This presentation seeks to uncover the role that Polish ethnographers, scientists, explorers, and others played in the collection of colonial artifacts and the reproduction of colonial knowledge by focusing on the works of Leopold Janikowski and Jan Czekanowski. By studying their interest and engagements in the colonial world, I seek to understand the significant place that colonies had for Polish national agendas and the role that museums, exhibitions, and the act of collecting itself had popularizing colonialism in Central and Eastern Europe. My overall goal is to analyze the cultural and political tensions surrounding colonial artifacts and the status that these had for European nations and empires more broadly.