This theory is quite possibly derived from the relatively modern idea of a very limited ethnic diversity of Europe in the previous centuries, most likely exacerbated by the institutional racism in America that sometimes is undeservedly projected onto other countries. Also, as the portrait of Pushkin by Vasiliy Tropinin from 1826 and the lithography of Dumas by Eugene Giraud from around the same time show that the similarities are hardly striking.

The alleged similarity of Alexandr Pushkin and Alexandre Dumas (father) basically amounts to the fact that they were both mulattoes, having the sub-Saharan Africans among their immediate ancestors. Alexandr Pushkin was a great-grandson of a courtier known as Ibrahim (Abraham) Hannibal, an Abyssinian servant of Ottoman Sultan Selim III, bought and presented to Peter I by his ambassador to Ottoman Empire, where he made a quick career, being manumitted by tsar, advancing the military ranks to the one of general and received the title of the Revel (Tallinn) governor from Empress Elisabeth. Likewise, Alexandre Dumas was a grandson of Marie-Cesette Dumas (or Duma), an African slave owned by Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a grandfather of the author of 'Three Musketeers'.

The main problem with the theory is the fact that both Pushkin and Dumas were quite notable politically and well-known. The former, having published several works criticizing the absolutist rule of Nicholas I (most notably anti-tsarist poems including Freedom and the novel Village where he criticized the treatment of commoners by nobility) he was exiled from Petersburg in 1820 and resided for many years on the outskirts of the country, initially in Kishyniev and later in several places on the shores of Black Sea, mainly in Crimea and Caucasus. As an exile, he was monitored by local police what incidentally left a proof of his residence in Russia. In the same time, Alexandre Dumas already publishes his first plays in the theatre he founded with his friend Adolh de Leuven. After the fall of the Decembrist Uprising, Pushkin was summoned to Moscow (settled in Boldino, near the city) where he still remained under police supervision but was exempt from the regular censorship. At that time, Alexandre Pushkin was already a well-know person in the Parisian literary world, being a frequent guest of Jean-Charles Emmanuel Nodier, an influential literary critic. In 1830 he was also very active politically, taking a part in July Revolution, supporting his former employers, Louis d'Orleans, later king Louis Philippe I.

All this would make it very unlikely that no one would notice that well-known writer and playwright who even tried his mettle in politics and rubbed shoulders with the future king was suddenly replaced by a Russian writer and playwright whose presence in Russia was attested by police archives and who apparently did not die in the duel with Georges d’Anthes in 1837.