President Mnangagwa has granted a State-assisted funeral to celebrated historian, Mr Pathisa Nyathi, who died in Bulawayo on Saturday.
Mr Nyathi was a renowned historian who was described by others as resourceful.
Recently, the President assigned Mr Nyathi and Deputy Chief Secretary, Office of the President and Cabinet, Reverend Paul Damasane, to document the Pupu Battle of national resistance against British colonial encroachment.
The President also tasked them to trace the final journey of King Lobengula following the fall of the Ndebele Kingdom in 1893.
Mr Nyathi produced a detailed written account of events of that tragic, yet heroic episode from history.
In a statement yesterday, President Mnangagwa said he received the sad news of the passing of Mr Nyathi with a very heavy heart, utter sense of shock and deep sorrow.
"As they grieve over their saddest loss, may they derive ample comfort from the great deeds and accomplishments of the late dear departed, many of which were done in the service of his people and his country.
"To that end and in his honour, I have directed that the late Pathisa Nyathi be granted a State-assisted funeral. May his dear soul rest in eternal peace."
Detailing Mr Nyathi's legacy, the President said he personally felt very proud and overwhelmed by the sheer fervency of his commitment to the reconstruction of Zimbabwe's National Heritage which he felt had been assaulted and injured by countless colonial narratives.
"I even urged him to embark on more such projects, so the huge lacuna in our sparsely documented and vastly distorted past could be plugged.
"Today that hope stands rudely dashed as its proponent and main actor has bowed out of this life after a long and inexorably debilitating illness. We deeply grieve over this very sad and untimely demise, which has robbed our nation."
President Mnangagwa said Mr Nyathi, a veteran educationist who specialised in teaching Science and Mathematics, raised many professionals who today occupy positions of influence in society.
He noted that the historian leaves behind numerous path-breaking publications on Zimbabwe's past, including genealogies of communities, and biographies of several national icons, including Lozikeyi, the last Queen of King Lobengula who wielded tremendous influence and played a key role both before and after the demise of the Ndebele Kingdom.
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Mr Nyathi reconstructed and re-animated vanished social and cultural histories of several communities across the country including his own which inhabited lands around the Matobo Complex, itself immemorially a key site of indigenous spirituality, and a focal point of spirited resistance during the 1896 First Umvukela.
President Mnangagwa said the academic delved and made forays into histories of the Munhumutapa and Rozvi empires, including detailing the material cultures of key epochs of long civilisation, and doing so in ways that challenged false myths which Eurocentric narratives had carefully cultivated during the colonial era.
"Today, we are all the richer for his efforts, even as we mourn that his life has been cut short when he still had so much to give," he said.
In between research into Zimbabwe's long past, the late Nyathi documented biographical snippets of veterans of the Second Chimurenga, thus enriching narratives on the country's liberation struggle.
"It is my hope that his fellow historians will pay tribute to this great, committed scholar by carrying on from where he left so our history and heritage are comprehensively documented and interpreted.
"Apart from marking the sad departure of a community leader, we also mourn the passing on of a man of the arts who contributed in a very big way to performing arts, including film, in ways that transformed Bulawayo into the National Capital of the Arts."
"Today his fellow actors are all the poorer without him. May their lasting tribute to him come by way of more and greater productions in his memory," said President Mnangagwa.
