(Czecho)Slovak History and the French Colonial Empire in Africa (18th–early 20th centuries)

This project is carried out within the TANDEM CNRS-SAV program developed by the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), the CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences (CNRS SHS), and CEFRES.

Project principal investigators:
Silvester TRNOVEC (Institute of Oriental Studies, SAV / CEFRES)
Romain TIQUET (Institut des mondes africains, CNRS / CEFRES)

ANNOTATION

Using the French colonial empire as a framework, this project examines the entanglements between (Czecho)Slovak history and Africa from the 18th to the early 20th century. It focuses on encounters of various actors of (Czecho)Slovak background—travellers, missionaries, merchants, diplomats, as well as state and private institutions—not only with French colonial networks but also with African populations. These interactions involved exchanges of goods, ideas, and cultural representations. By tracing them, the project highlights how Africa’s histories were shaped through contacts with Central Europeans long before the era of decolonisation and the Cold War.

In contemporary debates on colonialism, the decolonization of knowledge, and imperial legacies, the countries and nations of Central Europe are often portrayed as being outside colonial history because they never possessed overseas colonies. Yet Czech and Slovak societies today claim belonging to the Western world, whose history is inseparable from imperial expansion and global domination. This paradox raises fundamental questions: to what extent were (Czecho)Slovak societies linked to the imperial projects of Western Europe? In what forms did these connections take? And how did these interactions shape both African history and Central European representations of Africa?

The project pursues two main objectives. First, it seeks to identify and analyze the interactions of (Czecho)Slovak actors—both individuals and state or private institutions—with the French colonial space in Africa, focusing on their engagements with African populations and their role in the circulation of people, goods, and ideas. Second, it aims to assess the impact of these contacts on knowledge and representation, examining how colonial encounters influenced Central European perceptions of Africa and Africans, and how (Czecho)Slovak actors contributed to reproducing, transforming, or at times challenging colonial discourses.

The project draws on a wide range of sources held in key archives and libraries, including the Archives nationales d’outre-mer in Aix-en-Provence, the Archives of French West Africa in Dakar, the Slovak National Archive in Bratislava, the National Archive in Prague, as well as the Slovak and Czech National Libraries. In doing so, it seeks to significantly renew the study of historical relations between Central Europe and Africa in the context of European colonialism.

Illustration of the project depicting the inhabitants of Madagascar at the end of the 18th century in Benyowsky’s original manuscript from 1791 (the original manuscript is in the British Library).