It was a simple matter to please the block. At other times, disagreement with the powers that be might have been enough, and the executioner was already sharpening the ax. But there were also periods of humanism when no death sentences were passed at all.
Medieval humanists
Compared to the "enlightened" Europe in the Middle Ages, little and not too cruel executions were performed in Russia. According to the Code of Law of Vladimir Monomakh, the death penalty was imposed only for theft or robbery committed for the third time. In Germany, for example, a thief would have lost his head after the first attempt on someone else's property.
Over the years, the number of crimes for which capital punishment was imposed increased. In 1497, Ivan III approved the Code of Law, in which robbery, repeated theft, slander, murder of his master, treason, sacrilege, theft of slaves, arson, rebellion were recognized as worthy of death.
By 1550, the laws were tightened. Now it was possible to “lose the belly” for a single theft. The main thing is that the thief is caught red-handed or confesses to the crime during the investigation. He could be tortured to get a confession. They did it sometimes in such a way that before the recognition came death.
The methods of execution varied depending on the severity of the offense and the personality of the offender. The thieves, as a rule, were simply hanged. For noble villains, the head was cut off. If a crime was committed against the church (for example, theft in the temple, heresy or blasphemy), they could also burn it at the stake. True, such sentences, as a rule, were softened by the secular authorities: the executioner was ordered to first strangle the condemned, and then set fire to the fire.
The most cruel massacres in medieval Russia were the result of princely tyranny or outbursts of popular anger. For example, Novgorodians at the veche could sentence people suspected of treason to drowning in a sack of hedgehogs. The doomed was tied up, placed in a strong canvas bag, where hedgehogs were previously thrown.
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The princes were much more inventive. Andrei Bogolyubsky, for example, often ordered to pour pig's blood on people he did not like, to wrap them in a bearskin and throw them into the corral of hunting dogs. After the invasion of Batu, it became common practice to poison Mongol prisoners with dogs in Russian cities. And from the Mongols, the Russian princes took the tradition of impaling traitors and traitors. But such reprisals have always been outside the written laws.
Formidable king
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, executions became more diverse. Boiling in oil, water, or wine was especially popular. The sentenced person was put into a cauldron filled with liquid. Hands were threaded into special rings mounted in the cauldron. Then the cauldron was put on fire and began to slowly heat up. Such an execution was applied to state traitors.
However, even this type of execution looks humane compared to the execution called “Walking in a circle”. The offender was carefully ripped open in the intestines, but so that he did not die too quickly from blood loss. Then they pulled out the edge of the intestine with forceps, nailed it to a tree and made the person walk (crawl) around the post in a circle.
From that time on, the counterfeiters began to pour molten lead down their throats (before, the hand was chopped off for the first time). For the first time, the use of capital punishment against women was legislated.
The female husbands were executed by burial alive. Most often, a woman was buried in the ground in the square up to her throat, sometimes up to her chest. A sentry was posted next to the still living criminal, who prevented any attempts to show compassion, to give water or bread. However, it was not forbidden to express contempt for the condemned woman: to spit on her head or even kick her. Usually death occurred on the third or fourth day, but history recorded a case when a certain Euphrosyne, buried on August 21, died only on September 22.
Mass executions also came into use. In winter, by order of Grozny, dozens of people could be driven into a hole on the shore of a reservoir and frozen by pouring ice water.
But children in Russia were not executed under any guise. The first case was noted in 1614, when the three-year-old son of Marina Mnishek and False Dmitry II was sentenced to hanging. But this required a special decision of the church.
Required by the crowd
In the 16th century, public executions became common. And they killed robbers, murderers and thieves in a variety of ways. Executions were divided into two categories according to the complexity of execution and entertainment: ordinary and qualified. The first included beheading, hanging and drowning.
The qualified execution meant killing with special cruelty. So they punished impostors, invaders of the royal greatness, instigators of disorders, traitors. This category of criminals had to die in agony, incessantly begging for mercy. Very often, on behalf of the royal name, the executioners showed mercy, cutting off the suffering of the condemned with the "last blow," for example, chopping off the head.
Quartering was considered a qualified execution. The convict was sequentially chopped off with an ax his legs, arms, and then his head. This is how Stepan Razin and the favorite of Emperor Peter II, Ivan Dolgorukov, were executed. Emelyan Pugachev was also supposed to be executed, but his head was first cut off, and his arms and legs were cut off from the dead body.
The most painful execution was wheeling. The sentenced with an iron crowbar was interrupted by the bones of his arms and legs, then they tied him to a large wheel, which was raised on a pole. The offender was dying of pain shock and dehydration. Sometimes death made itself wait two or even three days.
In 1696, Peter I ordered the execution of the captured defector, the Dutch gunner Jansen, in this way. However, the tsar-reformer was not too fond of fanaticism: the guilty peasants in his reign were mostly hanged, and the heads of the nobles and soldiers were cut off. In 1716, for those who committed military crimes, Peter I introduced a new type of execution - execution. Before him, spending expensive ammunition on criminals was considered superfluous.
Gracious monarchs
Peter I significantly expanded the number of crimes for which the death penalty was imposed. There are 123 of them! He also introduced the use of capital punishment for children from the age of 12.
But Anna Ioannovna was very fond of public executions. But not all Russian autocrats were so cruel. During the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the death penalty in Russia was completely abolished, and subsequently it was applied by the names of the tsars.
Empress Catherine II had a negative attitude towards the death penalty, arguing that its use was not useful and unnecessary. During her reign, only four people were executed, the most famous of whom was Emelyan Pugachev.
Paul I abolished death sentences. Under Alexander I, the death penalty was reinstated, but applied to defectors and deserters. Nicholas I began his reign with the execution of five Decembrists, but in the future he did not abuse the capital punishment (it is another matter that, say, a person who was driven through the ranks often died, but such a punishment was not considered a death penalty).
And subsequently, they were executed in Russia much less often than in Europe. Mainly political criminals got to the scaffold. The outbreak of revolutionary violence at the beginning of the 20th century led to increased penalties. During 1905-1910, about three thousand people were executed (for comparison: in 1878-1890, 51 people were executed). Then it caused horror - people did not yet know that the 20th century would be the bloodiest in history.
Victor SERGEEV
