruited as an interpreter for a German diplomatic mission to Addis Ababa. He soon became an important figure in Menelik's entourage. After Menelik's death and the 1916 coup, he was first appointed controller of the railways and later collector of customs in Dérre Dawa, where he died. Most experts have portrayed Gäbre-Heywät as a European-educated intellectual who, fascinated with European civilization, took a harsh stance vis-à-vis the condition of his own country. This paper argues that his ideas were much more than a simple mimicry of European modernity and offered an original perspective on the challenges that Ethiopia was facing as part of its incorporation into the capitalist world economy. He struggled to see his country turn modern, while maintaining its cultural and political independence: his ultimate goal was Ethiopia's 'sovereign modernity'. The paper therefore rejects the notion that Gäbre-Heywät was Eurocentric. His thought was very much the product of a new world view that characterized intellectual production in Menelik's Ethiopia. Notes, ref., sum. in French and Italian. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
