AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Prester John, John Chilembwe and the European fear of Ethiopianism |
| Author: | Thompson, T. Jack |
| Year: | 2015 |
| Periodical: | The Society of Malawi Journal |
| Volume: | 68 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 18-30 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Malawi Great Britain |
| Subjects: | novels imperialism anticolonialism attitudes political action Europeans 1900-1909 1910-1919 |
| About persons: | John Buchan 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875-1940) John Chilembwe (died in 1971) |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/43694112 |
| Abstract: | The author examines some of the underlying views in John Buchan's novel 'Prester John' (1910) and compares them with contemporary European attitudes to pastor and political activist John Chilembwa and his Rising in Nyasaland (now Malawi) in 1915. The author identifies a deep-seated European unease in the novel about what was called 'Ethiopianism' at the beginning of the twentieth century. The term 'Ethiopianism' had come into use in South Africa in the last decades of the nineteenth century and referred both to independent African initiatives in religion (considered manifestations of 'a kind of bastard Christianity') and to African political activists who were considered dangerous by many Europeans. The term was also associated with African Americans, or Africans who had studied in the USA, among whom John Chilembwe. The author argues that 'Prester John' expresses widely held views on British imperialism, African culture and religion, including Ethiopianism. These views can be paralleled in the Nyasaland of the time and form the context in which John Chilembwe felt pressurized to undertake his rebellion. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
