The paper discusses construction of the image of a Russian in Polish common discourse. Investigated are diaries and memoirs written by Poles between the 16th and 20th centuries. The main goal of this diachronic study is to show complexity of the Polish image of a Russian that should be seen as the image of a brother who appears an enemy and the image of an enemy who is a brother. The feeling of brotherhood derives from common Slavic roots of both nations. The sense of hostility arises as an effect of the permanent political and military conflict between the two countries. The elaboration of the Polish image of a Russian reconciles the contradictions through the process of construing a stereotype of a Russian from different points of view (collective and individual, a coloniser and a colonised ), placing the figure of Russian variably in the centre or on peripheries of prototypical categories of an enemy or a brother . The contradictory images of a Russian are deeply rooted in the Polish common unconscious or subconscious.