The word "gangster" has very interesting roots that no one really thinks about. The official etymology suggests looking for the root "gang" in "gan, go", that is, "go, pass." But it is obvious that this is not so.
Meanwhile, even a superficial glance at the meaning of this word already says a lot about the history of mankind, about the principles of the historical development of society.
After all, what is a "gang", who are gangsters? This is primarily an organized group of people. GROUP is the key word here.
Let's turn to history:
We are talking about the Hanseatic League or Hansa for short.
I think an educated person should understand that world history and politics are created not by presidents, but by corporations, just as there are no nations, but there are groups of people united by common interests, who used to be separate clans, and after that by associations of houses, who collaborated profitably together.
So the German "Hansa" is translated as "group, union", which it was - a trade association of merchants, industrialists, I do not exclude pirates, politicians and other thieves. There is no other way: we need our own people in politics, in criminal circles, and in honest and noble ones. Of course, here it becomes clear that the army (initially) is also not quite a state national entity, but the military force of one or another business group, that is, "Hansa" or "gang" (the word "gang", by the way, is similar meaning, which can be translated into Russian as "tied"), designed to protect their interests with weapons.
This is neither good nor bad. This is reality and human history, devoid of romance and pro-national ideologies.
Promotional video:
Again, for an example of the scale of such groups, I will give you another excerpt about the "Hansa":
Again, these cities were bound by the same rules, despite the fact that they were officially located in different states.
The word "Hansa" itself has ancient roots. For example, in Sanskrit there is a word गण (gana), which means “crowd, army, class, company, group, flock, sect, swarm, tribe, multitude”, etc. That is, any combination of something on any basis.
Of course, here it is difficult not to see the connection with the Greek root "gene" or the English "kin", which also denote genus, tribe, type, variety …
Author: peremyshlin