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In the 1930s, Poland was in dire economic and geopolitical straits, suffering from the effects of the Great Depression and facing increasing military pressure from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Any significant economic or even cultural engagement with Africa, the Union of South Africa included, was neither a priority for the Polish state, nor was it easy to carry out, given the British and French imperial dominance on the continent. Still, perhaps surprisingly, by the late 1930s, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs used the Union of South Africa as a base for a series of commercial and settlement schemes throughout this region of the world.

Since the beginning of that decade, official Polish propaganda proclaimed the country’s need for ‘colonies’ that would solve the issues of unemployment and industrial backwardness at home, but the clandestine actions pursued by Polish agencies in South Africa escape the simple definition of colonialism. In the presentation, I will outline the causes and dynamics of the Polish ‘colonial’ projects in and around South Africa in the 1930s, linking them to Poland’s later communist-era participation in anticolonial struggles. I will also use the topic as an opportunity to discuss Poland’s place in contemporary debates about (Eastern) Europe’s relations with Africa and responsibility for colonialism, or lack thereof.

Piotr Puchalski is Associate Professor of Modern History in the Institute of History and Archival Studies at the Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland. He offers courses in the history of Poland, colonial empires, international relations, and contemporary tourism. He has previously published in the Historical Journal and the Journal of Modern European History. His first book is Poland in a Colonial World Order: Adjustments and Aspirations, 1918-1939 (Routledge, 2022), and he has also contributed to the edited volume The World Beyond the West: Perspectives from Eastern Europe (Berghahn Books, 2022). His next project deals with Poland’s post-1939 colonial entanglements. 

The discussant:  Dr Ian Macqueen is a senior lecturer in the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies. He is currently working on a research project called “Roads to Freedom: The Struggles for Democracy in Poland South Africa”. He recently published the article “Shaka Zulu in the Polish People’s Republic (PRL): exploring South African-Polish links in the late Cold War” Cold War History (2022) and has recently completed the research article “Patrick Mabinda: the experience of South African exile in communist Poland”. Dr Macqueen has also published the book Black Consciousness and Progressive Movements under Apartheid (UKZN Press, 2018) and has published articles in the Journal of Southern African Studies, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Historia and the South African Historical Journal.