Execution is the execution of punishment

In pre-Petrine times, criminals in Russia were punished in various ways. Depending on the extent of the offense, in addition to deprivation of liberty, they were pulled out by the nostrils, burned the word "thief" with a hot iron on their foreheads, and cut off the right hand with which the theft was committed. In special cases, the villain betrayed a shameful death on the scaffold, committing an act of justice in the most varied and intricate ways. The emperor-reformer left the method of bringing the verdicts to execution practically unchanged, it was quite in line with the then European standards, but changed the name of the procedure.

Where did this word come from?

The direct meaning of the word "execution" does not mean anything. His translation from Latin corresponds to the Russian analogues "execution" or "performance." However, the context of the application of this legal term gave this concept a gloomy meaning. For the defendant, the execution of the sentence did not bode well. At best, a brutal corporal punishment was to be made, much worse if the executioner mutilated or mutilated, and it would be very bad when the head fell on the scaffold or neck looped.

This term passed to us by inheritance from ancient Roman jurisprudence. The position of the executor did not correspond to the duties of the executioner, but he clearly and unequivocally determined the degree of guilt, delving into the circumstances of the events under investigation, and determined the punishment that must be enforced. This specialist on legal and penal matters supervised all the proceedings, and after his completion stated: "The investigation is over". Then he added softly: "Forget."

Watching the execution, yawn is not worth it

Public execution is still sometimes considered an effective tool against corruption and theft. In some countries, the execution of death sentences is even broadcast on television, to edify plunderers and bribe takers. Perhaps fear is such a spectacle and can catch up, but as a rule, the effect is manifested in an increase in the amount of the bribe, which partly compensates for the moral suffering of unacknowledged corrupt officials. Even in medieval Europe, it was noticed that it was during public executions in the squares that the thieves displayed the greatest activity, cutting off their wallets and groping in their pockets at the gapers, who watched other hands be chopped off.

Execution as a pedagogical method

So, execution is a one-time execution of a decision of an authorized agency. This clarification is important, since the sending to prison or imprisonment was not called that way. In the old days, the severity of punishment did not matter, its inevitability and timeliness was important. Between the adoption of the decision and its implementation in educational institutions, for example, was a minimum period of time. Only once, on the occasion of the coming Easter of Christ, according to the recollections of the former pupil of the Bursa Pomyalovsky, the execution of the rods was postponed (but not abolished). Not idealizing the old and obviously out-of-date pedagogical methods, one can not help but notice that they had an effective impact on the educational process. People with a four-year parochial education coped well with the duties of the people's commissars in the first Soviet decades, the level of knowledge allowed. In England, by the way, school corporal punishment was abolished only in the sixties of the XX century. However, according to Michael Gove, the British Secretary of State for Education, they did it in vain. He suggests entering them again.

Execution is terror against civilians

After the Second World War, new terms were widely used, denoting the types of crimes before humanity: genocide, the Holocaust and, of course, the execution. This word has meant the mass execution of civilians in order to intimidate them. Terror against the inhabitants of the occupied territories was used by the German punitive units, the allied forces of Hitler's Germany and the national units of the SS troops recruited from deserters. Monstrous ethnic cleansing was carried out in Lviv by the Nachtigal Battalion, in Kiev tens of thousands of Soviet citizens were shot and buried in Babi Yar by collaborators, in Odessa, Romanian occupants hanged the central streets of the city with corpses of hostages. Numerous war crimes were exposed during the trial of Nazi criminals in Nuremberg.

Modern Economic Execution

But this word has a different, peaceful, though unpleasant meaning for many citizens. Today in European countries, execution is a forced forfeiture of property for the purpose of damages. The property is rejected from hapless debtors and sold at auction, and proceeds come in favor of creditors. Similar actions are performed in our country, and when a bailiff knocks on the door and has an executive (executio!) Sheet in his hand, the malicious defaulters experience emotions that no one will envy. Of course, they will not take me to the execution, but ...