Stylish Ethiopian Emperors and Their Problems

If you plan to rule over something you have to dress the part. Criticize them all you want, but Ethiopian emperors understood presentation. Crowns, robes, titles, baby.

But things were often unstable, improvised, and strange. Check out a hundred years of stylish Emperors. Just a quick run through of the 1871-1974 leadership of Ethiopia.

YOHANNES IV ዮሓንስ ፬ይ / HOUSE TEMBIEN / RULE 1871-1889
A soldier-emperor who spent most of his reign in active campaigns. He viewed Islam as an issue and converted half a million people to Christianity. He was killed in battle against the Islamic Mahdist State forces, and they took his body to Sudan as a trophy. They chopped off his head and paraded it through the streets on a pike.

This fit says a lot. It looks very heavy and comfortable. I bet he just floated around places.

MENELIK II / HOUSE SHEWA / RULE 1889-1913
He really created what we know as Ethiopia today by force. Cozied up to the Europeans for the latest tech. Menelik was good at playing the European powers against each other. Signed treaties, bought weapons, imported advisors but kept the door open just enough to modernize, never enough to be controlled. The real claim to fame was defeating Italy at Adwa and killing 6,000 Italian soldiers.

Later suffered strokes and effectively disappeared from public life while courtiers ruled in his name. This colorized image shows a similar style to Yohannes IV. Heavy cloak, crown and scepter. A classic you can’t go wrong with.

LIJ IYASU ኢያሱ / HOUSE WOLLO / RULE 1913 -1916
He was a crownless Emperor and wasn’t interested in doing the work and led the elites to all form their own opinions. He kept Melenik’s ministers and called them my Grandfather’s Fat Sheep.

So the Fattened Sheep started plotting and accused of converting to Islam because he hung out in a Muslim town over Easter. Deposed before he could consolidate power and spent years moving between captivity and flight.

Evidence for dethronement:

• Had 4 Muslim wives

• Spent government money to build multiple mosques in Jigjiga

• He gave the Ethiopian flag to a foreign consul in Addis Ababa on a Muslim holiday

• He was seen in a worship service in a mosque wearing a Somali outfit

• Seen reading the Quran

• His bodyguards wore uniforms with an Islamic banner

• He restored a church land to Moslems in Harar after 32 years since gave it to priests

• He gave his daughter to a Muslim guardian.

• He traced his family tree to the prophet in rejection of his Solomonic origins

• When Menelik died he was at a horse show instead of mourning

What do you think?

He was kept prisoner for a long time and eventually disappeared under the watch of Haile Selassie. The fit looks unassuming, but from the pictures I saw he had a varied style.

ZEWDITU ዘውዲቱ / HOUSE SHEWA / RULE 1916-1930
A daughter of old Menelik II, she was one of few empresses and one of the first modern female head of a African nation. She took the throne after a childless marriage with a son of Yohannes IV from earlier, but they placed the future Haile Selassie as her regent and the heir apparent. Zewditu was deeply religious, mostly withdrawn from direct governance with Selassie leading most projects and reform in the country. She felt guilt about the imprisoning of Lij Iyasu who mysteriously died in her prisons.

Power operated around her, not always through her. Eventually her husband led a rebellion to get rid of Selassie and he lost. He was killed and she died within two days. Nobody really knows how. Sources at the time reported that the Empress had a bad fever and was dunking herself in a large container of freezing cold holy water to cure her illness. Supposedly she went into shock, and died. Sounds like she was poisoned or something.

Her crown is robust to say the least. Robes matching the carpet is also a power move.

HAILE SELASSIE ቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴ / HOUSE SHEWA / RULE 1930-1974
Here he is. The master of imperial image. Haile Selassie knew all about carefully staged appearances, a sprinkle of diplomacy, and general symbolism. While he ruled famine and unrest eroded the whole system.

He becomes a messianic figure in the Rastafari movement as a global spiritual symbol. After +40 years of rule, he was eventually deposed by his own military (the Derg) and died in custody under unclear circumstances.

Selassie died in custody, officially “natural causes.” Later accounts point to suffocation. His body was hidden for years under a palace floor.

No crown in this image. That is definitely a helmet.

All of these Emperors had a different story. Yohannes IV the campaigner. Menelik II the builder who wasted away on the throne. Lij Iyasu who mixed it all up with his religious relations. Zewditu the religious empress of devotion over control. And a master of image overtaken by events, Haile Selassie.