«It is not only possible to be proud of the glory of your ancestors, but it should be...»
Pushkin scholars believe that another pedigree of the poet’s branch through his beloved grandmother Maria Alekseevna had an even more ancient origin – the Rzhevsky family. The Rzhevskys traced their origins to the Rurik and were related to the Chaadaevs, Vorontsovs, Buturlins, Chernyshevskys, Golitsyns and other ancient noble surnames. The Rzhevsky land holdings were located on the lands of eighteen Russian provinces. Alexander Sergeevich used some stories from the history of the Rzhevsky family, as well as the Pushkins and Hannibalovs, when writing the novel «Arap of Peter the Great».
The third, it was believed, exotic branch entered the Pushkin genealogy in the 18th century and descended from Abram Petrovich Hannibal – abyssinian, godson and student of Peter I.
