<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> The author explores how the images from the colonial past affected what we understand today under the notion of Sudan. He concentrates on the category of the Nile, Sudanese-Egyptian analogies, the history making processes and colonial rule. Moreover points out that the the British used and reproduced a Muslim concept of cultural geography of Africa, and in particular, the notion of Bilad as-Sudan (”Land of the Blacks”), constituting the essence of division into white and black Africa. In this tradition Sudan placed itself at the meeting point between those two worlds and was presented as the civilisation borderland of the Muslim culture. This image was taken over by the Europeans and the British in particular. For them Sudan was an arena of conflict of civilisation with barbarity, good with evil, Europe with primitive culture.</p></abstract>

The author explores how the images from the colonial past affected what we understand today under the notion of Sudan. He concentrates on the category of the Nile, Sudanese-Egyptian analogies, the history making processes and colonial rule. Moreover points out that the the British used and reproduced a Muslim concept of cultural geography of Africa, and in particular, the notion of Bilad as-Sudan (”Land of the Blacks”), constituting the essence of division into white and black Africa. In this tradition Sudan placed itself at the meeting point between those two worlds and was presented as the civilisation borderland of the Muslim culture. This image was taken over by the Europeans and the British in particular. For them Sudan was an arena of conflict of civilisation with barbarity, good with evil, Europe with primitive culture.

Imaginary Sudan – Reflections on the Formation of the Notion of Sudan in the Period of European Influences

Department of Ethnology and World Studies, University of SS. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Silesia in Katowice

Ethnologia Actualis

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The author explores how the images from the colonial past affected what we understand today under the notion of Sudan. He concentrates on the category of the...

Imaginary Sudan – Reflections on the Formation of the Notion of Sudan in the Period of European Influences

Published Online: Dec 30, 2014

Page range: 19 - 36

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/eas-2014-0002

© 2015

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.