Addis Zemen Newspaper Archives 【Premium Quality】

By supporting and using the Addis Zemen archives, we are fighting against "the shrinking of the present"—the phenomenon where every day, the past gets a little further away.

It is not an easy archive to navigate. The Amharic script can be intimidating, the microfilm readers can be clunky, and the digital scans are often incomplete. But the reward is worth it. Holding a PDF of an Addis Zemen from November 2, 1930 (Ethiopian calendar), and seeing the coronation of the Lion of Judah described not as history, but as today’s news , is as close to time travel as we will ever get. addis zemen newspaper archives

Let’s explore the significance, the history, and—most importantly—how you can access this invaluable resource. To understand the archives, you must understand the newspaper’s origin. Addis Zemen was first published in 1941, a year of monumental change. The five-year Italian occupation (1936–1941) had just ended, and Emperor Haile Selassie I was returning to his throne. Ethiopia was literally rebuilding itself from the ashes of fascist occupation. By supporting and using the Addis Zemen archives,