GARROTTE.

A device that chokes a person to death. Used in Spain until 1978 when the death penalty was abolished. This type of execution on a special chair, a metal hoop was thrown around the neck. Behind the back of the criminal was the executioner, who actuated a large screw, located in the same place at the back. Although the device itself is not legalized in any country, training in its use is still carried out in the French Foreign Legion.

There were several versions of the garrote, at first it was just a stick with a loop, then a more “terrible” instrument of death was invented. And the “humanity” consisted in the fact that a pointed bolt was mounted in this hoop, at the back, which pierced the convict’s neck, crushing his spine, getting to the spinal cord. In relation to the criminal, this method was considered "more humane", because death came faster than with a conventional noose. This type of death penalty is still common in India. Garrote was also used in America, long before the electric chair was invented. Andorra was the last country in the world to outlaw its use in 1990.

SCAPHISM.

The name of this torture comes from the Greek "skafium", which means "trough". Skafism was popular in ancient Persia. The victim was placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains, watered with milk and honey to cause severe diarrhea, then the body of the victim was smeared with honey, thereby attracting various kinds of living creatures. Human excrement also attracted flies and other nasty insects, which literally began to devour the person and lay eggs in his body. The victim was given this cocktail every day to prolong the torture by attracting more insects to eat and breed within his increasingly dead flesh. Death, eventually occurring, probably due to a combination of dehydration and septic shock, was painful and prolonged.

HANGING, evisceration and quartering. Half-hanging, drawing and quartering.

Execution of Hugh le Despenser the Younger (1326). Miniature from Froissart by Ludovic van Gruutuse. 1470s.

Hanging, gutting and quartering (English hanged, drawn and quartered) - a type of death penalty that arose in England during the reign of King Henry III (1216-1272) and his successor Edward I (1272-1307) and officially established in 1351 as punishment for men found guilty of treason.

The sentenced were tied to a wooden sled, resembling a piece of wicker fence, and dragged by horses to the place of execution, where they were successively hanged (not letting them suffocate to death), castrated, gutted, quartered and beheaded. The remains of the executed were paraded in the most famous public places of the kingdom and the capital, including London Bridge. Women sentenced to death for high treason were burned at the stake for reasons of "public decency".

The severity of the sentence was dictated by the seriousness of the crime. High treason, which endangered the authority of the monarch, was considered an act deserving of extreme punishment - and although during the entire time that it was practiced, several of the convicted were commuted and they were subjected to a less cruel and shameful execution, to most traitors to the English crown (including many Catholic priests who were executed during the Elizabethan era, and a group of regicides involved in the death of King Charles I in 1649), the highest sanction of medieval English law was applied.

Although the act of parliament defining treason is still an integral part of the current legislation of the United Kingdom, during the reform of the British legal system, which lasted most of the 19th century, execution by hanging, disembowelling and quartering was replaced by dragging by horses, hanging to death, by posthumous decapitation and quartering, then obsolete and abolished in 1870.

More details of the above-mentioned execution process can be observed in the film "Braveheart". The participants in the Gunpowder Plot, led by Guy Fawkes, were also executed, who managed to escape from the arms of the executioner with a noose around his neck, jump off the scaffold and break his neck.

BREAKING IN TREES - Russian version of quartering.

They bent down two trees and tied the executed to the tops and released "to freedom." The trees unbent - tearing the executed.

LIFTING ON PIKE OR STAKE.

Spontaneous execution, carried out, as a rule, by a crowd of armed people. Usually practiced during all sorts of military riots and other revolutions and civil wars. The victim was surrounded from all sides, spears, pikes or bayonets were stuck into her carcass from all sides, and then synchronously, on command, they were lifted up until she stopped showing signs of life.

LANDING ON THE COUNT.

Impaling is a type of death penalty in which the condemned person was impaled on a vertical pointed stake. In most cases, the victim was impaled on the ground, in a horizontal position, and then the stake was set vertically. Sometimes the victim was impaled on an already staked stake.

Impaling was widely used in ancient Egypt and the Middle East. The first mentions date back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. Execution was especially widespread in Assyria, where impalement was a common punishment for residents of rebellious cities, therefore, for instructive purposes, scenes of this execution were often depicted on bas-reliefs. This execution was used according to Assyrian law and as a punishment for women for abortion (considered as a variant of infanticide), as well as for a number of especially serious crimes. On the Assyrian reliefs, there are 2 options: with one of them, the condemned person was pierced with a stake in the chest, with the other, the tip of the stake entered the body from below, through the anus. Execution was widely used in the Mediterranean and the Middle East at least from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. It was also known to the Romans, although it did not receive much distribution in Ancient Rome.

For much of medieval history, the execution by impalement was very common in the Middle East, where it was one of the main methods of painful death penalty.

Impaling was quite common in Byzantium, for example, Belisarius suppressed the rebellions of soldiers by impaling the instigators.

The Romanian ruler Vlad Tepes (Rom. Vlad Tepes - Vlad Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Kololyub, Vlad the Impaler) distinguished himself with particular cruelty. At his direction, the victims were impaled on a thick stake, the top of which was rounded and oiled. The stake was inserted into the vagina (the victim died almost within a few minutes from heavy uterine bleeding) or anus (death occurred from a rupture of the rectum and developed peritonitis, the person died for several days in terrible agony) to a depth of several tens of centimeters, then the stake was installed vertically . The victim, under the influence of the gravity of his body, slowly slid down the stake, and sometimes death occurred only after a few days, since the rounded stake did not pierce the vital organs, but only went deeper into the body. In some cases, a horizontal bar was installed on the stake, which prevented the body from sliding too low and ensured that the stake did not reach the heart and other critical organs. In this case, death from blood loss occurred very slowly. The usual version of the execution was also very painful, and the victims writhed on a stake for several hours.

PASSING UNDER THE KEEL (Keelhauling).

Special naval variant. It was used both as a means of punishment and as a means of execution. The offender was tied with a rope to both hands. After that, he was thrown into the water in front of the ship, and with the help of the specified ropes, the colleagues pulled the patient along the sides under the bottom, taking it out of the water already from the stern. The keel and bottom of the ship were covered with shells and other marine life a little more than completely, so the victim received numerous bruises, cuts and some water in the lungs. After one iteration, as a rule, they survived. Therefore, for execution, this had to be repeated, 2 or more times.

DROWNING.

The victim is sewn into a bag alone or with different animals and thrown into the water. It was widespread in the Roman Empire. According to Roman criminal law, the execution was imposed for the murder of the father, but in reality this punishment was imposed for any murder by the younger of the elder. A monkey, a dog, a rooster or a snake were planted in a bag with a parricide. It was also used in the Middle Ages. An interesting option is to add quicklime to the bag, so that the executed person will also scald before choking.

The main positive brand of France is the revolutionaries of the 1780-1790s. approached the matter responsibly, significantly improving and diversifying the process. Three main "know-hows" of the Great French Revolution, which undoubtedly significantly advanced humanity in the direction of freedom, equality and fraternity:

1. The crowd is driven into the sea, where it sinks cheaply and angrily.

2. Execution in wine tanks. They loaded it - filled it with water - drained it - unloaded it - loaded the next portion - and so on until the bourgeois issue was completely resolved.

3. In the provinces, they didn’t think of such engineering - they simply drove them into barges and drowned them. Experience with tanks has not taken root, but barges are used regularly in the world, up to the present.

A rare subspecies of the above is drowning in alcohol.

For example, under Ivan the Terrible, those who violated the state monopoly were forced to brew a whole barrel of beer, and to improve the taste, they drowned the violating brewer in it. Or they were forced to drink a bucket (or as much as they like) of vodka at a time. However, sometimes the condemned himself wanted to say goodbye to the world, in that which he loved most of all. So George Plantagenet, the first Duke of Clarence, was drowned in a barrel of sweet wine - malvasia for treason.

FILLING INTO THE THROAT OF MELTED METAL OR BOILING OIL.

It was used in Russia in the era of Ivan the Terrible, medieval Europe and the Middle East, by some Indian tribes against the Spanish invaders. Death came from a burn of the esophagus and strangulation.

During the Thirty Years' War, captive Protestant Swedes were baptized into Catholicism by pouring molten lead.

As a punishment for counterfeiting, the metal from which the criminal cast coins was often poured. By the way, the Roman commander Crassus, after being defeated by the Parthians, also knew all the delights of this execution, though with the difference that molten gold was poured into his throat: Crassus was one of the richest Roman citizens. Probably Spartak, in the next world, looked with pleasure at the unappetizing execution of his winner.

Also, Indians poured gold into the throats of the Spaniards.
- Are you thirsty for gold? We will quench your thirst.
Who is interested in the video - you are welcome to watch the Game of Thrones: the prince was given the promised crown on his head. In liquid form.
In general, this execution (with gold) is deeply symbolic: the executed person dies from what he craves most of all.

HUNGER OR THIRST.

It was used by subtle connoisseurs of the process (sadists), or those who tried to persuade the stubborn to something.

The Japanese version was last used in the Far East in the 1930s: the executed (tortured) with their hands tied is seated at the table, tied to a chair, and every day they put fresh food and drink in front of him, which they take away after a while. Many went crazy before they died of hunger or thirst.

For the Chinese, everything was exactly the opposite - the convict was fed, and very well. They just gave him exclusively boiled meat. And nothing more. The first week, the executed cannot get enough of such humane conditions of detention. The second week he starts to feel a little worse. For the third week, he already senses something was wrong and, if he is weak in spirit, falls into hysterics, and after the fourth it usually ends. Of course, there is an alternative - not to eat this very meat. Then you will die of hunger in about the same time.

Stoning is a form of capital punishment familiar to the ancient Jews and Greeks.

After the appropriate decision of the authorized legal body (the king or the court), a crowd of citizens gathered who killed the guilty person by throwing heavy stones at him.

In Jewish law, only those 18 types of crimes for which the Bible expressly prescribes such an execution were sentenced to stoning. However, in the Talmud, stoning was replaced by throwing the condemned on the stones. According to the Talmud, the condemned should be thrown from such a height that death occurs instantly, but his body was not disfigured.

The stoning happened like this: the sentenced by the court was given an extract of narcotic herbs as an anesthetic, after which he was thrown off a cliff, and if he did not die from this, one large stone was thrown on top of him.

BURYING.

As a method of the death penalty is known in ancient Rome. For example, a Vestal Virgin who broke her vow of virginity was buried alive with a supply of food and water for one day (which did not make much sense, since death usually occurs from suffocation within a few hours).

Many Christian martyrs were executed by being buried alive. In 945, Princess Olga ordered the Drevlyan ambassadors to be buried alive along with their boat. In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive. In the Zaporozhian Sich, the murderer was buried alive in the same coffin as his victim.

A variant of execution is burying a person in the ground up to his neck, dooming him to a slow death from hunger and thirst. In Russia in the 17th - early 18th centuries, women who killed their husbands were buried alive in the ground up to the neck.

According to the Kharkiv Holocaust Museum, this type of execution was used by the Nazis against the Jewish population of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

And the Old Believers in Russia buried themselves in the name of God and to save their souls. For this, special dugouts were dug with a hermetically sealed exit - mines, candles and a sawn pole in the center were placed in them. Death was either "light" or "hard". A hard death guaranteed good karma, but most people could not endure the torment and chose an easy one, for this it was enough to push the pole in the center of the mine and you were immediately covered with earth. In all documentary details, one such case was described by V. V. Rozanov in the book “Dark Face. Metaphysics of Christianity” or Borya Chkhartishvili (Akunin) in the story “Before the End of the World”.

Immuring - a type of death penalty in which a person was placed in a wall under construction or surrounded by blank walls on all sides, after which he died of starvation or dehydration. This distinguishes it from burial alive, where a person died from suffocation.

USING LIVING NATURE.

Since ancient times, man has been finding new ways to put our smaller brothers at the service of mankind, and execution is no exception. The application is both the largest and the smallest: the Indians specifically train elephants to crush to death, and the Indians launch ants at the enemies (or simply put a person in an anthill).

You can put a rat in a pot, tie it to the victim's stomach, pour burning coals on top and wait until it, escaping from the heat, eats its way out.

In Siberia, they liked to leave a scoundrel naked in the taiga to be eaten by a gnat that could drink all the blood from a person in two days (however, the end will come much earlier, from simuliotoxicosis. Well, as an option - launching snakes (or rats) into the insides or infecting some disgusting (microbes are also living creatures).

In ancient Rome, criminals or Christians were poisoned by wild predators. In addition, an extremely interesting method was used for the execution of the patricians (among others): they gave a knife and threw rose petals. The convict had a choice: kill himself or suffocate from the suffocating smell. The thing is that the flowers emit methanol with some volatile compounds, which in small quantities gives us pleasant aromas, and large ones lead to death through fumes poisoning. By the way, fruits have a similar effect.

DEFENESTRATION.

The same kind of death penalty, unauthorized, occurring spontaneously, without reading the sentence, but in the presence of the crowd. And, yes, the crowd was waiting for it. Literally - throwing out of the window (Latin fenestra). Victims were thrown out of window openings - onto pavements, into ditches, into the crowd, or onto spears and pikes raised with their points upwards. The most famous example is the second Prague defenestration, during which, however, no one died.

For the first time such an execution was applied in ancient Rome. The subject was a young man who betrayed his teacher Cicero. The widow of Quintus (Cicero's brother), having received the right to reprisal against the Philologist, forced him to cut pieces of meat from his own body, fry and eat them!

However, the real masters in this matter were of course the Chinese. There, the execution was called Ling-Chi, or "death by a thousand cuts." This is a prolonged death by cutting out individual pieces of the body. This type of execution was mainly used in China until 1905. They were condemned for high treason and for the murder of their parents. The convict was usually tied to some kind of pole, usually in a crowded place, in the squares. And then slowly cut out fragments of the body. To prevent the prisoner from losing consciousness, he was given a portion of opium.

In his History of Torture of All Time, George Riley Scott quotes from the notes of two Europeans who had the rare opportunity to be present at such an execution: their names were Sir Henry Norman (he saw this execution in 1895) and T. T. Ma-Daws: "There is a basket covered with a piece of linen, in which lies a set of knives. Each of these knives is designed for a certain part of the body, as evidenced by the inscriptions engraved on the blade. The executioner takes one of the knives at random from the basket and, based on the inscription, cuts off the corresponding part of the body. However, at the end of the last century, this practice, in all likelihood, was supplanted by another, which left no room for chance and provided for cutting off parts of the body in a certain sequence with a single knife. According to Sir Henry Norman, the condemned man is tied to the likeness of a cross, and the executioner slowly and methodically cuts off first the fleshy parts of the body, then cuts the joints, cuts off individual limbs and ends the execution with one sharp blow to the heart.

Read more about the Chinese punitive system of the times before the 1948 revolution - read here.
http://ttolk.ru/?p=16004

An analogue of Ling Chi - skinning a living person has long been practiced in the Middle East. For example, the fourteenth-century Azerbaijani poet Nasimi was executed. Contemporaries are more familiar with Afghan developments in this area.

In the event that we are talking specifically about the death penalty in this way, as a rule, after peeling off the skin, they try to save it for demonstration in order to intimidate. Most often, the skin was torn off already from a person killed in another way - a criminal, an enemy, in some cases a blasphemer who denied the afterlife (in medieval Europe). Peeling off part of the skin can be part of a magical ritual, as is the case with scalping.

Flaying is an ancient, but, nevertheless, still not widely used practice, which was considered one of the most terrible and painful types of execution. In the chronicles of the ancient Assyrians there are references to the skinning of captured enemies or rebellious rulers, whose whole skins were nailed to the walls of their cities as a warning to all who challenged their power.

There are also references to the Assyrian practice of "indirect" punishment of a person by flaying his young child before his eyes. The Aztecs in Mexico skinned their victims during ritual human sacrifices, but usually after the victim's death. Flaying the body was sometimes used as part of the public execution of traitors in medieval Europe. A similar method of execution was still used at the beginning of the 18th century in France.

In some chapels in France and England, large pieces of human skin have been found nailed to doors. In Chinese history, execution became more widespread than in European history: this is how corrupt officials and rebels were executed, and, in addition to execution, there was also a separate punishment - skinning from the face. The emperor Zhu Yuanzhang was especially “successful” in this execution, who massively used it to punish bribe-taking officials and rebels. In 1396, he ordered the execution of 5,000 women accused of treason in this way.
The practice of flaying disappeared from Europe in the early 18th century and was officially banned in China after the Xinhai Revolution and the establishment of the Republic. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, individual cases of flaying took place in different parts of the world, for example, executions in the Japanese-created puppet state of Manchukuo in the 1930s.

The Judgment of Cambyses, David Gerard, 1498.

Red tulip is another option. The executed person was intoxicated with opium, and then the skin near the neck was cut and pulled off, pulling it down to the very waist so that it dangled around the hips with long red petals. If the victim did not die immediately from blood loss (but they were usually skinned skillfully, without hitting large vessels), then after a few hours, when the drug's effect ended, pain shock and insects were waiting for her.

BURNING IN THE LOG.

A type of execution that arose in the Russian state in the 16th century, was especially often applied to the Old Believers in the 17th century, and was used by them as a method of suicide in the 17th-18th centuries.

Burning as a method of execution began to be used quite often in Russia in the 16th century during the time of Ivan the Terrible. Unlike Western Europe, in Russia those sentenced to be burned were executed not at the stake, but in log cabins, which made it possible to avoid turning such executions into mass spectacles.

The log cabin for burning was a small structure made of logs filled with tow and resin. It was erected specifically for the moment of execution. After reading the sentence, the suicide bomber was pushed into the log house through the door. Often a log house was made without a door and a roof - a structure like a wooden fence; in this case, the convict was lowered into it from above. After that, the log house was set on fire. Sometimes a bound suicide bomber was thrown inside an already burning log house.

In the 17th century, Old Believers were often executed in log cabins. Thus, the archpriest Avvakum with three of his associates were burned (April 1 (11), 1681, Pustozersk), the German mystic Quirin Kuhlman (1689, Moscow), and also, as stated in the Old Believer sources [what?], An active opponent of the reforms of the patriarch Nikon Bishop Pavel Kolomensky (1656).

In the XVIII century, a sect took shape, the followers of which considered death through self-immolation a spiritual feat and a necessity. Usually, self-immolation in log cabins was practiced in anticipation of repressive actions by the authorities. When the soldiers appeared, the sectarians locked themselves in the prayer house and set it on fire without entering into negotiations with the authorities.

The last burning known in Russian history took place in the 1770s in Kamchatka: a Kamchadal sorceress was burned in a wooden frame on the orders of the captain of the Tenginskaya fortress Shmalev.

HANGING BY THE RIB.

A type of death penalty in which an iron hook was thrust into the side of the victim and hung up. Death came from thirst and blood loss after a few days. The hands of the victim were tied so that he could not free himself. Execution was common among the Zaporizhian Cossacks. According to legend, Dmitry Vishnevetsky, the founder of the Zaporizhzhya Sich, the legendary "Baida Veshnivetsky", was executed in this way.

FRYING ON A FRYING PAN OR IRON GRID.

The boyar Shchenyatev was fried in a frying pan, and the king of the Aztecs Kuautemok was fried on a grill.
When Cuauhtemoca was roasted on coals with his secretary, asking where he hid the gold, the secretary, unable to withstand the heat, began to beg him to surrender and ask the Spaniards for indulgence. Cuauhtemoc mockingly replied that he was enjoying himself, as if he were lying in a bath.
The secretary didn't say another word.

SICILIAN BULL.

This death penalty device was developed in ancient Greece for the execution of criminals. Perillos, a coppersmith, invented the bull in such a way that the inside of the bull was hollow. A door was mounted on the side of this device. The condemned were closed inside the bull, and a fire was set underneath it, heating the metal until the man was roasted to death. The bull was designed so that the screams of the prisoner would be translated into the roar of an infuriated bull.

FUSTUARY (from Latin fustuarium - beating with sticks; from fustis - stick) - one of the types of executions in the Roman army.

He was also known in the Republic, but came into regular use under the principate, was appointed for serious violation of guard duty, theft in the camp, perjury and escape, sometimes for desertion in battle. It was made by a tribune, who touched the convict with a stick, after which the legionnaires beat him with stones and sticks. If a whole unit was punished with a futuary, then rarely all the perpetrators were executed, as happened in 271 BC. e. with the legion in Rhegium in the war with Pyrrhus. However, taking into account factors such as the age of a soldier, length of service or rank, the futuary could be canceled.

WELDING IN LIQUID.

It was a common type of death penalty in different countries of the world. In ancient Egypt, this type of punishment was applied mainly to persons who disobeyed the pharaoh. The slaves of the pharaoh at dawn (specially so that Ra saw the criminal) made a huge fire, over which there was a cauldron of water (and not just water, but the dirtiest water, where waste was poured, etc.) Sometimes whole families.

This type of execution was widely used by Genghis Khan. In medieval Japan, boiling water was applied mainly to ninja who failed an assassination and were captured. In France, this execution was applied to counterfeiters. Sometimes intruders were boiled in boiling oil. There remains evidence of how in 1410 in Paris a pickpocket was boiled alive in boiling oil.

PIT WITH SNAKE - a type of death penalty, when the executed is placed with poisonous snakes, which should have led to his quick or painful death. Also one of the methods of torture.

It arose a very long time ago. Executioners quickly found practical use for poisonous snakes that caused painful death. When a person was thrown into a pit filled with snakes, the disturbed reptiles began to bite him.

Sometimes the prisoners were tied up and slowly lowered into the pit on a rope; often this method was used as torture. Moreover, not only in the Middle Ages, during the Second World War, Japanese militarists tortured prisoners during the battles in South Asia.

Often the interrogated person was brought to the snakes, pressing his legs to them. Women were subjected to the popular torture, when the interrogated person was brought a snake to her bare chest. They also loved to bring poisonous reptiles to the face of women. But in general, snakes dangerous and deadly to humans were rarely used during torture, since there was a risk of losing a captive who did not testify.

The plot of execution through a pit with snakes has long been known in German folklore. Thus, the Elder Edda tells how King Gunnar was thrown into a snake pit on the orders of the leader of the Huns, Attila.

This type of execution continued to be used in subsequent centuries. One of the most famous cases is the death of the Danish king Ragnar Lothbrok. In 865, during a Danish Viking raid on the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, their king Ragnar was captured and, by order of King Aella, was thrown into a pit with poisonous snakes, dying a painful death.

This event is often mentioned in folklore in both Scandinavia and Britain. The plot of Ragnar's death in the snake pit is one of the central events of two Icelandic legends: "The sagas of Ragnar Leatherpants (and his sons)" and "The Strands of the Sons of Ragnar".

Wicker Man

A human-shaped cage made of wicker, which, according to Julius Caesar's Notes on the Gallic War and Strabo's Geography, was used by the Druids for human sacrifice, burning it along with people locked up there, condemned for crimes or intended as sacrifices to the gods.

At the end of the 20th century, the ritual of burning the “wicker man” was revived in Celtic neopaganism (in particular, the teachings of Wicca), but without the accompanying sacrifice.

EXECUTION BY ELEPHANTS.

For thousands of years, it has been a common method of killing those sentenced to death in the countries of South and Southeast Asia, and especially in India. Asian elephants were used to crush, dismember, or torture captives in public executions.

The trained animals were versatile, capable of killing prey immediately or torturing them slowly over long periods of time. Serving rulers, elephants were used to show the absolute power of the ruler and his ability to control wild animals.

The view of the execution of prisoners of war by elephants usually aroused horror, but at the same time the interest of European travelers was described in many magazines and stories about the life of Asia at that time. This practice was eventually suppressed by the European empires that colonized the region where execution was common in the 18th and 19th centuries. Although execution by elephants was primarily characteristic of Asian countries, this practice was sometimes used by the Western powers of antiquity, in particular Rome and Carthage, mainly to massacre rebellious soldiers.

IRON MAID (eng. Iron maiden).

An instrument of death or torture, which was a cabinet made of iron in the form of a woman dressed in the costume of a 16th-century townswoman. It is assumed that having placed the convict there, the closet was closed, and the sharp long nails with which the inner surface of the chest and arms of the “iron maiden” was seated pierced his body; then, after the death of the victim, the movable bottom of the cabinet fell, the body of the executed was thrown into the water and carried away by the current.

The “Iron Maiden” is attributed to the Middle Ages, but in fact the tool was not invented until the end of the 18th century.

There is no reliable information about the use of the iron maiden for torture and execution. There is an opinion that it was fabricated during the Enlightenment.
Crowding caused additional torment - death did not occur for hours, so the victim could suffer from claustrophobia.

For the comfort of the executioners, the thick walls of the device muffled the cries of the executed. The doors closed slowly. Subsequently, one of them could be opened so that the executioners checked the condition of the subject. The spikes pierced his arms, legs, stomach, eyes, shoulders and buttocks. At the same time, apparently, the nails inside the “iron maiden” were located in such a way that the victim did not die immediately, but after a rather long time, during which the judges had the opportunity to continue the interrogation.

DEVIL WIND (eng. Devil wind, there is also a variant of English. Blowing from guns - literally “Blow from guns”) in Russia is known as the “English execution” - the name of the type of death penalty, which consisted in tying the sentenced to the muzzle of a cannon and then firing from it through the victim's body with a blank charge.

This type of execution was developed by the British during the Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1858) and was actively used by them to kill the rebels.
Vasily Vereshchagin, who studied the use of this execution before writing his painting “The Suppression of the Indian Uprising by the British” (1884), wrote the following in his memoirs: “Modern civilization was scandalized mainly by the fact that the Turkish massacre was carried out close, in Europe, and then the means of committing atrocities were too reminiscent of Tamerlane times: they chopped, cut their throats, like sheep.

The British have a different matter: firstly, they did the work of justice, the work of retribution for the violated rights of the victors, far away, in India; secondly, they did a grandiose job: hundreds of sepoys and non-sepoys who rebelled against their rule were tied to the muzzles of cannons and without a projectile, with gunpowder alone, they shot them - this is already a great success against cutting the throat or tearing open the stomach.<...>I repeat, everything is done methodically, in a good way: guns, how many there will be in number, line up in a row, slowly bring to each muzzle and tie one more or less criminal Indian citizen by the elbows, of different ages, professions and castes, and then command, all guns fire at once.

They are not afraid of death, as such, and they are not afraid of execution; but what they avoid, what they fear, is the need to appear before the highest judge in an incomplete, tormented form, without a head, without arms, with a lack of members, and this is precisely not only likely, but even inevitable when shooting from cannons.

A remarkable detail: while the body is shattered into pieces, all the heads, breaking away from the body, spirally fly upwards. Naturally, they are later buried together, without a strict analysis of which of the yellow gentlemen this or that part of the body belongs to. This circumstance, I repeat, greatly frightens the natives, and it was the main motive for the introduction of execution by shooting from cannons in especially important cases, such as, for example, during uprisings.

It is difficult for a European to understand the horror of an Indian of a high caste, if necessary, only to touch a brother of a lower one: he must, in order not to close his opportunity to be saved, wash himself and make sacrifices after that without end. It’s also terrible that under modern conditions, for example, on railways one has to sit elbow on elbow with everyone - and here it can happen, no more, no less, that the head of a Brahmin with three cords will lie in eternal rest near the spine of a pariah - brrr ! From this thought alone the soul of the hardest Hindu shudders!

I say this very seriously, in full confidence that no one who was in those countries or impartially familiarized himself with them from the descriptions will contradict me.
(Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 in the memoirs of V.V. Vereshchagin.)

Those who wish to further enjoy this topic can read the book - "Torture Stories of All Ages" by George Riley Scott.

Hello dear!
I read another booklet here, and decided - why not talk about such an important topic as “the highest measure of social protection”, as entertainers with communist convictions once called it? The topic is complex, difficult, but interesting. I propose to skip the moral aspects (it is possible / impossible, and who are the judges, etc., etc.) and talk exclusively about the mechanism for the deprivation of life by the state of its citizens, as a measure of the highest possible punishment.
At the moment, more than 80 countries of the world have either completely abolished the death penalty or joined the moratorium (including the Russian Federation). But the phenomenon itself remains the same. And most likely it always will be. For....
If you recall a little history, then according to the same Code of 1649, all death penalties were divided into ordinary (simple) and qualified. If you look even further, into the 15th century, then the number of these punishments could be found in the dozen 2, and some of them are very, very cruel...
But whatever it was, the world is moving forward, and paradoxically, it is becoming kinder and more tolerant. It is clear that perhaps now it is not so visible, but, I repeat, when compared with previous centuries, the difference is obvious.
This is evident, including the highest measure of punishment. There are fewer death penalties and they are more humane, or something ...
Therefore, I propose to talk about some of them. Let's start with the existing ones, and if there is interest, we will recall those that were earlier.
So....

Classics of the genre.

Let's start with the most common execution in the world - hanging.
This type of execution is considered, for some reason, the most shameful. Apparently, this is connected with the legend that after his betrayal, Judas hanged himself on an aspen. If a military man is executed on the gallows, he considers this a great insult. The same Hermann Goering decided not to wait for the rope and was able to kill himself.
The modern technology of this punishment is as follows: " the convict is hung on a rope around his neck; death occurs as a result of the pressure of the rope on the body under the influence of gravity. Loss of consciousness and death occur as a result of damage to the spinal cord or (if this is not enough to cause death) due to asphyxia from compression of the trachea".

G. Goering at the Nuremberg trials.

And despite the apparent simplicity - it's not all too simple.
It is clear that a more humane death, speaking about the qualifications of the executioner, was death from damage to the spinal cord and vertebrae. After a noose was put on the convict's neck, a hatch opens under his feet. At the same time, the length of the rope (and, accordingly, the distance of the fall) is selected taking into account the height and weight of the convict - in order to achieve a rupture of the spinal cord. Otherwise, either a long and painful agony from suffocation, or even a detachment of the head.
Well, the worst option is when the rope does not support the weight of the body and breaks. It turns out people are executed twice ... The most famous example of such an incident was the execution of the Decembrists in 1826. Let's give the floor to an eyewitness of those events: “ When everything was ready, with the squeezing of the spring in the scaffold, the platform on which they stood on the benches fell, and at the same moment three fell off - Ryleev, Pestel and Kakhovskiy fell down. Ryleyev's cap fell off, and a bloody eyebrow and blood behind his right ear, probably from a bruise, were visible. He sat crouching because he had fallen into the scaffold. I approached him, he said: “What a misfortune!” The governor-general, seeing that three had fallen, sent adjutant Bashutsky to take other ropes and hang them up, which was immediately done. I was so busy with Ryleyev that I did not pay attention to the others who had broken off the gallows and did not hear if they were saying anything. When the board was raised again, Pestel's rope was so long that he reached the platform with his socks, which should have prolonged his torment, and it was noticeable for some time that he was still alive».

Decembrists before execution

Therefore, I repeat, there can be no trifles here. The material of the rope and its proper fastening and, of course, the length are also important. There are special length tolerance tables depending on height and weight, and the loop itself is made using a special knot called a hanging or Lynch knot. The ideal knot is one that is wound 13 turns. The form of the gallows is T-shaped or in the form of the Russian letter G, went from Ancient Rome. Why it is so, now I find it difficult to say - I will still investigate. But tradition is tradition... However, each country had its own peculiarities. In Europe, for example, robbers were hung from trees along the roads. And in Russia, for some reason, it was customary to build gallows for rioters and rebels on rafts and let such rafts hang downstream.

Old version

Rope (which in Russia used to be often called "Stolypin's tie") is used by most executors today, although earlier in Asia there could be variations like a string from a piano or barbed wire.
All the nuances before the execution must be foreseen by the executioner. And it depends only on him whether the victim will suffer or die relatively easily.
American army sergeant John Wood, who acted as an executioner for criminals convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal, knew his job well and they all died quickly. But the Japanese who hung Richard Sorge were amateurs. Even after he was removed from the gallows, his heart was beating for 8 minutes.

Nuremberg executioner John Wood

Among the most famous people executed in this way relatively recently are the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (father of Benazir Bhutto), Saddam Hussein and his younger brother Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, who was beheaded with a rope.

BEHIND. Bhutto

Currently, 18 countries use the death penalty by hanging (North Korea, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia, Nigeria, North Sudan, South Sudan and Botswana )
As well as 2 US states - Washington and New Hampshire. Let me remind you that in the United States the death penalty is legal in 32 states.
To be continued...

The most popular types of execution in the Middle Ages were beheading and hanging. Moreover, they were applied to people of different classes. Beheading was used as a punishment for noble people, and the gallows was the lot of the rootless poor. So why did the aristocracies cut off their heads, and the common people were hanged?

Decapitation is the lot of kings and nobles

This type of death penalty has been used everywhere for many millennia. In medieval Europe, such punishment was considered "noble" or "honorable". They cut off the head mainly of aristocrats. When a representative of a noble family laid his head on the chopping block, he showed humility.

Decapitation with a sword, ax or ax was considered the least painful death. A quick death made it possible to avoid public agony, which was important for representatives of noble families. The crowd, thirsty for spectacles, should not have seen low death manifestations.

It was also believed that the aristocrats, being brave and selfless warriors, were prepared specifically for death from edged weapons.

Much in this matter depended on the skills of the executioner. Therefore, often the convict himself or his relatives paid a lot of money so that he did his job with one blow.

Decapitation leads to instant death, which means it saves from violent torment. The sentence was carried out quickly. The condemned lay his head on a log, which was to be no more than six inches thick. This greatly simplified the execution.

The aristocratic connotation of this type of punishment was also reflected in books devoted to the Middle Ages, thus perpetuating its selectivity. In the book “History of the Master” (author Kirill Sinelnikov) there is a quote: “... a noble execution is cutting off the head. This is not hanging for you, the execution of the mob. Decapitation is the lot of kings and nobles."

Hanging

If noblemen were sentenced to beheading, then commoner criminals fell on the gallows.

Hanging is the most common execution in the world. This type of punishment has been considered shameful since ancient times. And there are several explanations for this. Firstly, it was believed that when hanging, the soul cannot leave the body, as if remaining hostage to it. Such dead people were called "mortgages".

Secondly, dying on the gallows was excruciating and painful. Death does not come instantly, a person experiences physical suffering and remains conscious for several seconds, perfectly aware of the approach of the end. All his torments and manifestations of agony are watched by hundreds of onlookers. In 90% of cases, at the moment of strangulation, all the muscles of the body relax, which leads to complete emptying of the intestines and bladder.

In many nations, hanging was considered an unclean death. No one wanted his body to hang out in front of everyone after the execution. Swearing by exposure is an obligatory part of this type of punishment. Many believed that such a death was the worst thing that could happen, and it was reserved only for traitors. People remembered Judas, who hanged himself on an aspen.

A person sentenced to the gallows had to have three ropes: the first two, the thickness of the little finger (tortuzas), were equipped with a loop and were intended for direct strangulation. The third was called a "token" or "throw" - it served to drop the condemned to the gallows. The execution was completed by the executioner, holding on to the crossbar of the gallows, he beat the sentenced man in the stomach with his knee.

Exceptions to the rules

Despite a clear distinction according to belonging to a particular class, there were exceptions to the established rules. For example, if a nobleman raped a girl who was entrusted to him for guardianship, then he was deprived of his nobility and all the privileges associated with the title. If during the detention he resisted, then the gallows awaited him.

Among the military, deserters and traitors were sentenced to hanging. For the officers, such a death was so humiliating that they often committed suicide without waiting for the execution of the punishment imposed by the court.

The exception was cases of high treason, in which the nobleman was deprived of all privileges and could be executed as a commoner.

R, a Korean man living in Japan, is sentenced to death by hanging for the murder and rape of two women. The film begins with the execution of a death sentence, but it is not successful: somehow the one sentenced to death survives. Witnesses and executors of the sentence (the Prosecutor, his secretary, representatives of the prison administration, prison employees, a priest and a doctor - in the future I will simply call them "executioners") begin a long debate about how to determine the fate of the surviving criminal. Everyone, of course, had different views on this matter. The situation was complicated by the fact that, having woken up after the hanging, R had completely lost his memory. As a result, the "executioners" came to the conclusion that it is necessary to first restore the memory of R, and then hang it again

As you know, in Japan to this day there is the death penalty as the death penalty for especially dangerous criminals. In this film, the director reflects on the topic of whether there is a line between the legal execution that the people, represented by the state, appoints, and the illegal murder that the criminal commits. Who should pay for this state-sanctioned murder? But what about the probability that the person who was just hanged did not actually kill anyone? Should the state in this case show the same remorse for the criminal act committed by it, which the criminal should show before execution?

In addition to the controversial issue of the nature of the death penalty, the director touches on one very acute problem of post-war Japanese society: the problem of discrimination against Zainichi Koreans (???) - an ethnic group of Koreans who immigrated to Japan before 1945 and later became its citizens. Allegedly restoring R's memory, the "executioners", whose idea of ​​Koreans is built on stupid stereotypes, defined R's childhood as poor and unhappy, because, in their opinion, his family probably had no money, and his father and brothers drank heavily. And in general, R simply did not have a chance for a happy life, because he is a Korean - a representative of the "lower race". The hatred with which the Japanese treat migrants reminds us of the relationship between the condemned and the condemned. The "executioners" decide that R's carnal desires persuaded him to kill, but by reenacting the moments of the murder, the "executioners" themselves reveal their true nature and their own dark fantasies. It turned out that the representatives of the law were more obsessed with the ideas of crime than any other criminal. An absurd situation is created when potential criminals are given the power to administer justice to other criminals who have already committed an illegal act.

The unexpected appearance of sister R, who inspires her brother that he was an ardent nationalist, also makes sense to show a certain stereotype that the Koreans, due to their own poverty and the anger that arose from this, have no choice but to take revenge on the Japanese (for example, rape and kill them women) and spoil their lives in every possible way.

By criticizing the socio-economic and socio-cultural barriers between people of different nationalities, the director condemns the stupid prejudices that arise in society.

Thus, the director created the greatest picture, which can be described as a vicious satire about a society that, without noticing it, creates a favorable atmosphere for the prosperity of crime, and in some situations becomes a murderer itself, without thinking about the criminality of its own actions.