Abstract

The article presents the transformations of Ludwik Krzywicki’s views on race. First, based on the biographical and intellectual context, an important place of anthropological reflection of the author of Ludy [Peoples] is pointed out. Krzywicki, aware of the threats coming from the young discipline, perceived it, however, as the chance for the development of science and society. Further in the article, the problems of researchers with ambiguous value judgments about race appearing in the anthropological works of the Polish Marxist are discussed and compared with the difficulties of Krzywicki himself, who from the very beginning of dealing with ethnographic research tried to systematize the reflection on the subject. The fuzzy scope of meaning, ideological burdens, arbitrariness, relativity, and conventionality of the concept of race ultimately led the author to reject the problematic category but also contributed to the development of quantitative and qualitative sociological analysis in his later studies.