Abstract
What might “Black Lives Matter” mean in a nation like Poland whose Black presence is widely perceived to have begun in the late 20th century? Amidst the summer of 2020’s worldwide protests against systemic racism, two public statues honouring Tadeusz Kościuszko — the illustrious 18th century Polish soldier and statesman who fought in the Polish-Russian War of 1792, and the American War of Independence — were defaced. Both statues, one in Washington D.C. and the other Warsaw, saw their pedestals painted with the letters “BLM”. This paper expounds on points I made in an article originally published in English in Calvert Journal, and republished in Polish translation in Le Monde Diplomatique (PL) discussing the representation of people of African descent in the history of Polish art, sculpture, monuments, and architectural features. It discusses paintings of associates of Kościuszko himself: Jean Lapierre and Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski, the painting “View of Warsaw from the Royal Castle” (1773) by Canaletto, which pictures a Black citizen in the center of the cityscape, a building in Old Warsaw dating back to the early 17th century called “Under the Little Negro,” the painting “A Negress” (1884) by Anna Bilińska, the sculpture of “The African” against the exterior wall of the Congress Hall of the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw, paintings and graffiti of August Agboola Browne (“Ali”) by Karol Radziszewski (2015-2017), and the monument of Browne in Warsaw unveiled in 2019. These various art and architectural objects have played differing social roles.
Presenters
Nicholas BostonAssociate Professor, Journalism and Media Studies, Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY), New York, United States
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