الوجود الألماني على الساحل الشرقي الأفريقي كما صوره الشعر السواحيلي

Abstract EN

The Germans were able to colonize some areas of the eastern African coast since the Berlin Conference was held in 1884, and this colonization continued until 1918, when Germany was defeated in the World War I.

This study presents the presence of the Germans on the eastern African coast as depicted by Swahili poetry, and how this poetry recorded important historical events of this period with precision and clarity.

The study is divided into three historical phases: the pre Magi-Magi revolution phase, the revolution phase itselfe, and the post-revolution phase.

Swahili poetry was replete with many poems that documented the facts of these historical stages, including the poem “The Germans’ War to Own Maryam” by the Swahili poet Hamidi Al-Bohari, and the poem “Maji Maji’s War” by the Swahili poet Abdul Karim Jamal al-Din.

They included the events of two uprisings; the Abu-Chiri uprising and Mkawa, the chief of the Ohihi tribe, uprising, as well as mentioning some other prominent fighting leaders, then the poems describe the events of the Magi-Maji revolution and its aftermath in all its details.

The study then sheds the light on some of these poems with the aim of revealing the extent of the accuracy of poetry’s depiction of historical facts on the one hand, and revealing the artistic and aesthetic values through which that poetry expressed those facts on the other hand.