By Richard Pankhurst
Menghestu Lemma, who died in Addis Ababa at the end of July 1988 aged sixty-five, was a scholar, poet, playwright and wit who may be considered the Molière, Bernard Shaw or Gogol of Ethiopia.
The son of a renowned church scholar Aläqa Lämma Haylu
Wäldä Tarik, Menghestu was born in Harar where, under his
father’s auspices, he received a traditional Ethiopian church
education at Mäkana Sellasé church. He specialized in gene, or
ecclesiastical poetry, and zéma, or church singing. This
schooling left an indelible mark on young Menghestu who was to
devote much of his life to the study, conservation, and
popularization of Ge’ez culture.
JES, vol XXI, November 1988
199p. 199
continuous tone image
After mastering qené Menghestu proceeded to Addis Ababa
where he enrolled at the prestigious secondary school at
Kotâbé. He became well known among his fellow students for his
poetry, which he recited on Sundays, as well as for his staunch
support for the values of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
On completing his studies in Addis Ababa, there being then
no opportunities for higher education in Ethiopia, Menghestu
was one of the privileged few selected to go for study in
Britain. He went initially to the Regent Street Polytechnic
where he prepared himself for the University college of his
choice, the then internationally famous London School of
Economics .
At L.S.E. Menghestu read widely, not only within his
economics and politics curriculum, but also far beyond it. He
immersed himself in the Marxist classics, read through the
entire works of George Bernard Shaw, and familiarized himself
with the nineteenth and early twentieth century Russian
novelists – whose writings, he always contended, were
particularly relevant to the Ethiopia of his student days , far
more so indeed than subsequent, Soviet literature.
Keenly interested in Ethiopian culture he wrote on the
traditional schools of the Ethiopian Church for the London
weekly New Times and Ethiopia News , and was largely responsible
for the description of qené schools in Sylvia Pankhurst’s
Ethiopia. A Cultural History. He also composed a number of
poems and short stories, two of which appeared in the Lion Cub ,
the journal of the Ethiopian Students in England, and one in
the New Times and Ethiopia News.
Menghestu, by this time a convinced Socialist, took a keen
interest in current affairs. On one occasion the philosopher
Bertrand Russell came to L.S.E to give a lecture on Peace and
Co-existence, and went on to argue that to achieve each of
these goals the East and West should avoid interfering in each
other’s sphere of influence – which should thus be perpetuated
in the interest of international accord. Menghestu as a member
of the audience was characteristically the first to rise. He
declared, as an African, that the people of Africa, whether the
English philosopher liked it or not, were no longer prepared to
remain under European colonial domination. That was of course
well before the “Winds of Change” had brought independence to
most of the continent.
200p. 200
Menghestu held office in the Ethiopian Student’s Society
in Britain as its Secretary and later as its President. He was
also for a time Editor of the Lion Cub , and played an active
role in the embryonic student movement of his day. In an
article entitled “The Best System of’ Ideas”, which appeared
under the pseudonym “Ityopis” in the Lion club in 1951, he
urged his young compatriots to concern themselves not only with
their formal studies, but also with wider social and political
issues. Emphasizing that Ethiopia’s standard of living, health
and culture was then rising, he urged that it had to be raised
“higher and higher” until the country could “truly claim
equality with the really advanced countries of the world” . To
achieve this end, he argued, students should adopt the “Best
System of Ideas” which he defined as the one which would
achieve the desired progress “most quickly, directly,
irrevocably” .
Though an apostle of economic, social and political
modernization Menghestu never lost sight of the importance of
Ethiopian traditions, and, as a poet, proclaimed his undying
conviction that Ethiopian literature should, as he put it, be
“nationalist in form and progressive in content” . Throughout
his life, his literary and scholarly genius lay in fact in his
skill in blending together traditional Ethiopian poetic and
other genres with those of the modern, “Western” world.
During his student days in Britain Menghestu was asked to
write and produce a sketch to entertain his fellow Ethiopian
students at one of their parties. The request was important for
it set the young man on his later career as playwright.
Several other short plays, which were enacted by his fellow
students, followed, and were greatly acclaimed. In one sketch
an old-fashioned Ethiopian priest, who holds the traditional
belief that the world is flat and stationary, has a heated
argument with a European philosopher. Both protagonists drink
freely, and are soon quite tipsy. The curtain falls when the
two roll under the table, and the priest says to his adversary,
“You were right; the world does go round!”
Menghestu, a great wit, had many humourous tales to tell
of his days in England. Once, when suffering from prolonged
tuberculosis he was confined to hospital for several months .
Teased by the nurses , who were entirely ignorant of Ethiopia
and its Christian heritage, he began “pulling their leg” by
stating for instance that he was a Muslim who lived in the
trees. Though still a bachelor, when asked if he was married,
he replied that he had no less than four wives. Some time
201p. 201
later four Ethiopian women students chanced to come to visit
him, whereupon the nurses rushed to his ward, crying out, “Mr
Lemma, Mr Lemma, your wives have arrived! Which one of them do
you want to see first?” The patient, who had of course no
inkling as to the identity of these female visitors, and could
not therefore mention any of them by name, solved the dilemma
in a flash by replying, “Tell Number One to come in first!”
On his return to Ethiopia Menghestu became the Head of the
Statistics Section of the Civil Aviation Department, and, ever
á man of modest material aspirations , surprised some pf his
more fashionable, motor car-loving colleagues by travelling to
and from work in a covered motorcycle. Not long afterwards he
published his first monograph Y abb at oh haw at a , a collection of
traditional Ethiopian stories told in verse. The book
incidentally broke with custom in omitting the then omnipresent
frontispiece of the former Emperor.
Not long after this, Menghestu’s elder brother, who served
in the Ministry of Pen, arranged for the young radical to be
sent abroad as First Secretary to the Ethiopian Embassy in
India, which was then headed by Ras. Emru, an old friend of
Aläqa Lämma and hence of his family.
” Menghestu’s stay in • New Delhi was of a formative
importance for it enabled him to compare his native Ethiopia
with another Third World country which was both a great
democracy and, as he saw it, a land of incredible superstition.
Though as a democrat he found much to admire in the
sub-continent, he was surprised to see dead bodies thrown into
the Ganges, and to hear that Indians with high University
degrees could still have resort to sooth-sayers .
Menghestu, who had long taken a keen interest in Russian
literature, also visited the Soviet Union, then still in its
immediate post- Stalinist stage. His stay in Moscow enabled him
to witness another Orthodox Christian country and to study the
working of a socialist state and economy at first hand. One of
his plays and several of his poems were subsequently translated
into Russian.
On eventually returning to Addis Ababa Menghestu joined
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he first served as Head
of the Research Section and later as Director-General of the
Social and Economic Department of the United Nations Division.
While at the Ministry he rationalized his work-load by
introducing a system of standardized letters of reply. This
202p. 202
arrangement, which was then an innovation, was useful in that
it released more of his time and energies for literature and
scholarship. It was at this time that he began his first
association with Addis Ababa University – the then HSIU. He
gave some classes in the history of Ethiopian Literature, and
encouraged the then Director of the Institute of Ethiopian
Studies to initiate the collection and publication of Ge’ez
poetry, in a mimeographed periodical Qené Collections which
Menghestu himself closely supervised.
Menghestu’s most important scholarly work was, however,
the tape-recording, editing and eventual publishing of the
memoirs of his aged and learned father Aläqa Lämma. The
resultant volume Mäsehafä tezzeta zä’ Aläqa Lämma Hay lu9 which
incidentally was one of the first Amharic books to carry an
index and a map, is a work of unique historical, social and
linguistic interest which urgently calls for re-issue, the more
so as its author, for various reasons, was able to publish only
a portion of the material he had recorded. A translation into
one of the languages of international scholarship is also
greatly needed.
In the years which followed, Menghestu, as will be
apparent from the bibliography in this issue, wrote extensively
on the history, characteristics and problems of Ge’ez and
Amharic literature, including poetry. His writings on these
subjects included a highly original article in Amharic, on “The
Technical Aspects of Amharic Versification” , which appeared in
the Journal of Ethiopian studies in 1963, and, twenty-one years
later, a paper for the Eighth International Conference of
Ethiopian Studies, held in 1984, on “A Possible Role for Ge’ez
Qené in Ethiopian Vernacular Poetry”.
Menghestu in the 1960’s became the Secretary- General of
the Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s Amharic Language Academy
(but humourously declared that the body consisted of little
more than his secretary, her typewriter and himself). He
travelled to Moscow to attend an international symposium on the
short story in Asian and African Literature sponsored by the
Soviet Writer’s Union in 1965, and to Sweden to present papers
on Ethiopian literature to the African- S candanavian writers’
Conference in Stockholm in 1967 and to Uppsala University in
- He received Ethiopia’s Prize Trust prize for Ethiopian
literature in 1968, and the all African prize for drama awarded
by the University of California’s African Arts magazine in the
following year.
203p. 203
It is, however, for his plays that Menghestu, an acute,
and at times sarcastic, observer of his country’s social scene,
will perhaps be most widely remembered. His two comic plays,
YalaSSa gabeS&a , or Marriage of Unequals, and Tälfo bakisé, or
Marriage by Abduction, enjoyed great success. Both are
concerned with the clash of traditional Ethiopian and modern or
“Western” values. Both, like most of Menghestu’s literary
works, are highly polished, for he would always work and
re-work his texts many times before allowing them to be
published. Both of the comedies are accessible in English
translations produced by the author himself. Though he made
fine translations of them Menghestu was adamant ih his belief
that Ethiopian – and by extension other African writers –
should express themselves in their own native language – the
tongue, cus he said, with which their mother dandled them on her
knees, and only later translate their works into English or
French, if necessary, to reach a wider, foreign audience. He
did not, however, in any way close his eyes to the foreign
literary scene. On the contrary he listened regularly to the
B.B.C.’s World Theatre of the Air, translated the British
playwright J.B. Priestley, the Russian Anton Chekov, and Egyptian Tewfiq El Hakim; and on the occasion of the present
writer’s marriage, when (as one of our two “best men”) he
regaled the guests with a recital of classical Chinese poetry
in English translation.
Though mainly a writer of comedies Menghestu also later
wrote a melodrama särä-koloniyalist, or Anti-colonialist, set
during the time of the Italian fascist occupation of Ethiopia
which he had himself witnessed in Harar. An ardent
anti-fascist, he was one of the two individuals principally
responsible for ensuring that the Ethiopian Government did not
award a prize to Enrico Cerulli, an Italian scholar of note,
who, despite his learning, seemed undeserving of an Ethiopian
award in that he had inter alia served in the fascist
delegation to the League of Nations during the critical
discussions following the Wal Wal incident , and was later
Vice-Governor of East Africa in the later stages of the
infamous occupation. Menghestu’s last play Summiya , or
“Scramble for office”, still awaits publication, as does his
scripts for Ethiopian television.
After the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 Menghestu was
elected to the first sängo, or mini-Parliament, responsible for
enacting the reforms of the immediate post-revolutionary
period , and kept a detailed diary of its proceedings . He was
for a time Secretary-General (and later Vice-President) of the
294p. 204
newly established Ministry of Culture’s Academy of Ethiopian
Languages, served as that ministry’s expert on literary
affairs, and was a prominent member of another body created by
the Revolution: the Ethiopian Writers’ Union.
At around this time Menghestu rejoined the University and
taught theatre arts in the v newly established Institute of
Language Studies . Always a perfectionist he avidly read the
most modern English and American playwrights, studied their
techniques with professionell interest, and took immense pride
in the efforts of his students – who after his death committed
themselves to holding a Menghestu Lemma Day each year.
Menghestu’s importance as a long-established, and
progressive man of letters – as well as his erudition in
Socialist literature, which he had first read as a student –
received recognition in Addis Ababa in 1981 when he addressed a
Nation-wide Seminar on the Arts , held in the capital’s City
Hall, on “Transitional Literature”.
In the last years of his life he began work on a
fictionalized autobiography, but lived only to write a first,
but we believe, possibly publishable draft on his early life,
dealing in the main with his student days.
In latter years Menghestu also worked closely – in an
entirely voluntary capacity – with the Ethiopian Ministry of
Culture, in the recording of traditional Ethiopian
interpretations of the Bible, as well as on the collection of
Ge’ez qené and its translation into Amharic. A first volume of
qené, with Amharic translations, was published by the Ministry
shortly before his death, and carries an introduction by
Menghestu. The volume hopefully the first of a series, serves
as a last monument to Menghestu Lemma’s life-time dedication to
the preservation and study of traditional Ethiopian learning
and scholarship.
Menghestu, a man of immense creativity, and very forceful
in the exposition of his views, was at the same time a shy and
very personal man, reluctant to share his inner feelings with
many. His ideas, and his way of life, were uniquely his, for,
as the English saying has it, he was “nobody’s fool.”
205p. 205
Menghestu Lemma: A Bibliography
Richard Pankhurst
For over forty years of his active intellectual life
Menghestu Lemma wrote extensively. Besides his major creative
works and his studies on Ethiopian literature, which are well
known, he contributed sundry poems to the press, wrote a number
of polemical articles on literary and other controversies of
the day, and was the subject of much newspaper comment. Such
writings, though important for the understanding of Menghestu,
are more difficult to trace.
The following bibliography, though intended to be
comprehensive, is doubtless not exhaustive. The author would
welcome information on omissions in the hope that missing
references may be included in a subsequent, definitive
bibliography.
Political and Social Views
“The Best System of Ideas”, The Lion Cub (1951), no. 2, pp.
15-17 [written under the pseudonym “Ityopis”], reprinted in
New Times and Ethiopia News, August 2, 1932, and reproduced
in E.S. Pankhurst, Ethiopia. A cultural History (Woodford
Green, Essex, 1955), pp. 713-6.
Literary History and Analysis
PA^íC? ITÇo HßH t»¿-P hCW (A4.ň /«no < 1950 •»-s1″-) P/W? VV9» HR h.ŤP-íf?<£– t<W¿ 1962
P tfŤC £C rtt iiAHŤ (M.fi MO « 1964
/iÇ áô7 ‘■ 1973 I-»”- 1 «feTC 1) » IX-
10-16
“fTi lie m** AVX-A-Ç” (A UIC f/”ï Tila* a«l«ÍC ff A.« )• 1974 ‘i-f-
“Ethiopian Schools of Poetry”, New Times and Ethiopia News,
November 13, 1940.
206p. 206
- “Ethiopian Poetry”, New Times and Ethiopia News, February
19, 1949. - “The Language Problem”, The Lion Cub (1952), no. 4, pp. 23-8.
- “The Future of Ethiopian Classical Poetry”, The Lion Cub ,
1952, no. 4. - “The Technical Aspects of Amharic Versification”, Journal of
Ethiopian Studies (1963), I, no. 2, pp. 133-51. [in Amharic] - “Modern Ethiopian Literature: The Task Ahead”, The Voice of
Ethiopia , May 19, 1965. - “The Future of Ethiopian Classical Poetry,” The Ethiopian
Herald, January 28, 1966, also translated in the Czech
periodical Sveteva Literatura, i.e. “World Literature,”
1966, No. 2. - “The Real Meaning of Semenna-Warq” , The Voice of Ethiopia,
January 3,20 and February 3, 1967.
Introduction to Modern Ethiopian Literature, Paper delivered
to the African- Scandinavian writers’ Conference (Uppsala,
1967). - “Amharic Literature and its Writers”, The voice of Ethiopia,
March 11, 12 & 13, 1968.
Ethiopian Culture as Reflected in Ethiopian Poetry and
Literature , Paper delivered to Uppsala University, 1969. - “From Traditional to Modern Literature in Ethiopia”,
Zeitschrift für Kultur austauch . Äthiopien (Stuttgart, 1973),
pp. 81-3. - “A Letter to an Ethiopicist” , The Ethiopian Herald,
September 23, 1980. - “The Language of the People as the Language of Literature”,
Yekatit (1983), VI, no. 4, pp. 13-22. - A Possible Role for Geez Qené in Ethiopian Vernacular
Poetry, Paper presented to the Eighth International
Conference of Ethiopian Studies. (Addis Ababa, 1984). - “Dramatic Technique in the Context of a Cultural
207p. 207
Revolution”, Atti del Io Seminario di Studi Italo- Etiopici,
13-15 Febraio 1984″ Publicazioni della Cattedra ď Italiano –
Università di Addis Abeba (1985), no. 2, pp. 9-15. - “The Ethiopian Playwright”, The Ethiopian Herald , August 1
and 8, 1984.
Creative Writing
New Times and Ethiopia News, February 9, 1952.
-ma.” The Lion Club (1953), no. 5, pp. 13-15. “vc Mia” The Lion Club (1954), no. 6, pp. 5-16.
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208p. 208
His Biography of his Father based on Tape-Recordings
tmóá¿ tut HAňít- ňi Hßft <D⣠?¿ti *nn » 1959 i r )
Unpublished Amharic Translations for Ethiopian Television
- “The Door”, by Anton Chekov axft-z.*
- “Lust to Kill”, by Tewfiq El Hakim. iäje,
English Translations of His Works - “Snatch and Run, or Marriage by Abduction”, Ethiopia
Observer (1964), VIII, pp. 321-60. - “Nine Travellers”, trans, by the author, in Ullendorf f, An
Amharic Chrestomathy , pp. 79-80. - “Marriage of Unequals, A Comedy [trans, by the author]
(Addis Ababa, 1968), American Embassy mimeo. - “Under the Clear Moon – An Amharic Poem”, trans, by Michael
Coke, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
(1972), XXXV, p. 706.
Russian Translations of his Works - Neravnyi brak: Komediia , Russian translation by V. Ivanova
of The Marriage of Unequals. A Comedy (MOSCOW, 1966). - Two of Menghestu’s poems appear in translation in V.
Sanovich, Poeziya Afriki (Moscow, 1973), pp. 568-9. - Five poems appear in translation in A. Ibragemof, Poeziya
Afriki (Moscow, 1979), I, 180-4.
209p. 209 - Nine poems appear in translation in E. Klichkova (ed.)» iz
sevremennai poezii Etiopii: sborník pereveď s Amharskiye
(Moscow, 1981) pp. 36-53.
Early Press Correspondence - Early press correspondence from Menghestu appeared in New
Times and Ethiopia News, May 20, 1950, and May 24, 1952; and
under the pen-name of Etyopis in The Lion cub (1952), no. 4,
p. 45, reprinted in New Times and Ethiopia News , January 13,
Interviews
Interviews with Menghestu are reported in:
- Worqafärahu Käbädä, “Modern Patterns of Marriage”, Addis
Reporter (February 1970), II, no 3, pp. 12-15. - Akalu Getanäh, Comedy and Social purpose: Two Plays of
Menghestu Lenona (Addis Ababa University M. A. thesis, 1981),
pp. 80-8 - L. Nichols, African Writers at the Microphone (Washington,
1984). pp.36, 48, 98, 115, 160, 263, 267.
Drawings
Drawings by Menghestu eura reproduced in: - New Times and Ethiopia News , May 29 and July 10, 1948, and
June 24, 1950
Pankhurst, Ethiopia. A Cultural History , Plates CXLI and
CXLII.
English Translation by Menghestu
Menghestu adapted and translated into English an Institute
of Ethiopian Studies’ study of Ethiopian church education by
Embaqom Qaläwäld, Aläqa, Traditional Ethiopian Church Education
(New York, 1970).
210p. 210
Editorial Work
Menghestu was closely involved in the editing of the first
issues of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies’ mimeographed
publication Qené Collections (1964-7). He likewise edited
Yekuno Amlak Gäbrä Sellase’ s article f+Ä’l® “Early Ge’ez
Qene , ” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 1966, IV, no. 1, pp. 76-119.
He was later editor of the Ministry of Culture and Sport’s
first volume of qené, or traditional poetry: fifin f/*”r TtM
&cň : >0(1- hiïcwm- (Addis Ababa, 1980 E.C.) to which he
wrote an introduction.
Oral Informant
An account largely based on Menghestu of traditional
Ethiopian church schools, with special reference to qené, or
poetry, schools is found in E.S. Pankhurst, Ethiopia. A
Cultural History, XXV- vii, 234-66.
Literary Criticism of Menghestu’s Works
Menghestu ‘s literary work, or individual works, are
discussed in many studies of Ethiopian literature of the
period, notably: - S. Wright, “Amharic Literature”, Something (1962), I, 11-23
- E. Ullendorf, The Ethiopians (Oxford, 1965), pp.156, 168.
- L. Ricci, Letterature dell’ Etiopia (Milano, 1969); idem,
“Bibliografia”, Rassegna di Studi Etiopiche (1969-70), XXIV,
248-50 - A.S. Gerard, Four African Literâtures (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, Ca., 1971) pp.349, 355-8, 359-61, 374-5, 382. - A. Bartnicki and J. Mantel- Niecko, Historia Etiçpii (Warsaw,
1971), pp.504, 507, 510; idem. Geschichte Äthiopiens
(Berlin, 1978), pp. XLI, 572, 575, 579. - T.L. Kane, Ethiopian Literature in Amharic (Wiesbaden, 1971)
pp. 14-15, 21, 24, 26, 60, 218. - Lotus, quarterly review of the Indian Afro-Asian Writers’
Association (1978-9), no. 38-9.
211p. 211
R.K. Molvaer , Tradition and Change in Ethiopia. Social and
Cultural Life as Reflected in Amharic Fictional Literature
c.a. 1930-1974 (Lieden, 1980) pp. 2, 6, 9, 17, 158, 167,
170, 177, 179, 187, 204, 223, 232, 236, 238. - Akalu Getaneh, Comedy and Social Purpose: Two Plays of
Menghestu Lemma - Assefa Arägahägne, The Origin and Deployment of Amharic
Literature (Addis Ababa University M. A. thesis 1981). - Atlante, published by the Italian Istituto Geografico de
Agostino, Marzo, 1986.
Biography
Érief biographies: Afrikanische Köpfe. Lof e-blatt- sammer lung
(Bonn, 1965); Forschunginstitut der Friederich Ebert
Stifstung, Lofe-blatt-ausgabe (Hanover, 1967-70). - Arefayne Hagos, “Menghestu Lemma, The Ethiopian Herald, May
1, 1983. - L. Nichols, African Writers at the Microphone , pp. 235-6.
ôaffy f/”ï Am- />■%/> HOOJ 17 « 1979 - R. Pankhurst, “Memories of Menghestu Lemma in England”,
Yekatit (March, 1989).
Chapter in Makers of Modern Africa (London, 1989).
Obituaries and Related Articles
Obituaries of Menghestu, and/or posthumous accounts of his
work, appeared in: - A-%ň HVB} ¡ W>9°A. 20 « 23 « 24 « 29 » 30 19SO 19 ‘ 25 1981
- řháftt A * th9°ň> 30 1980 « MC 3 1981
- The Ethiopian Herald, July 30, October 27 and November 2,
1988
212p. 212 - The Times [by Edward Ullendorff], August 8, 1988.
- the Independent (by Arthur Irvine), August 11, 1988.
- the Guardian (by David Appleyard) August 15, 1988
- the Daily Telegraph [based on a script by and interview with
Richard Pankhurst], August 15, 1988 - African Literature Association Bulletin (by Lee Nichols)
(Summer 1988), XIV, no. 3, pp. 56-7.
Friends of Ethiopia Newsletter (October, 1988), no. 8.
213p. 213
