Jan Czekanowski: antropolog na Czarnym Lądzie

Abstract

The article is devoted to the diaries of Jan Czekanowski, an outstanding Polish anthropologist, who travelled to Africa in the years 1907–1909. Special attention is given here to the narrator’s attitudes. Czekanowski knew Africa primarily as an anthropologist and traveller. He perceived the process of colonization as a weave of economic, political and ideological motives. He was also indignant with colonial exploitation, which he observed mainly in Belgian colonies. However, Czekanowski’s portrait of Africa evokes the concept of orientalism, as defined by Edward W. Said. Its prominent aspect was perceiving the Other through the binary opposition between the East and West. Moreover, in spite of his declared affection for black Africans, the Polish scholar uses Orientalistic and colonial stereotypes which seem consistent with the nineteenth-century trends in travel literature.