Index Ongoing Research

ongoing research

This  first section shall introduce the personalities and institutions, who helped a great deal, in tracing the history of Tessema, the musician/vocalist, and successfully dubbing  nearly all the songs, he recorded on 17 disks in Germany, about 94 years ago.

ongoing documents 1

Tessema's  most popular poems are the ones he wrote on the conspiracies and the lengthy power struggles he witnessed, during the transfer of power from  Iyassu to Zewditu and finally to Haileselassie. In this section, I have included some  documents from his personal files which are relevant to that era in Ethiopian history.( The Photos of Menelik andZewditu ,in here are courtesy the book,"Atse Menelik" by Paulos Nogno.The photos of  Lij Iyassu and Ras Tessema are courtesy Dr Wolfgang Bender, from the institute of Ethnology and African studies, Mainz, Germany)

ongoing documents 2

I n the following pages I have included a scanned passport with which Tessema and the two other Ethiopians traveled to Germany. It is important to note here, that there are no photographs of the holders, the language used was only Amharic and a single passport was issued for three, with  the seal of Emperor Menelik himself. This must be the first generation of Ethiopian passports.
Tessema's second passport was issued for him alone and it was in Amharic and French.
Another interesting passport for domestic travel, issued by Lij Iyassu, is also included.

ongoing documents 3
 This section will continuously be enriched with documents  regarding Tessema's life during the reign of Emperor Hailselassie.The first set, published herein, shows his sketch design for the development of the natural steam bath at Boku, together with a hand written draft requesting 100,000 Birr from the Emperor , for the implementation of the project.

ongoing documents 4

Both in the paper and the web editions , I t is by mistake mentioned, that Tessema's  seventeen disks  recorded in Germany nearly a hundred years ago, were by the company, "HIS MASTERS VOICE" .We have now discovered that they were produced by "ODEON" Germany. We regret the mistake and present scanned pictures of all the original disks in this section.
According to Dr.Wolfgang Bender, There are different types of these 78 rounds per minute disks. some early shellacs have carton interior and the sizes differ. They were either one side playing or two sides playing.
The first shellacs of Tessema, recorded in Germany, were two sides playing. While the second, reproduced in Milan, Italy, three decades later, were only one side playing.
It is assumed the German disks may be among the first generation for two-sides recording. 

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