Executed in Russia for a long time, subtly and painfully. Historians to this day have not come to a consensus about the causes of the death penalty.

Some are inclined to the version of the continuation of the custom of blood feud, others prefer the Byzantine influence. How did they deal with those who broke the law in Russia?

Drowning

This type of execution was very common in Kievan Rus. Usually it was used in cases where it was required to deal with a large number of criminals. But there were also isolated cases. So, for example, the Kyiv prince Rostislav was somehow angry with Gregory the Wonderworker. He ordered to tie the rebellious hands, throw a rope loop around his neck, at the other end of which a heavy stone was fixed, and throw it into the water. With the help of drowning, in Ancient Russia, apostates, that is, Christians, were also executed. They were sewn into a bag and thrown into the water. Usually such executions took place after battles, during which many prisoners appeared. Execution by drowning, in contrast to execution by burning, was considered the most shameful for Christians. Interestingly, centuries later, the Bolsheviks during the Civil War used drowning as a massacre against the families of the "bourgeois", while the condemned were tied hands and thrown into the water.

burning

From the 13th century, this type of execution was usually applied to those who violated church laws - for blasphemy against God, for unpleasing sermons, for witchcraft. Ivan the Terrible especially loved her, who, by the way, was very inventive in the methods of execution. So, for example, he came up with the idea of ​​sewing the offenders into bearskins and giving them to be torn to pieces by dogs or skinning a living person. In the era of Peter, execution by burning was applied to counterfeiters. By the way, they were punished in another way - they poured molten lead or tin into their mouths.

instillation

Burying alive in the ground was usually applied to murderers. Most often, a woman was buried up to her throat, less often - only up to her chest. Such a scene is excellently described by Tolstoy in his novel Peter the Great. Usually, a crowded place became a place for execution - a central square or a city market. Next to the still alive executed criminal, they put up a sentry who stopped any attempts to show compassion, to give the woman water or some bread. It was not forbidden, however, to express their contempt or hatred for the criminal - to spit on her head or even kick her. And those who wished could give alms for the coffin and church candles. Usually, a painful death came on 3-4 days, but history recorded a case when a certain Euphrosyne, buried on August 21, died only on September 22.

Quartering

During quartering, the condemned were cut off their legs, then their arms, and only then their heads. So, for example, Stepan Razin was executed. It was planned to take the life of Yemelyan Pugachev in the same way, but he was first cut off his head, and only then he was deprived of his limbs. From the examples given, it is easy to guess that this type of execution was used for insulting the king, for an attempt on his life, for treason and for imposture. It is worth noting that, unlike the Central European, for example, Parisian crowd, which perceived the execution as a spectacle and dismantled the gallows for souvenirs, Russian people treated the condemned with compassion and mercy. So, during the execution of Razin, there was deathly silence on the square, broken only by rare female sobs. At the end of the procedure, people usually dispersed in silence.

Boiling

Boiling in oil, water or wine was especially popular in Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The condemned was put into a cauldron filled with liquid. Hands were threaded into special rings built into the cauldron. Then the cauldron was put on fire and slowly heated up. As a result, the person was boiled alive. Such an execution was applied in Russia to state traitors. However, this view looks humane compared to the execution called "Walking in a circle" - one of the most fierce methods used in Russia. The condemned was cut open in the stomach in the area of ​​​​the intestines, but so that he did not die too quickly from blood loss. Then they removed the gut, nailed one end of it to a tree and forced the executed person to walk around the tree in a circle.

wheeling

Wheeling became widespread in the era of Peter. The sentenced was tied to a timbered St. Andrew's cross fixed on the scaffold. Notches were made on the rays of the cross. The criminal was stretched on the cross face up in such a way that each of his limbs lay on the rays, and the places of the folds of the limbs were on the notches. The executioner dealt one blow after another with an iron crowbar of a quadrangular shape, gradually breaking the bones in the folds of the arms and legs. The work of crying ended with two or three precise blows to the stomach, with the help of which the ridge was broken. The body of the broken criminal was connected so that the heels converged with the back of the head, laid on a horizontal wheel and left to die in this position. The last time such an execution was applied in Russia to the participants in the Pugachev rebellion.

Impaling

Like quartering, impalement was usually applied to rebels or thieves' traitors. So Zarutsky, an accomplice of Marina Mnishek, was executed in 1614. During the execution, the executioner drove a stake into the human body with a hammer, then the stake was placed vertically. The executed gradually, under the weight of his own body, began to slide down. After a few hours, the stake came out through his chest or neck. Sometimes a crossbar was made on the stake, which stopped the movement of the body, preventing the stake from reaching the heart. This method significantly extended the time of painful death. Impaling until the 18th century was a very common type of execution among the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks. Smaller stakes were used to punish rapists - they were driven a stake through the heart, as well as against mothers who killed children.

Since ancient times, people brutally dealt with their enemies, some even ate them, but mostly they were executed, deprived of their lives in terrible and sophisticated ways. The same was done with criminals who violated the laws of God and man. Over a thousand-year history, a lot of experience has been accumulated in the execution of the condemned.

Decapitation
The physical separation of the head from the body with the help of an ax or any military weapon (knife, sword) later, a machine invented in France, the Guillotine, was used for these purposes. It is believed that during such an execution, the head, separated from the body, retains sight and hearing for another 10 seconds. Decapitation was considered a "noble execution" and was applied to aristocrats. In Germany, beheading was abolished in 1949 due to the failure of the last guillotine.

Hanging
Strangulation of a person on a rope loop, the end of which is fixed motionless. Death occurs in a few minutes, but not at all from suffocation, but from squeezing the carotid arteries. In this case, the person first loses consciousness, and later dies.
The medieval gallows consisted of a special pedestal, a vertical column (pillars) and a horizontal beam, on which the condemned were hung, placed above the likeness of a well. The well was intended for falling off parts of the body - the hanged remained hanging on the gallows until complete decomposition.
In England, a type of hanging was used, when a person was thrown from a height with a noose around his neck, while death occurs instantly from a rupture of the cervical vertebrae. There was an “official table of falls”, with the help of which the necessary length of the rope was calculated depending on the weight of the convict (if the rope is too long, the head separates from the body).
A variation of hanging is garrote. A garrote (an iron collar with a screw, often equipped with a vertical spike on the back) is generally not strangled. She breaks her neck. The executed in this case does not die from suffocation, as happens if he is strangled with a rope, but from crushing the spine (sometimes, according to medieval evidence, from a fracture of the base of the skull, depending on where to put it on) and a fracture of the cervical cartilage.
The last high-profile hanging - Saddam Hussein.

Quartering
It is considered one of the most cruel executions, and was applied to the most dangerous criminals. When quartered, the victim was strangled (not to death), then the stomach was cut open, the genitals were cut off, and only then the body was cut into four or more parts and the head was cut off. Body parts were put on public display "where the king deems it convenient."
Thomas More, the author of Utopia, sentenced to quartering with burning of the inside, on the morning before the execution was pardoned, and the quartering was replaced by decapitation, to which More replied: "God spare my friends from such mercy."
In England, quartering was used until 1820, formally abolished only in 1867. In France, quartering was carried out with the help of horses. The convict was tied by the arms and legs to four strong horses, which, whipped by the executioners, moved in different directions and tore off the limbs. In fact, the convict had to cut the tendons.
Another execution by tearing the body in half, noted in pagan Russia, was that the victim was tied by the legs to two bent young trees, and then released. According to Byzantine sources, Prince Igor was killed by the Drevlyans in 945 because he wanted to collect tribute from them twice.

wheeling
A common type of death penalty in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, it was common in Europe, especially in Germany and France. In Russia, this type of execution has been known since the 17th century, but wheeling began to be regularly used only under Peter I, having received legislative approval in the Military Charter. Wheeling ceased to be used only in the 19th century.
Professor A.F. Kistyakovsky in the 19th century described the wheeling process used in Russia as follows: St. Andrew's cross, made of two logs, was tied to the scaffold in a horizontal position. On each of the branches of this cross two notches were made, one foot apart from the other. On this cross, the criminal was stretched so that his face was turned to the sky; each end of it lay on one of the branches of the cross, and in every place of each joint it was tied to the cross.
Then the executioner, armed with an iron quadrangular crowbar, struck at the part of the penis between the joint, which just lay above the notch. In this way, the bones of each member were broken in two places. The operation ended with two or three blows to the stomach and a breaking of the backbone. The criminal, broken in this way, was placed on a horizontally placed wheel so that the heels converged with the back of the head, and they left him in this position to die.

Burning at the stake
The death penalty, in which the victim is burned at the stake in public. Along with immuring and imprisoning, burning was widely used in the Middle Ages, since, according to the church, on the one hand, it happened without “shedding blood”, and on the other hand, the flame was considered a means of “purification” and could save the soul. Heretics, "witches" and those guilty of sodomy were especially often subject to burning.
The execution became widespread during the period of the Holy Inquisition, and only in Spain about 32 thousand people were burned (excluding the Spanish colonies).
The most famous people burned at the stake: Giorgano Bruno - as a heretic (engaged in scientific activities) and Joan of Arc, who commanded the French troops in the Hundred Years' War.

Impalement
Impaling was widely used in ancient Egypt and the Middle East, its first mention dates back to the beginning of the second 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 two 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. It became widespread in France during the time of Fredegonda, who was the first to introduce this type of execution, conferring on her a young girl of a noble family. The unfortunate was laid on his stomach, and the executioner drove a wooden stake into his anus with a hammer, after which the stake was driven vertically into the ground. Under the weight of the body, the person gradually slid down until, after a few hours, the stake came out through the chest or neck.
The ruler of Wallachia, Vlad III Tepes (“the impaler”) Dracula, distinguished himself with particular cruelty. According to his instructions, the victims were impaled on a thick stake, in which the top was rounded and oiled. The stake was inserted into the anus to a depth of several tens of centimeters, then the stake was placed 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, the death of rupture of internal organs and great blood loss did not come very soon.
King Edward of England was executed by impalement. The nobles rebelled and killed the monarch by driving a red-hot iron rod into his anus. Impaling was used in the Commonwealth until the 18th century, and many Zaporizhian Cossacks were executed in this manner. With the help of smaller stakes, rapists were also executed (they drove a stake into the heart) and mothers who killed their children (they were pierced with a stake after being buried alive in the ground).

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.

stoning
After the appropriate decision of the authorized legal body (the king or the court), a crowd of citizens gathered to kill the guilty person by throwing stones at him. At the same time, small stones should have been chosen so that the condemned person would not be exhausted too quickly. Or, in a more humane case, it could be one executioner, dropping one large stone from above on the condemned.
Currently, stoning is used in some Muslim countries. On January 1, 1989, stoning remained in the legislation of six countries of the world. An Amnesty International report gives an eyewitness account of a similar execution in Iran:
“Next to a wasteland, a lot of stones and pebbles were poured out of a truck, then they brought two women dressed in white, bags were put on their heads ... A hail of stones fell on them, turning their bags red ... The wounded women fell, and then the guards of the revolution broke through their heads with shovels to finally kill them.

Throwing to Predators
The oldest type of execution, common among many peoples of the world. Death came because the victim was bitten by crocodiles, lions, bears, snakes, sharks, piranhas, ants.

Walking in circles
A rare method of execution, practiced, in particular, in Russia. The victim's stomach was steamed in the area of ​​the intestines, so that he would not die from blood loss. Then they took out an intestine, nailed it to a tree and forced it to walk in a circle around the tree. In Iceland, a special stone was used for this, around which they walked according to the verdict of the Thing.

Buried alive
A type of execution not very common in Europe, which is believed to have come to the Old World from the East, but there are several documentary evidence of the use of this type of execution that have come down to our time. Burial alive was applied to Christian martyrs. In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive. In Germany, female child killers were buried alive in the ground. In Russia of the 17th-18th centuries, women who killed their husbands were buried alive up to the neck.

crucifixion
Condemned to death, the hands and feet were nailed to the ends of the cross or the limbs were fixed with ropes. This is how Jesus Christ was executed. The main cause of death during crucifixion is asphyxia caused by developing pulmonary edema and fatigue of the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles involved in the process of breathing. The main support of the body in this position is the hands, and when breathing, the abdominal muscles and intercostal muscles had to lift the weight of the whole body, which led to their rapid fatigue. Also, squeezing the chest with tense muscles of the shoulder girdle and chest caused stagnation of fluid in the lungs and pulmonary edema. Additional causes of death were dehydration and blood loss.

Welding in boiling water
Welding in liquid 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.

Pouring lead or boiling oil down the throat
It was used in the East, in Medieval Europe, in Russia and among the Indians. Death came from a burn of the esophagus and strangulation. The punishment was usually set for counterfeiting, and often the metal from which the offender cast coins was poured. Those who did not die for a long time were cut off the head.

Execution in a bag
lat. Poena cullei. The victim was sewn into a bag with different animals (snake, monkey, dog or rooster) and thrown into the water. Practiced in the Roman Empire. Under the influence of the reception of Roman law in the Middle Ages, it was adopted (in a slightly modified form) in a number of European countries. Thus, in the French code of customary law "Livres de Jostice et de Plet" (1260), created on the basis of Justinian's Digest, it is said about the "execution in a bag" with a rooster, a dog and a snake (the monkey is not mentioned, apparently for reasons of rarity this animal for medieval Europe). Somewhat later, an execution based on poena cullei also appeared in Germany, where it was used in the form of hanging a criminal (thief) upside down (sometimes hanging was carried out by one leg) together (on the same gallows) with a dog (or two dogs hung on the right and left from the executed). This execution was called the "Jewish execution", since over time it began to be applied exclusively to Jewish criminals (it was applied to Christians in the rarest cases in the 16th-17th centuries).

Excoriation
Skinning has a very ancient history. Even the Assyrians skinned captured enemies or rebellious rulers and nailed them to the walls of their cities as a warning to those who would challenge their power. The Assyrian ruler Ashurnasirpal boasted that he flayed so many skins from the guilty nobility that he covered the columns with it.
Especially often used in Chaldea, Babylon and Persia. In ancient India, the skin was removed by fire. With the help of torches, she was burned to meat all over her body. With burns, the convict suffered for several days until death. In Western Europe, it was used as a method of punishment for traitors and traitors, as well as to ordinary people who were suspected of having love affairs with women of royal blood. Also, the skin was torn off the corpses of enemies or criminals for intimidation.

ling chi
Ling-chi (Chinese: “death by a thousand cuts”) is a particularly painful method of execution by cutting off small fragments from the body of the victim for a long period of time.
It was used in China for high treason and parricide in the Middle Ages and during the Qing dynasty until its abolition in 1905. In 1630, a prominent Ming commander Yuan Chonghuan was subjected to this execution. The proposal to abolish it was made back in the 12th century by the poet Lu Yu. During the Qing dynasty, ling-chi was performed in public places with a large gathering of onlookers for the purpose of intimidation. Surviving descriptions of the execution differ in detail. The victim was usually drugged with opium, either out of mercy or to prevent her from losing consciousness.

In his History of Torture of All Ages, 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-Dawes:

“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 convict 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 ...

This time I decided to translate and post an article from the Polish magazine FocusHistoria about how people were impaled in the old days.
Since I sometimes write about the mores of the medieval era, it is a sin not to touch on such a topic as executions and torture. The thing is dirty, but in relation to those times - inalienable.

Kol (from) Azya.
Agnieszka Ucinska (FocusHistoria).

In the eastern lands of the Commonwealth, treason was sentenced to impalement. During this cruel execution, the victim lay in a squat position with his hands tied behind his back. To prevent the condemned from moving, one of the executioner's assistants sat on his shoulders. The executor of the sentence pushed the stake as deep as he could, and then drove it even deeper with a hammer. The victim, “strung” on a stake, was placed in a vertical position, and thus, due to the weight of his own body, the condemned man slid deeper and deeper onto the stake. To facilitate the execution, the executioner smeared the stake with lard. The point of the stake was blunt and rounded so as not to pierce the internal organs. Subject to the correct execution of the execution, the stake found a “natural” path in the body and reached right up to the chest. The most famous literary description of impalement was left to us by Henryk Sienkiewicz in Pan Volodyevsky:

“From the waist to the very feet, he was stripped naked and, slightly raising his head, he saw between his bare knees a freshly cut edge of a stake. The thick end of the stake rested against the trunk of a tree. Ropes stretched from both legs of Azya, and horses were harnessed to them. Azya, by the light of torches, made out only horse cereals and standing a little
two people who apparently held the horses by the bridle. (...) Lusnya leaned over and, grabbing Azya’s hips with both hands to guide his body, shouted to the people holding the horses:
- Touch! Slowly! And together!
The horses twitched - the ropes, straining, pulled Azya by the legs. His body crawled along the ground and in the twinkling of an eye found itself on a splintered point. At the same moment the point entered him, and something terrible began, something contrary to nature and human feelings. The bones of the unfortunate parted, the body began to be torn in half, the pain indescribable, terrible, almost bordering on monstrous pleasure, pierced his whole being. The stake sank deeper and deeper. (...) The horses were quickly unharnessed, after which the stake was raised, its thick end was lowered into a pre-prepared pit and began to be covered with earth. Tugay-beyevich looked at these actions from a height. He was conscious. This terrible type of execution was all the more terrible because the victims, impaled, sometimes lived up to three days. Azya's head hung down on his chest, his lips moved; he seemed to be chewing, savoring something, champing; now he felt incredible, fainting weakness and saw before him an endless whitish haze, which for some reason seemed terrible to him, but in this haze he distinguished the faces of the sergeant-major and the dragoons, knew that he was on a stake, that under the weight of his body the point pierced deeper and deeper into him ; however, the body began to go numb from the legs up, and he became more and more insensitive to pain.

Image captions:
1) The stake breaks the perineum and passes through the pelvis.

2) Damages the lower part of the urinary system (bladder), and in women, the reproductive organs.

3) Pushed higher, the stake ruptures the mesentery of the small intestine, breaking through the intestines and accumulating food in the abdominal cavity.

4) Deviating to the front of the spine in the lumbar region, the stake "slides" along its surface, reaching the upper part of the abdominal cavity and affecting the stomach, liver, and sometimes the pancreas.

6) The stake pierces the skin and comes out.

Expert's word:
Professor Andrzej Kulig, head of the Institute of Clinical Pathology Centrum Zdrowia Matki Polki in Łódź, emphasizes that this diagram/illustration of the agony associated with impalement only gives a rough picture of the mutilation. The degree of damage to organs during this cruel execution largely depends on whether the stake passes through the central part of the body, or as a result of the work of the executioners, its course has changed, deviating forward or sideways. In this case, only part of the internal organs is affected and the abdominal cavity breaks through. A stake driven in according to all the canons of "art" reached the chest and caused extensive damage to the heart, major blood vessels, and diaphragm rupture. Professor Kulig also emphasizes that the various executions retold in various historical sources and literature are greatly exaggerated. The executed died quickly enough, either due to an instantly occurring infection of the body (sepsis), or from numerous lesions of internal organs and bleeding.
(Translation

Impalement

By order of the People's Commissar, the soldiers of the Red Army hanged and impaled the Polish captain Rozhinsky. 1917 Photo "Sigma". "Illustration".

Execution on a stake - "one of the most terrible executions generated by human cruelty", as the Great Encyclopedia of the 19th century defines it - consists in driving a stake into the body of the condemned. Most often, the stake was inserted through the anus and the victim was left to die.

Such an execution, especially popular in the East and Asia, was used everywhere: in Africa, Central America and even in Europe, in the Slavic countries and the Germanic tribes of Charles the Fifth, where the Carolina code provided for impalement of mothers guilty of infanticide. In Russia, they were impaled until the middle of the 18th century. In the 19th century, impalement was still practiced in Siam, Persia and Turkey, where in the 1930s such executions were carried out in public.

In the Law of Manu, the ancient code of religious and civil laws of Indian society, among the seven types of death penalty, impalement occupied the first place. Assyrian rulers became famous for sentencing the rebels and the vanquished to death at the stake. Ashurnasirpap, mentioned by Gaston Maspero, wrote: “I hung the corpses on poles. Some I planted on the top of the post ... and the rest on stakes around the post.

The Persians also had a special affection for this form of capital punishment. Xerxes, enraged by the disobedience of King Leonidas, who, with three hundred Spartans, tried to block the path of the Persian army at Thermopylae, ordered the Greek hero to be impaled.

The impaling technique throughout the world was almost identical, with the exception of a few details. Some peoples, including the Assyrians, injected a stake through the abdomen and removed it through the armpit or mouth, but this practice was not widespread, and in the vast majority of cases, a wooden or metal stake was inserted through the anus.

The condemned was laid on his stomach on the ground, his legs were spread and either fixed them motionless, or they were held by the executioners, their hands were nailed to the ground with spears, or they were tied behind their backs.

In some cases, depending on the diameter of the stake, the anus was previously oiled or cut with a knife. With both hands, the executioner stuck the stake as deep as he could, and then drove it inside with the help of a club.

There was a wide scope for imagination here. Sometimes in codes or sentences it was specified that a stake inserted into the body fifty to sixty centimeters should be placed vertically in a hole prepared in advance. Death came extremely slowly, and the condemned man experienced indescribable torment. The sophistication of torture lay in the fact that the execution was carried out by itself and no longer required the intervention of the executioner. The stake penetrated deeper and deeper into the victim under the influence of its weight, until it finally crawled out of the armpit, chest, back or abdomen, depending on the direction given. Sometimes death came after a few days. There were plenty of cases when the agony lasted more than three days.

It is known for sure that a stake inserted through the anus and exiting the abdomen killed more slowly than exiting the chest or throat.

Often a stake was driven in with a hammer, piercing the body through and through, the task of the executioner in this case was to get it out of the mouth. In addition to the physical characteristics of the condemned, the duration of the agony depended on the type of stake.

In some cases, the stake inserted into the anus was well sharpened. Then death came quickly, because he easily tore the organs, causing internal injuries and fatal bleeding. Russians usually aimed at the heart, which was not always possible. Many historians say that one boyar, impaled on the orders of Ivan IV, suffered for two whole days. The lover of Tsarina Evdokia, after twelve hours spent on a stake, spat in the face of Peter I.

The Persians, Chinese, Burmese and Siamese preferred a thin stake with a rounded end, which caused minimal damage to internal organs, to a pointed stake. He did not pierce or tear them apart, but pushed them apart and pushed back, penetrating deep into. Death remained inevitable, but the execution could last several days, which was very useful from the point of view of edification.

Suleiman Haby was executed on a stake with a rounded tip in 1800 for stabbing General Kléber, the commander-in-chief of the French troops in Egypt after Bonaparte sailed to France, with a dagger.

Impaling in Persia. Engraving. Private count

Perhaps this is the only case in history when Western jurisprudence has resorted to this method of execution. The French military commission departed from the military code in favor of the customs of the country. The execution took place with a large gathering of people on the esplanade of the Cairo Institute with the participation of the French executioner Barthelemy, for whom this was the first experience of this kind. He coped with the task relatively successfully: before proceeding with hammering the iron stake with a hammer, he considered it necessary to cut the anus with a knife. Suleiman Habi fought in agony for four hours.

The Chinese method of impalement, as always, was particularly sophisticated: a bamboo tube was hammered into the anus, through which an iron rod heated on fire was inserted inside.

By the way, this is how the English King Edward II was executed in order to pass off his death as natural. A red-hot rod was introduced into his body through a hollow horn. Michelet writes in the History of France: “The corpse was put on public display ... There was not a single wound on the body, but people heard screams, and it was clear from the tortured face of the monarch that the killers subjected him to terrible torture.”

Execution on a stake. Engraving from De Cruse by Justus Lipsius. Private count

In the East, this method of execution was often used for intimidation, impaling prisoners near the walls of a besieged city in order to sow terror in the souls of the townspeople.

Turkish troops were especially famous for such acts of intimidation. For example, this is how they acted at the walls of Bucharest and Vienna.

As a result of an uprising in Morocco around the middle of the 18th century, the Bukharians, the famous "black guard", which consisted of blacks bought in Sudan, several thousand men, women and children were impaled.

In those same years, in Dahomey, girls were sacrificed to the gods, planting their vaginas on pointed masts.

In Europe, impalement was popular during the Wars of Religion, especially in Italy. Jean Legere writes that in 1669, in Piedmont, the notable's daughter, Anne Charbonneau de la Tour, was planted with a "causal place" on a pike, and a squadron of executioners carried her through the city, chanting that it was their flag, which they finally stuck in the ground at the intersection roads.

During the war in Spain, Napoleonic troops impaled Spanish patriots, who paid them the same. Goya captured these terrible scenes in engravings and drawings.

In 1816, after a riot that ended in the killing of more than fifteen thousand people, Sultan Mahmud II liquidated the Janissary corps. Many were beheaded, but most were executed with a stake.

Roland Villeneuve writes that in 1958 the uncle of the Iraqi king, known for his homosexual inclinations, "was impaled so that punishment would overtake him through the place of his sin."

In Russia, sophisticated executions were not shunned. Moreover, the execution of death sentences was approached seriously, thoroughly. To make the last minutes or hours of the life of the criminal seem the most terrible to him, the most sophisticated and painful executions were chosen. Where the custom of cruelly cracking down on those who broke the law came from in our land is unknown. Some historians believe that this is a logical continuation of the bloody rites of paganism. Others favor the influence of the Byzantines. But, one way or another, in Russia there were several especially any types of execution by the rulers.

This execution was also awarded to rebels or traitors. For example, Ivan Zarutsky, one of the main accomplices of the troubles of the time of Marina Mnishek, was put on a stake. For this, he was specially brought from Astrakhan to Moscow.

Rebels and traitors to the Motherland were impaled

The execution took place in the following way. First, the executioner lightly impaled the body of the offender on a stake, and then put the "piece of wood" vertically. Under the weight of its own weight, the victim gradually sank lower and lower. But this happened slowly, so the doomed one had a couple of hours of torment before the stake went out through the chest or neck.

Particularly "distinguished" was impaled on a stake with a crossbar so that the point did not reach the heart. And then the torment of the criminal was significantly extended.

And this "entertainment" came into use by Russian executioners during the reign of Peter the Great. A criminal sentenced to death was tied to a log St. Andrew's cross, which was attached to the scaffold. And special recesses were made in its rays.

The unfortunate man was stretched so that all his limbs took the “right” place on the beams. Accordingly, the folds of the arms and legs also had to fall where needed - into the recesses. It was the executioner who was engaged in "adjusting" it. Wielding an iron stick, of a special, quadrangular shape, he struck, crushing the bones.

Participants of the Pugachev rebellion were wheeled

When the "puzzle" was being put together, the offender was hit hard in the stomach several times in order to break his spine. After that, the heels of the unfortunate were connected to his own back of the head and laid on the wheel. Usually, by this time the victim was still alive. And she was left to die in that position.

The last time the wheel was taken for the most ardent supporters of the Pugachev rebellion.

Ivan the Terrible loved this type of execution. The offender could be boiled in water, oil, or even wine. The unfortunate was put into a cauldron already filled with some kind of liquid. The hands of the suicide bomber were fixed in special rings inside the tank. This was done so that the victim could not escape.

Ivan the Terrible liked to boil criminals in water or oil.

When everything was ready, the cauldron was put on fire. He heated up rather slowly, so the criminal was boiled alive for a long time and very painfully. Usually, such an execution was "prescribed" to a traitor.

This type of execution was most often applied to women who killed their husbands. Usually, they were buried up to the throat (less often up to the chest) in some of the busiest places. For example, on the main square of the city or the local market.

The scene of execution by means of instillation was beautifully described by Alexei Tolstoy in his landmark, albeit unfinished, novel Peter the Great.

They usually buried the murderers

While the murderer was still alive, a special guard was assigned to her - a sentry. He strictly ensured that no one showed compassion to the criminal and did not try to help her by giving food or water. But if passers-by wanted to mock the suicide bomber - please. This was not allowed. If you want to spit in her - spit, if you want to kick - kick. The guard will only support the initiative. Also, anyone could throw a few coins on the coffin and candles.

Usually, after 3-4 days, the criminal died from beatings, or her heart could not stand it.

The most famous person who was "lucky" to experience all the horrors of quartering is the famous Cossack and rebel Stepan Razin. First they cut off his legs, then his arms, and only after all this - his head.

In fact, Emelyan Pugachev should have been executed in the same way. But first they cut off his head, and only then his limbs.

Quartering was resorted to only in exceptional cases. For an uprising, imposture, treason, personal insult to the sovereign, or an attempt on his life.

Stepan Razin - the most famous quartered

True, such "events" in Russia practically did not enjoy spectator success, so to speak. The people, on the contrary, sympathized and empathized with those sentenced to death. In contrast, for example, from the same "civilized" European crowd, for which the deprivation of life of a criminal was just an entertainment "event". Therefore, in Russia, at the time of the execution of the sentence, silence reigned in the square, broken only by sobs. And when the executioner completed his work, people dispersed silently to their homes. In Europe, on the contrary, the crowd whistled and shouted, demanding "bread and circuses."