Kazimierz Nowak
Encyclopedia
Stryi
Stryi is a city located on the left bank of the river Stryi in the Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine . Serving as the administrative center of the Stryi Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast. Thus, the city has two administrations - the city and the raion...
. After the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he lived in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
.
From 1931 to 1936, he traveled alone, on foot and by bicycle across Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, covering a distance of 40,000 km: from Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
(Cape Agulhas
Cape Agulhas
Cape Agulhas is a rocky headland in the Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of Africa and the official dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
) and back to Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
http://www.tutej.pl/pliki/cms/1754/mapa70.jpg. He seems to be the only man in the world to do this. His accounts of the travel were first published jointly as late as in 2000, as a book entitled Rowerem i pieszo przez Czarny Ląd (By bicycle and on foot across the Black Continent). He died in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
from pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
as a consequence of emaciation of the body due to the travel, malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and a leg surgery.
Commemorative plaque in Poznań
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Also a photographer and poet, he was born in Pińsknow in Belarusin the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the second Polish Republic, into poverty: he would say later that...
unveiled a commemorative plaque
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
dedicated to him. In his speech accompanying the ceremony he described Nowak as follows:
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- Through his accomplishment, Kazimierz Nowak deserves a place in dictionaries and encyclopedias and a mention among such names as StanleyHenry Morton StanleySir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands , was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley allegedly uttered the now-famous greeting, "Dr...
and LivingstoneDavid LivingstoneDavid Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...
. He was a man of great imagination and courage, a man who knew no fear. He showed that a lonely white man, with no means to protect himself, carrying no weapons but only his faith in another human being, can cross alone a vast continent. He did all this in the times when Europe was only beginning to discover the Third World. He taught us as early as in the 1930s how to treat the Third World and its inhabitants.
- Through his accomplishment, Kazimierz Nowak deserves a place in dictionaries and encyclopedias and a mention among such names as Stanley
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- Only those who know the regions through which Kazimierz Nowak travelled and the way he did it can really appreciate that heroic courage joined with extraordinary modesty. He did not boast, he simply described what he saw. .
External links
- Official website www.kazimierznowak.pl
- Reports of an on-going initiative of groups of young people cycling in turns along the route of his travel (in Polish)
- Biography in English
- By bicycle and on foot across the Dark Continent - 2007, 3rd extended edition (Polish)
- By bicycle and on foot across the Dark Continent - 2006, 2nd edition (Polish)