Abstract
The first part of the text summarizes the early phase of Czech African studies that took place
within the context of “colonial fantasies”, and aspirations to belong among the “civilized”, domi-
nating European nations. Subsequent developments in the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury evolved within the framework of the Cold War. The core of the article focuses on Czech Afri-
can studies after 1989. The end of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic
brought about a paradigmatic shift in academic work, as well as a sharp break with the previous
ways of approaching the “Third World” and its problems. Yet with respect to African studies,
these changes led to closing rather than opening of the horizons. The revival of this specific
branch of area studies in the past years must be understood in the broader political and cultural
context of the debates on the decolonization of European academia, as well as the changing
global political and economic entanglements. But the present-day situation of African studies
(and area studies in general) also relates to specific political and social debates within the Czech
Republic and the whole Central European region.