Ciągłość i zmiany w polskich obrazach Afryki w kontekście europejskim

In the article the author tries to represent in a synthetic way both continuity and changes in he ways of perceiving Africa in Poland within a long period of time- since Middle Ages till now. It is pointed out that the Polish images of Africa have always belon-ged to European views on that continent. The author doesn't agree with the common opinion that there was something specific and different in the way Africa was perceived in Poland due to the fact that Poland never took part in the slave - trade and colonization and at the end of the 18th century lost its national independence itself. Particular Polish history was sometimes believed to find expres-sion in better understanding of African problems. However, every-thing that has been written on Africa by Polish authors proves that our attitudes to and stereotypes of Africa were included in the all-European pattern, although some of our outstanding countrymen (Beniowski, Conrad, Malinowski) contributed to those attitudes to some extent.