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Tewodros Gebre

Ethiopian literature in Amharic with its long written tradition has engaged readers for centuries. The panegyric is the first Amharic literary document that was said to have been written in the fourteenth century during the reign of Emperor Amda‐Tseyon (1315–1344). The literariness of the panegyrics that followed in the honor of five of the kings, who ruled during the sixteenth century, got even better (Admassu 2006). One of the policies that Emperor Tewodros II (1855–1868), who is considered as the national unity architect, modernization trendsetter, and symbol of national pride par excellence, adopted to realize his vision made Amharic a national language. Consequently, state formation and nation building – Emperor Tewodros’ politico‐cultural mission – have become crucial factors in Amharic literature.

Amharic is given more preference in creative writing as opposed to colonial languages. Because Ethiopia escaped from colonization, Amharic was able to survive as an official language: “Amharic literature has matured fast – a result of having and using a national language that is indigenous to the country, a situation unfortunately rare in Africa” (Molvaer 1997, xvi). Amharic literature, however, became deeply entrenched during the reign of Emperor Menelik II (1889–1913) as a result of the modernization of the government and the establishment of the Imperial printing press.

Amharic literature is unique for various reasons. It exhibits the state of being distinct; as Fellman (2004, 186) aptly observed, it is a “rich and most interesting literary corpus,” but “much‐neglected and often maligned” as it hides itself from exposure. One of the unique points of Amharic literature is the fact that it inherited 2,000 years of unique orthography, andemta commentary (Ethiopic biblical interpretation), genres, and thematics from the long‐established Geʿez literary tradition. Some of the most persistent and enduring themes that Amharic literature took from Geʿez and transformed are Ethiopia’s nationhood and home‐grown nationalism. Although claiming nationalism from a distant time may seem far‐fetched, the prominent nationalism scholar Donald Levine argues that “Japan and Ethiopia had developed nationalist cultures as early as a millennium before their putative origins in Western Europe” (2011, 312).

Kebra Nagast is one example of a literary work that exemplifies “historic” Ethiopia’s possession of the long‐lasting “nationalism,” which is a stunning archetype for modern nationalism. The Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings), a Geʿez text compiled in the fourteenth century, is a foundational narrative for the historic Ethiopia. As Yonas Admassu aptly characterizes it, Kebra Nagast is a “uniquely Ethiopian” narrative, which “is the first, perhaps even the only, relatively complete work consciously and deliberately geared to the glorification of the land, its king, and its people” (1995, 47–48).

The purpose of Kebra Nagast was to serve as a source of the divine right of the royal family that was said to be a descendant of King Solomon. It narrates the story of the birth of Menelik I from the most beautiful Ethiopian queen (popularly known as the Queen of Sheba) and wise King Solomon. Menelik is a representation of the mix of beauty and wisdom, making him greater than both his mother and father. Also, the story about the return of Menelik I from Jerusalem with the Ark of Zion without the knowledge of the King has many implications. Since this act makes Ethiopia the sole host of the original Ark of the Covenant, it transfers the Glory of God that was inbuilt and kept for thousands of years from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. It indicates the replacement of the Solomonic dynasty with the Ethiopian dynasty, making Ethiopia God’s most favored nation after the fall of the Jews – the new Zion – with the “chosen people.” Ethiopia, therefore, becomes the place where faith, hope, and destiny are united.

Recognizing the contribution of Kebra Nagast, the historian Edward Ullendorff labeled it as “one of the most powerful and influential national sagas anywhere in the world” (1965, 64), the literary scholar Yonas Admassu (1995) referred to it as “the ‘master‐narrative’ of The Ethiopian Imaginary,” and the sociologist Donald Levine (2011) called it “Ethiopia’s national epic.” The modern Amharic literature, including Adam Retta’s monumental novel YeSinibit Qelemat, which deconstructed the text prodigiously, is profoundly indebted to Kebra Nagast. Anyone who follows Amharic literary nationalism can easily identify those recurring symbols, persistent themes, and numinous experiences that are adopted from Kebra Nagast.

This chapter is divided into five sections. The first four sections offer analyses of how modern Amharic literature envisioned Ethiopian nationhood in different periods. Section one covers the period that Ethiopia attempted to be a unified modern nation‐state. This period runs from the time Ethiopia defeated the Italian colonial army in the battle of Adwa in 1896 to the attempted coup d’état, which discredited the monarchy’s divine right in the 1960s. The period of social unrest (1960–1974) that was triggered by the demands for basic human rights leading to radicalized ideology, which ended up overthrowing the entire system, is discussed in section two. The period of the military regime (1974–1991) and the ethno‐nationalism period from 1991 to the present are discussed in sections three and four respectively. The last section discusses the connection between authorship, language, and national identity in the context of Amharic (and Ethiopian) literature.