Ethiopia’s Renaissance and the Burden of History

History remains a central and active lens for understanding Ethiopia’s condition and its broader developments. It is especially useful for anticipating Addis Ababa’s domestic, regional, and international policies.

The most recent illustration of this came during the official inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, where references to Ethiopia’s historical confrontations with Italian colonialism were prominently invoked.

The event underscored the symbolic resonance of the Battle of Adwa (1896) and its contemporary echo in the nation’s effort to complete the dam project. One of the causes of that historic battle was Italy’s attempt to dominate the southern entrance of the Red Sea after Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, giving London near-exclusive control over the Suez Canal.

This euphoric rhetoric was followed by unprecedented Ethiopian affirmations of Addis Ababa’s imminent acquisition of a seaport, whatever the cost, based on demands and historical-colonial claims that, at first glance, appear entirely contradictory to Addis Ababa’s current anti-colonial discourse and its advocacy for the interests of “Black Africans.”

An example of this contradiction is Ethiopia’s refusal to recognize the 1902 treaty demarcating its border with Eritrea (to justify “historical” claims of reclaiming the port of Assab), while at the same time accepting a similar “colonial” treaty delineating the border with Sudan, under which Sudanese territories — most importantly the Benishangul region, where the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is located — were transferred to the Ethiopian Empire at the beginning of the last century.

The Renaissance Dam project, coupled with ambitions for Red Sea access “at any cost” and an imperial expansionist agenda, demonstrates selective and complex historical and religious justifications.

These motivations are informed by Ethiopia’s historical victory at Adwa — not only in the modern Ethiopian mindset but also among all peoples of the continent who view Ethiopia as a symbol of liberation — regardless of Emperor Haile Selassie’s deliberate distancing from Black identity and his insistence that he and his ancestors were Semitic descendants of the Solomonic dynasty.

After centuries of Ottoman dominance over the Red Sea coasts near the Ethiopian highlands, and then the Italian occupation of Massawa in 1885, followed by the full annexation of the Habesh Eyalet (the Ottoman province of Abyssinia, corresponding largely to present-day Eritrea) in 1890, the question of Ethiopia’s access to a port on the Red Sea became a central item on the agenda of the Ethiopian renaissance - an agenda marked by clear European colonial influence.

Ethiopian Modernization Projects Before the Battle of Adwa (1896)

The ascension of Emperor Tewodros II to the Ethiopian throne in 1855 marked the beginning of what is known as the “era of empire reconstruction,” according to Robert Hess. Tewodros was the ideal embodiment of this period. He claimed the throne after years as a leader of bandit groups known as “shifta,” consolidating power by defeating local rulers in Gojjam and Begemder, and engaging directly with Tigray and Shewa (capturing the young Shewan king Menelik and bringing him to his court in Magdala).

At that time, more than 60% of the population of the latter region were Muslim Oromos and Afars. Initially, Tewodros secured the support of the Church and then sought to fabricate a lineage linking himself to the Solomonic dynasty.

He brought a large number of Europeans to his capital, especially missionaries and military advisors, some of whom became key counselors and encouraged him to import European weapons. He also sought to break Ethiopia’s centuries-long diplomatic isolation through a proposed treaty of commerce and friendship with Britain.

However, his relationship with Britain deteriorated due to internal policies deemed confrontational by London. British forces justified intervening to rescue Europeans detained by Tewodros in 1867, nearly two years before the opening of the Suez Canal, which would drastically alter the Red Sea balance.

British intervention toppled Tewodros’ capital before his suicide, aided by local forces including the Tigrayans, the Church, and segments of the nobility who opposed him.

These developments, and the failure of Tewodros’ modernization project, paved the way for Emperor Yohannes IV, a Tigrayan prince, in 1871. Yohannes continued Tewodros’ policies, including limiting the power of nobles in favor of “state modernization,” and faced opposition from nobles and Muslims in Sudan and Ethiopia.

Yohannes also faced opposition from King Menelik of Shewa, with both claiming Solomonic descent. Conflict persisted until a truce was reached via the marriage of their children and acknowledgment of succession rights, marking a new phase of Ethiopian modernization characterized by strength and effective governance amid socially and politically fragmented regions.

Adwa and the Ethiopian Renaissance

Prominent Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde details Ethiopia’s modernization under Emperor Menelik, describing it as the formation of the “modern Ethiopian imperial state” after extensive territorial expansion, particularly in western and southern Ethiopia, and the establishment of a capital with the capacity to manage socio-economic crises, such as the Great Ethiopian Famine (1888–1892).

According to Zewde, Menelik modeled his governance on medieval Ethiopian kings, consolidating authority before settling in Addis Ababa around 1886, which became the political center of the empire by approximately 1892. The arrival of local nobles and Europeans increased after the Ethiopian victory over Italy at Adwa in 1896, marking the transition from continuous warfare to a more stable state life in the imperial capital.

All of this suggests, even according to the evidence that would later emerge at the end of Haile Selassie’s rule in 1974, that Ethiopia’s modernization and “imperial renaissance” projects were products of accelerated phases of imperial expansion at the expense of the peoples of the western and southern regions that would later constitute the Ethiopian state.

These projects were clearly elitist, even by the standards of their time, and were not national in the conventional sense: that is, they did not serve all parts of the state and its populations in any reasonably balanced way. Rather, it can be observed that these very projects formed an important and necessary stage in the Ethiopian Empire’s expansion, which reached its maximum extent in the early 1960s.

Ras Tafari in France: European-Style Renaissance

Efforts to modernize Ethiopia in the early 20th century were closely tied to individual rulers, since state institutions remained weak and underdeveloped. Modernization slowed after Emperor Menelik II fell gravely ill in 1906 and remained incapacitated until his death in 1913, leaving only a daughter, Zewditu. His designated heir was his grandson, Lij Iyasu, son of Ras Mikael of Wollo, a prominent ruler of Muslim background who had converted to Christianity.

Lij Iyasu assumed power but was never crowned; his erratic style of rule, and especially his perceived sympathy toward Islam and the Ottoman-German alliance during World War I, alarmed Ethiopia’s conservative nobility and clergy. In 1916, he was deposed in a coup, and Menelik’s daughter, Empress Zewditu, was placed on the throne. Real authority, however, was vested in the regent and heir apparent, Ras Tafari Makonnen, later Emperor Haile Selassie.

As regent, he spearheaded Ethiopia’s modernization and expanded its international presence, including his landmark 1924 European tour. In 1928, Zewditu was pressured to name Ras Tafari as Negus (King), and upon her death in 1930, he assumed the throne as Emperor Haile Selassie I, “King of Kings,” at age 37.

Brian Yates, in his detailed study of the role of the northern Oromo regions in the making of modern Ethiopia (1855–1913), notes that Ras Tafari himself embodied “modern Abyssinian identity.” He had married the niece of Lij Iyasu and thereafter became heir to the throne.

His mother was a Muslim Oromo woman from Wollo who had converted to Christianity under circumstances that remain somewhat unclear, while his father was the tough military commander Ras Makonnen of Shewa. Thus, one might say that Haile Selassie was Shewan Amhara, but of Oromo-Amhara descent, with both Christian and Muslim lineages from Wollo and Shewa flowing in his blood.

These elements symbolized the modern Abyssinian identity, in which the northern Oromo regions formed an integral part of the broader nation-building process then underway. Alongside Ras Tafari’s political acumen — which enabled him to claim the Ethiopian throne through extremely difficult pathways — he possessed, for several reasons, not least his refined French education, a deep orientation toward Europe as the model for modernizing his country.

In 1924, he undertook an important European tour, following in the footsteps of his father Ras Makonnen’s earlier trip to England and France in 1902, where he represented Emperor Menelik II at the coronation of King Edward VII.

Ras Tafari’s command of French, cultivated from childhood by two of his father’s prominent French associates in Harar, further reinforced this orientation: André Jarousseau, the Catholic bishop of Harar from 1900 and Tafari’s teacher at the Catholic school since 1898; and Dr. Joseph Vitalien, a French physician who first worked with the railway company in Djibouti in 1899 before being hired by Ras Makonnen to build a hospital in Harar.

The Israeli historian Haggai Erlich, in his book The Rise and Fall of Haile Selassie (2019), traces the details of Ras Tafari’s European journey, beginning in Cairo where he met Egyptian Prime Minister Saad Zaghloul, and continuing on to Jerusalem.

Ras Tafari’s primary concern was improving both his image and that of his country in the eyes of the West. He had already introduced reforms on the advice of several foreign advisers whom he had brought into Ethiopia, assigning them to various ministries.

He also sought to cultivate a strong friendship with France, evident in the Versailles Treaty negotiations and in France’s support for his efforts to safeguard Ethiopia’s independence from colonial encroachment, culminating in Ethiopia’s admission to the League of Nations in September 1923.

The central goal of Ras Tafari’s 1924 European tour — especially in France — was to persuade governments of the importance of granting Ethiopia access to a seaport. His delegation of 39 individuals was composed largely of fluent French speakers. As Boris Mounin notes in a 2013 study on the tour and its outcomes, several members of the delegation were themselves strong rivals of Ras Tafari in his ongoing struggle for supreme power.

Ras Tafari arrived in Paris on May 16, 1924, where he was received with full honors by President Alexandre Millerand and Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Raymond Poincaré. Crowds of Parisians lined the streets to watch his procession, marveling at him as though he were a “prince out of the tales of One Thousand and One Nights.”

Despite the media attention surrounding Ras Tafari’s visit, the French press did not dwell on Ethiopia’s economic potential or natural resources. Instead, the French government focused on showcasing its most advanced military technologies to him. Notably, there had been debate in France just two weeks earlier over the risks that closer cooperation with Ethiopia might pose to French interests in Djibouti.

In the end, Ras Tafari secured nothing concrete in his bid for access to a Djiboutian port, due to the lack of enthusiasm from French authorities and, above all, because of the collapse of the governing coalition on the eve of his arrival, which forced President Millerand to resign on June 11, 1924.

In conclusion, regardless of the political results of that tour, which began in Egypt and ended there again on his way back to Ethiopia, and its varied implications, the Ethiopian “renaissance question” in its European form remained a pressing preoccupation of Ethiopia’s emperors.

Yet it was a distinctly elitist project — focused on the modernization of the ruling elite, as was characteristic of the age — until the overthrow and killing of the last Ethiopian emperor in October 1974, when revolutionary forces shifted the frame of the “renaissance question” away from Europe and the West toward the communist bloc. Today, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed invokes his own vision of an Ethiopian renaissance, one that symbolically parallels the victory at Adwa and is rooted above all in ongoing regional confrontations.