Ethiopia: the Experience of an Independent State in the Conditions of the Colonial Partition of Africa

Abstract

The article discusses the reasons explaining the phenomenon of preserving the independence for almost two millennia of the oldest Christian state of Tropical Africa — Ethiopia. These reasons include the awareness of itself as an “island of true faith in the sea of Islam and paganism”, the traditions and mentality of feudal Ethiopian society, its military organization, and most importantly, the completion of the process of centralization of the country, which allowed Emperor Menelik II to use the entire state economic and military potential of the country in the war against Italy, which tried to enslave Ethiopia during the “scramble for Africa” at the end of the 19th century.