He was an Afro-Russian nobleman , military engineer and general . Kidnapped as a child and presented as a gift to Peter the Great , he was raised in the Emperor's household, and eventually rose to become a prominent member of the imperial court in the reign of Peter's daughter Elizabeth . He is the great-grandfather of the author and poet Alexander Pushkin . The main reliable accounts of Gannibal's life come from Peter the Great's Negro , Pushkin's unfinished biography of his great-grandfather, published after Pushkin's death in 1837. Scholars argue that Pushkin's account may be inaccurate due to the author’s desire to elevate the status of his ancestors and family. There are a number of contradictions between the biographies of Pushkin and the German novel, The Blackamoor of Peter the Great . One such a historical biography by Gannibal's son-in-law Rotkirkh was largely responsible for the myth, propagated by som...