page_title: Ethiopian historiography
section_title: Italo-Ethiopian Wars
hierarchical_section_title: Ethiopian historiography / Modern historiography / Italo-Ethiopian Wars
caption_attribution_description: This is the Italian memorial in the northern Ethiopian town of Adwa to the Italian soldiers who perished in the Battle of Adwa on March 1, 1896. The inscription at the top of the cross says, simply, &quot;To the Fallen.&quot; Below the date of the battle, 1896, are inscribed the words &quot;We should never forget you.&quot; Ethiopian forces led by Emperor Menelik II defeated the Italian army that day, marking the first time an African army prevailed over European armed forces. The defeat ended Italy's attempt to conquer Ethiopia in the 19th century. I was both surprised and moved that the memorial has survived. I don't know when it was built - shame on me - but I'd guess it dates to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 at the earliest. I'm surprised the memorial wasn't destroyed when Emperor Haile Selassie I was restored to power in 1941, or during the communist Derg regime that followed Selassie's ouster, the war that took out the Derg, or the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. I suspect the memorial hasn't always been in the pristine condition pictured here. It would not surprise me if there's an agreement between the Ethiopian and Italian governments to ensure the continued upkeep of this memorial to a lost cause. If Americans or any other members of the so-called &quot;Coalition of the Willing&quot; are foolish enough to erect memorials in Iraq outside the Green Zone or other highly secure locations, I predict the populace will demolish them before the dust from the departing dedication convoy has settled.
context_page_description: Ethiopian historiography includes the ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern disciplines of recording the history of Ethiopia, including both native and foreign sources. The roots of Ethiopian historical writing can be traced back to the ancient Kingdom of Aksum. These early texts were written in either the Ethiopian Ge'ez script or the Greek alphabet, and included a variety of mediums such as manuscripts and epigraphic inscriptions on monumental stelae and obelisks documenting contemporary events. The writing of history became an established genre in Ethiopian literature during the early Solomonic dynasty. In this period, written histories were usually in the form of royal biographies and dynastic chronicles, supplemented by hagiographic literature and universal histories in the form of annals. Christian mythology became a linchpin of medieval Ethiopian historiography due to works such as the Orthodox Kebra Nagast. This reinforced the genealogical traditions of Ethiopia's Solomonic dynasty rulers, which asserted that they were descendants of Solomon, the legendary King of Israel.
context_section_description: The decisive victory of the Ethiopian Empire over the Kingdom of Italy in the 1896 Battle of Adwa, during the First Italo-Ethiopian War, made a profound impact on the historiography of Italy and Ethiopia. It was not lost to the collective memory of Italians, since the Italian capture of Adwa, Tigray Region, Ethiopia in 1935, during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, was hailed as an act that avenged their previous humiliation and defeat. Historiography about Ethiopia throughout much of the 20th century focused primarily on this second invasion and the Abyssinian Crisis that preceded it, in which Ethiopia was depicted as being relegated to the role of a pawn in European diplomacy. The Ethiopian courtier (i.e. blatta) and historian Marse Hazan Walda Qirqos (1899–1978) was commissioned by the Selassie regime to compile a documentary history of the Italian occupation entitled A Short History of the Five Years of Hardship, composed concurrently with the submission of historical evidence to the United Nations War Crimes Commission for Fascist Italy's war crimes. Coauthored by Berhanu Denque, this work was one of the first vernacular Amharic histories to cover the Italian colonial period, documenting contemporary newspaper articles and propaganda pieces, events such as the 1936 fall of Addis Ababa and the 1941 British-Ethiopian reconquest of the country, and speeches by key figures such as Emperor Selassie and Rodolfo Graziani (1882–1955), Viceroy of Italian East Africa.
caption: An inscribed tomb at the Adua Memorial in the northern town of Adwa, Ethiopia, which commemorates the 1896 Battle of Adwa.
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D70", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:31 10:03:54", "Image ExifOffset": "228", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1500", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:31 10:03:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:31 10:03:54", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-3/2", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "26", "EXIF SubSecTime": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "90", "EXIF ColorSpace": "0", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1611", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2863", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "39", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}