Nikolay Leontiev

Leontiev in Ethiopia, 1898

Nikolay Stepanovich Leontiev, 1st Count of Abai, (Russian: Никола́й Степа́нович Леонтьев; 26 October 1862 – 1910) was a Russian military officer, geographer and traveler, explorer of Africa, writer, and veteran of the Boxer Rebellion, and the Russo-Japanese War.

Biography

Leontiev was born on 25 February 1862 to a noble family in Kherson Province. He studied in Nikolaev's Cavalry military school, then served in the Uhlan Leib Guard regiment. In 1891, he became esaul of a military reserve force of the Umansk regiment of the Kuban Cossack army.^[1]^[2]

Like Mashkov and Ashinov before him, Leontiev had dreamed of going to Ethiopia and for many years he collected information about the country. Finally, Leontiev was able to go to Ethiopia on a research trip. Famous scientists, the Science Academy and the Russian Geographical Society took great interest in this programme. But the main task of the Leontiev expedition was to establish friendly relations between Russia and Ethiopia.^[3]^[4]

Leontiev was the chief of the eleven-man Russian scientific trip; stabskapitan Zviagin was his deputy. The meeting between Leontiev and the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II set up the foundation for their mutual friendship. When Leontiev decided to go home, Menelik sent his first diplomatic mission to Russia with him, and in doing so abrogated an agreement with Italy that forbade such diplomatic missions. Leontiev escorted the Ethiopian mission to Saint Petersburg where they met Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsar assured the Ethiopian mission that they would never recognize an Italian protectorate over Ethiopia.^[5]

According to Paul B. Henze, during the First Italo-Ethiopian War, Leontiev travelled around Europe and busied himself as a self appointed Ethiopian emissary to Italy, the Tsar and various other European dignitaries.^[6] Leontiev had arrived at Djibouti on 28 February 1896. Before leaving Djibouti on 4 March 1896, Leontiev had heard of the Ethiopian victory at Adwa and arrived in Addis Ababa on May 1896. According to his diary, Emperor Menelik II then commissioned him to take a letter to the Tsar Nicholas II. The Emperor's present to the tsar included two sliver horns an elephant which his diary contents had "been through the whole Adowa campaign!" He had also claimed that a group of Italian prisoners were also released to him to be sent home in honor of the Tsar's coronation.^[7]^[8]

In accordance with the order of emperor of Ethiopia, Nikolay Leontiev participated in one of the military expeditions of the Ethiopian army to the region of Lake Rudolf alongside several thousand Ethiopian soldiers, but the Cossacks there were most exotic of all. A brigade lost 216 persons as killed or injured, Shedevr was injured and the Cossack Gogasov perished. Leontiev was able to solemnly report to the emperor Menelik II, how the young romantic poruchik Shedevr solemnly raised the flag of Ethiopia above one of banks of Lake Rudolf.^[9]^[10]

Leontiev organized the first modern battalion of the regular Ethiopian army and presented it to Menelik in February 1899. Leontiev formed the first regular battalion, the kernel of which became the company of volunteers of former soldiers he invited from Senegal, who were trained by Russian and French officers. The first Ethiopian military orchestra was organized at the same time.^[11]^[12]

However, Leontiev bribed the Emperor's secretary Ato Gabriel Gobana into signing a document that allowed him a concession to prospect the empire for gold. The trick was discovered immediately by Alfred Ilg who informed the Yosef Neguse who in turn informed Menelik. Menelik II was outraged and on May 1902 ordered Leontiev to leave the country, thus ending his career in Ethiopia.^[13]

Leontiev was in Peking with the Russian contingent in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. Later, he took part in the Russo-Japanese War.

Leontiev died in Paris in 1910, but his body is buried in Saint Petersburg.