Studies in African Languages and Cultures (Dec 1996)
The rise of Addis Ababa
Abstract
Addis Ababa was founded in 1886 and since then it has been the capital of Ethiopia - the constant seat of the country’s rulers and the country’s political, administrative and cultural centre. However, Addis Ababa is neither the first town, nor the first capital in the history of the Ethiopian state. Towns and states are very old institutions in the history of mankind. The history of the Ethiopian statehood, almost two thousand years old, shows that there were capitals and big towns. In the historical scale, however, capitals - understood in Europe as constant seats of rulers and centres of state life - were rather rare in Ethiopia. They came into existence only if the state’s ruler, emperor, niguse negest “king above all kings”, succeeded in imposing his control over the rulers of various provinces. Through centuries Ethiopia has been a federation of provinces rather than a state centralized under one sceptre. Emperors - “kings above all kings” - had a limited control over nigus, the rulers, almost independent kings of the provinces. Cases when “king above all kings” managed to dominate over the kings of the provinces strongly enough to control the whole state from the constant seat, without the necessity of continuous travelling all around the country in order to personally protect the interest of his power over all the provinces - a state as a whole - were rather infrequent.
