60 Years of African and Oriental Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Memories and Remarks

The year 2022 marked the 60th anniversary of the creation of Pracownia Zagadnień Społecznych i Kulturalnych Afryki Współczesnej [The Center for Studies on African Societies and Cultures], only the second academic institution in Poland and the first within the Polish Academy of Sciences devoted to research on the African continent. This jubilee is an excellent occasion to recall the history of this reputable and academically important institution. Hence, the paper documents the evolution of the center, which was initially founded by Professor Józef Chałasiński, and a gradual widening of its geographic scope and transition to research within the field of wider Oriental Studies. It not only shows the various academic angles of the research conducted within the center and presents the biographies of some prominent staff members, but through a history of the institution it also gives a glimpse into academic studies on non-European countries in Poland at the various stages of the country’s turbulent modern history. The paper refers to all the main turning points in the history of the institution. Starting from its establishment in 1962, it moves through the early years and then describes the transformation into the Center for Studies on Non-European Countries. It then describes the Center’s present-day form, as in 2010 CSNEC was merged with the Research Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology and transformed into the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences.