Written especially for IZVESTIA

January 14, 1937

NEGROES AND PUSHKIN

To the Negroes of America the name Alexander Pushkin
is a proud name and we have long claimed him as our own, because
in America the least amount of Negro blood causes one to be
classed with the poorest and most oppressed group in the western
world—and in our oppression we have need of names to be proud of.
Under the heading, "The Negro As Poet", the NEGRO YEAR BOOK con-
tains a biography of Pushkin along with those of Juan Latino,
Antar, and the two Dumagpere and fils. Often in Negro schools
Pushkin's name is mentioned with that of Shakespeare, Goethe, and
Cervantes as an example of what literary greatness can be, and of
how far the blood of Africa has gone.

Unfortunately, the work of Pushkin is known scarcely at
all to Americans, although his name is like a legend. One of the
great values of the present world centenary is that it has already
encouraged the further translation and publication of Pushkin's
writings in English in America. In line with the centenary, the
celebrated Gilpin Players of Cleveland, the finest Negro Little
Theatre group in the country, are planning a special presentation
of one of Pushkin's plays. Various Negro schools and colleges will
also observe the centenary with fitting programs. So out of the
past the greatest of Russian writers whose warmth, humanity, and
beauty ignore time and space, today's stretches forth his hand to
his black brothers in the land of Scottsboro.

A few years ago, during my sojourn in the Soviet Union,
I was privileged to translate from the Russian a short poem by

2.

Julian Annisimovecalled KINSHIP which reads as follows:

The blood of Pushkin
Unites the Russian and the Negro
In art.

Tomorrow
We will be united anew
Through the International.

Pushkin belongs to the world. May the world soon belong to
the people.

Langston Hughes