Od Czarnobrodego do Anonymousa
From Blackbeard to Anonymous

Old and New Forms of Piracy

Summary/Abstract: The article attempts to analyze pirates and piracy from the perspective of social anthropology. Piracy as a cultural form came into being along with modern capitalism and mercantilism. The turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth century saw the creation of pirate colonies in the Caribbean whose significance went far beyond serving as a haven for criminals. Pirates quickly became the heroes of folk stories and symbols of resistance to authority. Thinking in terms of resistance allows us to identify a continuity between the legendary Blackbeard and the present-day Anonymous. The article also focuses on the semantics of the term ‘pirate’ in Polish.

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