Hansa - or the Hanseatic League of merchants of trading cities in northern Germany - is a unique phenomenon of European life in the 12th–17th centuries. Hanseatic merchants supplied the West with Russian furs and wax, Polish wheat, Hungarian and Swedish copper. They transported Flemish, Dutch and English cloth, French and Portuguese salt and wines to the East. Largely thanks to them, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe became acquainted with Western literature, Gothic architecture and Renaissance painting. For 500 years, the Hansa contributed to the establishment of economic, political, social and cultural ties between Western and Eastern Europe. The historian, professor at the University of Strasbourg, Philippe Dollinger, talks about this in detail, based on numerous original documents, in his book.